Wow. It's been hard to write about my stomach issues. I've had to remember some very difficult things, but it's actually been good for me to talk about it. It's been good to remember the hard things--it makes me so grateful for where I am now!
This post is going to be hard, too. I'm going to talk about someone very dear to me, and it will probably embarrass him, so I'll just refer to him by his first initial and those of you who know who I'm talking about can silently appreciate his friendship and concern. He is a good man and our friendship has survived through some pretty rough times.
T moved out of the state in August 2002, but moved back in April (I think) 2003. During the months he was gone, we chatted and talked on the phone quite a bit, but it was good to have him back in the state. Sometime in the first half of 2003, a local theater (The Grove in Pleasant Grove) started doing karaoke nights every Friday for a $5 cover. I think the first karaoke night was in April or May of that year, and many of my theatre friends participated. We always had a good time--there were contests and theme nights and lots of great music. I think it was in the fall of that year that T noticed I would say I wasn't hungry, which was usually true, whenever anyone offered me food (at friends' houses, restaurants, or popcorn The Grove). Sometimes I didn't feel like eating, sometimes my stomach hurt, sometimes the thought of chewing and swallowing was enough to over-activate my gag reflex. One night during karaoke, T took me outside to talk; I figured it would be about his girl trouble, but it wasn't. He said "if a friendship isn't worth risking because you're worried about your friend, it's not much of a friendship," then he looked me right in the eyes and said he'd noticed I never ate and confronted me with his concern that I might be anorexic. I was shocked. I was angry. I don't really remember what I told him, but it must have been something along the lines of, "how dare you accuse me of that!" T reiterated what he said previously--that he was worried enough about me to risk losing my friendship by expressing his concern--and we parted ways.
I didn't talk to him for two weeks because I was so livid. When we finally did talk again after I'd calmed down, I told him I appreciated his concern, I wanted to still be friends, and I would work on trying to eat more. It wasn't until I was sitting in my abnormal psychology class in 2005, listening to the lecture about eating disorders, that I realized T had good reason to be concerned. I almost started crying in class (that happened a lot in that class--there was some very intense and difficult subject matter) because the realization was so sudden and harsh; the professor was going over the indicators of an eating disorder and I knew I manifested more of them than I wanted to think about. I wasn't anorexic, but I was definitely experiencing a form of disordered eating and it was too close for comfort. I talked to T later that week (maybe that same evening) and apologized for being so angry with him months earlier. I told him he was right to be concerned and thanked him for being willing to risk losing me in order to get me to see what I was doing to myself.
It was after that I remember looking at my thighs and being grateful they weren't skin and bones, being grateful that my body had substance to it. Some other good friends later told me that they had noticed a physical change (they said my face had started to hollow out) but didn't know how to talk to me about it. It was enough to know, even years later, that people who loved me were concerned.
My sweet mother also helped; she used to ask me, when she noticed I was cranky or tired, if I'd eaten. She seemed to understand that sometimes I just wasn't hungry, but she noticed the drop in blood sugar and its effect on me long before I made the connection. Between my family and my friends, I became more aware of my disordered eating and began to recognize the differences between illness and hunger. It wasn't that my stomach felt different--it was other things that clued me in. I sometimes, even now, go through a mental checklist to figure out if it's hunger pain or just pain: Is it morning? When was the last time I ate? Am I cranky? Did I just do something stressful? Has it been a bad day at work?
As I've said earlier, it's not NEARLY as bad as it used to be, but I still have days I just can't tell the difference. I usually err on the side of hunger, figuring that if I'm actually sick instead, at least I'll have something in my stomach to throw up, which is much more comfortable than the dry heaves.
This is why I won't ever go on a diet unless it's for legitimate medical reasons (allergy, disease, etc). I don't want to come NEAR anything that could trigger disordered eating behavior, so don't try to convert me to your cabbage soup cleanses or juice fasts. :)
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