Eating disorder: «At some point I became fascinated by being thin»
Even as a child, I always had the feeling that I wasn't seen. That I only received affection and love from my parents based on my performance. If I did something well, like a good grade, I got attention and love or something special. But that was never enough for me. I thought that if I wasn't even more perfect in everything, they wouldn't notice me at all. I had a huge panic about that.
It was like a compulsion to always be the best: at school, at ballet or as a daughter in general. But that was total rubbish because it never really worked. I never got the affection I needed, only minimal affection.
Even as a child, I had unusually muscular legs from ballet and was often asked about them. But for me they weren't muscles, they were just «fat». I never felt beautiful or comfortable. My mother didn't have the healthiest eating habits either and at some point I developed a complete fascination with being thin. I paid more and more attention to eating as little as possible and exercising a lot.
Eating disorder diagnosis
These thoughts kept creeping into my head: «You always have to have everything under control! Always look good! Always be perfect! Tomorrow you have to weigh even less!» But I had the feeling that I had never done enough. That's why I could never treat myself to anything - after all, I hadn't «earned» it.
As soon as I reached one goal, I set myself the next one. I didn't feel happy for two seconds when I stood on the scales and they showed less. There was no room to take a deep breath. I don't even know what my goal was during this time. Maybe just to feel good at some point? Which wasn't even possible because I wasn't happy even at my lowest weight, even though I only weighed 32 kilos at times and the situation was so life-threatening that I had to be hospitalised.
These thoughts kept creeping into my head: You have to look good. You always have to be perfect.
The most important thing I learnt in psychotherapy was self-love. How can I be good to myself? I now try to treat myself the way I wish I had been treated as a child. That means listening carefully to my feelings, taking them seriously and not denying them. I expect the same from others today. I recognise that you don't always have to be able to understand feelings. They are justified because they are real, because they are mine.
I also have to practise setting boundaries again and again: If something is too much for me or bothers me, I try to address it. That's something I've been learning for years and I'm nowhere near the end of it.
