Angry....

I'm furious....
First of all because of something I just read...a young girl was looking for support with EDNOS and some idiot told her that she doesn't have an eating disorder because EDNOS is the, "eating disorder for those who want to have an eating disorder."
I NEVER wanted this. I NEVER wanted to NEVER be happy with myself....to hate myself for not being strong enough to stop eating....for not being strong enough to NOT purge....I look in the mirror and all I want to be is happy...but I know I'll never be that in the body I'm in...and so the EDNOS cycle starts...
I started having ED behaviors when I was 8. My mother was always small and thin, a dancer, who now considers herself obese at 5'7" and 113 pounds. My father is the opposite, 6'0". He used to be really thin when he was in the military, but he gained a lot when he quit. I would guess he now weighs 250+ pounds. Around the time when my father really started to gain, my mother started telling me that I was "big". I have my dad's larger bone structure and was never petite like her. In EVERY SINGLE CLASS PHOTO of mine from 1st to 8th grade I'm the tallest and the biggest.
I would overhear my mom talk to other mothers about the size clothes their daughters wear and their weights....she always described me as "big". It hurt. It hurt a lot. I still find the word big more insulting than fat. Because every time she said that word, she said it with pure disgust...we would go shopping and she would always look at the smaller sized clothes longingly...and I NEVER fit...
In about 3rd grade I began what to me seemed a logical...the less you ate, the smaller you would get....I didn't want to be big any more...I wanted my mother to finally accept me and not criticize everything because it wan't perfect. I would get 98% on a test and she would ask where the last 2% were. I would win a soccer game and she would ask if I had scored the most goals...nothing was good enough...So I stopped eating lunch at school....I would just throw it out...at every other meal, when she gave me a MUCH smaller portion than my sister or herself, it hurt but at the same time I thought it was good because I would become perfect faster...
This continued for about 3 weeks before I became ravenous and binged....everything I could while my mother was out...I couldn't bear to have her or anyone else see me eat. It felt and still feels...dirty. I continued on my binge-restrict cycle for the next 4 years...but the weight never went down...it kept going up...I was ALWAYS angry ALL THE TIME...especially at my mother...
In 7th grade I began to experiment with purging...I discovered I hated vomiting, but laxatives felt like an appropriate punishment....It was only natural that it would be revolting and uncomfortable to get all the crap that I put into myself out...
Unfortunately, in the binge-purge-restrict cycle, I began to get careless....my mother noticed empty wrappers and food containers that I used to hide so well...
She confronted me and I lied....I told her that I never purged, EVER....she then started marking all the food and counting exactly how many calories I ate a day...she found out that I was using the laxatives in the cabinent and and counted those too....she told me that if I snuck food again, or she caught me purging, she would send me for treatment...
I didn't want to go to treatment because that would mean there was something wrong with me, that I wasn't perfect. I wanted to be thin, small and perfect but I didn't want to be so imperfect that i needed help. So for about 3 years, I listened, I ate and didn't purge and got fatter and more disgusting all the time. The arguments with my mother got worse and worse...
I then couldn't handle it anymore....I was 168 pounds at my highest....
I could feel her condescending looks and I broke...I started again...and it hurts keeping so much inside, but I have to do it because if I don't, people will try and "help" me. I don't want their help. I want to be perfect enough. And no I don't know when that will be. I don't know if that will ever be.
All I do know is this:
1. I get a little high everytime some one tells me I've lost weight. Especially when it's my mother....I love that now every time I go home she comments that I've gotten thinner...I need to hear that I'm getting thinner....but more importantly that I'm not "big" anymore....It makes me feel like I can do something right...I may not be thin YET, but at least I'm thinNER.
2. I hate lying to everyone, but not enough to stop.
3. I hate myself for eating. I hate myself for not eating.
4. I feel like crying everytime my friends tell me I'd be a great mom, because I do want to be a mom. I'm just terrified that my children will be just as screwed up as me. Or even worse, that I'll become like my mother and screw them up myself. I never want to make anyone feel the way she made and still makes me feel: perpetually inadequate.
5. I don't feel worthy of any sort of positive attention, and what people think is false modesty in order to get compliments really isn't. It's the truth. I don't think I'm especially smart (How many smart people would WANT to do this to themselves?). I don't think I'm that strong (If I was strong, I wouldn't NEED this). I don't think I'm funny (What my friends don't realize is what they mistake as humor is either a) my anger at the world being mistaken as sarcasm, or b) me being so hungry/out of it that I have no more control over what I say). I don't find myself especially nice or sweet (I'm selfish: I try and care for other people because I don't want anyone else to become as fucked up as I am, because that way I potentially have SOMETHING good to say about myself: that I prevented more people from turning out like this).

So to anyone out there who may stumble across this: EDNOS is NOT an eating disorder for those who WANT one....it's something very real, that I never wanted, but I don't want to get rid of, because I don't know who I AM without it. That terrifies me. I wouldn't wish this on ANYONE else in a million years. True I don't have a "cookie cutter" ED like bulimia (I don't purge enough), or anorexia (my BMI has never been low enough), but I can see that this is NOT healthy...but that's not the point. I don't want health. I want perfection. This is not something I'm saying about myself because I want attention...these are classifications that have been given to me by OTHERS...I just wish people would stop belittling EDs that aren't anorexia or bulimia because they don't know them...some may say I have disordered eating, but NOT an eating disorder....others may say I'm just depressed. I am depressed, but this is more than that. All these people could say that, but they don't KNOW me....ask someone who has known me my entire life...they KNOW that I don't have a healthy relationship to food...they've told me themselves that I need to eat, or that they're concerned. So the next time you think that EDNOS doesn't exist, ask THEM. I'm sure they'd tell you something VERY different.