jakesprincess

art by mymixedtape
(If anybody wants to make a pretty OP for this feel free)

• Has Demi changed your life for the better?
• Can you relate to Demi in any way?
• Want to get to know more people with similar stories?
• Want to share your story with others?

Rules
1. This thread will be FULL of triggers. So, if you can't handle it, don't read this thread.
2. If you post here, your posts will be seen by ANYBODY. If you don't want people to know something, don't post it.
3. Do not try to force or convince anyone to share or expand on their story.
4. Do not offer advice unless you are specifically asked for it.
5. Do not diminish another person's experience ("Oh, that's not that bad," "Well, yeah, but this happened to ____," etc.)
6. Respect others' right to privacy. What happens here, stays here.

Please also keep in mind that we are not medical professionals and, while we're happy to listen to anything and everything you want to talk about, we are not therapists or social workers and are not qualified to diagnose or treat anything.

Thanks!

-Jordyn & Tori

itsmeboo93

I'm sorry Erin

You are all right. The voice inside your head is more powerful than anything else and people don't understand that.

Demilovatic15

i tend to think there are two voices inside your head, the one that's telling you to do the wrong thing whether its drink too much alcohol, eat too much food, or not eat at all etc.

And the other one reminding you of what is right and what is wrong and why you feel guilty if you chose the wrong path.

I know it's not like that for everybody, its just for me.

I was never really bullied when i was a kid, i only had a few instances where i was "bullied". My experiences have never been to the extent of what you guys have gone through but here they are:

1. When i was in middle school i had a crush on some girl, one time at lunch her friends came up to me, told me she doesn't like me, that I'm not good enough for her and some other stuff. At the time I didn't think much of it other than why did they feel the need to say that in the first place?

2. When i was in middle school my friends and I were playing basketball and one of my friends got really mad and threw a basketball at my head, never apologized or anything and than the bell rang and he walked off. One of my other friends went after him, dragged him down to ground from behind by grabbing his back pack and started to yell at him and was ready to get into a physical fight for what he did.

3. Lastly when i was in high school, as a freshmen i was in a class that was filled with seniors. Well one kid felt the need to bully me by calling me names, occasionally would elbow me or poke me in the stomach or something stupid. I got tired of it and one day he started doing it right in front of my best friend. My best friend threatened to beat the sh** out of him if he didn't stop and my friend was a black belt in Karate. Kid backed off after that and i never heard from him again.

My friends always had my back, we joked around with each other and called people names but we all did it and it was never anything anybody took serious. Those three instances were the only time anything got really serious and fights were close to breaking out. I surrounded myself with good friends, kids who did well in school, and participated in school sports like baseball, track, basketball football etc. Pretty much all of my friends have gone onto college and are doing well for themselves. None of my friends ever did drugs that I know of, im sure they underage drank but they never really did anything really stupid.

You guys have been through some terrible stuff

minixoxmya

The fear of gaining weight is so strong and so intense that there really isn't a second voice telling you it's wrong, it consumes everything and its all you can think about. I have a diary where I write everything I've eaten everyday, how many calories in each thing...grocery shopping is almost impossible it's a super stressful experience. No matter what you weigh, all you can see when you look in the mirror is how much more you need to lose

I was never bullied, not really anyway no more than normal, but so much other stuff had happened that has left me with OCD and PTSD and some other issues...in the end it becomes normal because its all you know, it just becomes what you are

Demilovatic15

I cannot imagine the stress that puts on you.

I know that for me, its simple, if i eat less or more calories than my body needs i will gain or lose weight.

But i get where you are coming from.

itsmeboo93

I have it too! And when I do grocery shopping with my friends, I always look how many calories have things that I would eventually buy and I always tell them that I have to check if the product doesn't contain anything that I'm allergic to.

I was never bullied, but I had a crappy childhood. I remember when I was about 15 and I was making pancakes and my father told me that I shouldn't eat them, because I look pregnant and should lose some weight. He would make constant comments about how I'm getting heavier and heavier and that I should pay more attention to what I eat.

It's easy for me to fool people though. Because of my allergies I can pretend that I can't eat a lot of things

minixoxmya

I just dont grocery shop with people...except my two best friends because they know. I can spend hours and hours stood in front of a shelf just looking for something I'll eat....theres really not that much, especially in like pre-made sandwiches, Italian food is almost always a big no, Indian food is the same....I dont remember the last time I ate a pizza, just thinking about that makes me feel sick! I wont eat anything that doesnt have the content labled on it. Calories, sat fat and sugar are essential information.

Holidays are the worst for me, Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving...everything seems to revolve around food. Christmas was especially difficult this year and I spent the whole day grumpy, snappy and stressed out!

Today seemed to be an especially difficult day...tomorrow I know I'll punish myself

Demilovatic15

I don't know how you guys don't eat, like even with work and stuff throughout the day, ill be sitting my room with annoying feeling of needing to eat something when I know that i don't need to eat. In a way that feeling and need to eat(even though i don't need to) is just like the fear/anxiety you guys get to not eat because you feel you will get fat.

I'm on a diet right now, and its a little hard for me to have the self control at times. What it really comes down to and i have to remind myself every day

- If i eat less calories than my body burns every day i will lose weight. The scale will lie to you and your weight will fluctuate daily.

- You're going to have off days, don't stress out over it and just try and limit those days as much as you can.

Ive had times where I would have dieted properly for a week straight and not lost a pound and got mad. Than one day the scale would say i dropped 5 pounds over night or something like that.

It's a struggle to eat and to not eat, for me its just keeping track of what i eat and how many calories I'm taking it. I know that no matter how frustrated i may get, how many calories i put in my body will determine how much i weight.

The same goes for eating disorders, you don't get fat if you don't consume more calories than your body needs. It just helps(at least for me) to tell myself that whenever i get frustrated trying to lose weight.

I try and take it one day at a time, Demi said it herself you're going to have off days, but you keep on fighting just like she has.

I have seen pictures of a lot of you guys and it probably doesn't mean much coming from me, but you girls are not fat.

ErinlovestheOC

I cannot imagine what it's like to be consumed by an eating disorder.

I was bullied pretty bad in middle school. Demi is right about never forgetting what people said.

Demilovatic15

It sucks to hear about the things people did to you guys

minixoxmya

I'm so lucky, Ive never really been bullied, I've never been abused as such, certainly not by my family, but right from being really small some events happened and it just changed everything. In Demi's Katie interview she talks about how she thinks some people are born with eating disorders and its events in their lives that bring out those behaviours, I think thats what happened to me

The worst part isnt the eating/not eating...thats easy to manage really, its all the stuff that comes along with that and its like Demi said, secrets make you sick. and the obsessions that come with the eating disorder coupled with the ocd, its a full time job just keeping on top of that. I'd rather not eat at all than break the rules I have set out because the emotional/psychological consequences of breaking those rules is 100x times worse than being hungry

then you must kiss me

I was never bullied either. for being too big or too small. the "popular" crowd never liked me because I was loud, but they never bullied me for anything. I know it's not bullying how people treat me now. so many people, strangers and family alike, always feel the need to comment on how "thin" I am. the family and friends, I can understand. I diet all the time and I don't "need" to. I get full fast and then they suspect I'm starving myself. but it's the strangers that bother me. the ones that just say in off-handed ways about how a style is so bad, it can even make a person "as thin as" me look big. or when they say that I don't need to worry about such and such because I'm so thin. it bothers me. did I ask for their opinion on anything related to my body? if I said any such thing in reverse to them, about their larger size, would that not be bullying? being thin gets such a double-standard attached to it. just because I'm small people think they can say whatever they want. and I don't feel small so it makes me feel even more self-conscious.

I dieted for the first half of January. I counted calories and I was miserable the whole time, trying to be under 1000, feeling like crap though if I even got near 600 and feeling worse when I went over the "limit" but it worked to a point where right now I can get away with a couple cups of coffee and maybe a sandwich or soup and a small treat (handful or nuts, sliver of cake) can get me through the day and it's THRILLING for me that I don't have to think about it anymore. I just eat til I'm full, and since I can't even finish two slices of toast, I feel great about myself and how little I'm eating. it's funny how 112 seems amazing after being 114, but horrible after being 110. but keeping calorie logs makes me terribly unhappy, so I only do it while I'm shrinking my stomach. afterwards, I let my stomach dictate when I eat, and not even then... more just when I stop. the last time I decided I wanted to binge... I couldn't even finish half a small bowl of cereal.

as for labels, I'm addicted to them. I can spend an hour staring at soup cans. I love that hard ciders are the only alcohol that puts a nutrition label on the side, as it means there's for once in my life, not the decision about what to drink, and how fast I can get drunk on them, especially when I barely need anything to fill me up. I've asked at local cafes if they have a nutrition chart, and when they don't, I've left, as much as I want to support small business.

and I think I'm happy. perhaps. but I'm re-entering the dating market (actually, entering it for the first time ever) and I worry about how guys will perceive me when I can't eat alot. when my eating disorder actually starts to get bad again, how will I hide it? will they leave me too? or will someone actually care enough to want to make me better? that's a stupid amount of pressure to put on some guy I haven't even met yet. I'm just looking for that one thing that will turn this around for me. it doesn't seem to exist.

minixoxmya

it's hard to love someone and be in a relationship when you do t love yourself. I find its really difficult to commit to a relationship when you're consumed by a anxieties, have you thought about seeing a doctor before you get into a relationship?

then you must kiss me

I hate doctors. And when I went last year it seemed so completely pointless. I wasn't diagnosed with anything. They just took my word about whatever and gave me anti depressants. I could have said anything really if I was jonesing for a certain medication. So I took the meds for a couple of months and didn't see the point at all do I just stopped taking them. And continued no difference. So clearly those weren't what I needed but since there's nothing to figure out about me there's nothing they could give me to make it better. Besides everyone brings insecurities to a relationship. If only perfectly happy people got together then no one would have anyone.

minixoxmya

Nobody is perfectly happy...theres no one in the world that can say that. But in my experience, insecurities are one thing but anorexia is a third person in a relationship, thats what Ive found anyway. I know until I have got ontop of my eating that I can't date any guys because its too much not everyone is the same but its just something to keep in mind. Heartbreak can make eating disorders so much worse

Have you thought about alternative therapies maybe? Massage, reflexology? Independant Support groups? I only ask because every one deserves to be happy and to be free of all these issues and I appreciate you havent asked for advice but I just want to support you I'm pretty deep into the problems that I have but alternative therapies have helped me regain composure to help me deal with it all I hope it improves for you soon