Personal Trauma

ED (if you know you know)

Trigger warning : eating disorder

My family wasn't the most supportive if you ask me. 

Because of them, both of my siblings including me developed eating disorder, each one have our own eating disorder. 

My sister was or is anorexic. She used to be criticised about her weight, she was even compared to a whale by her classmate. If you ask me, she wasn't fat, she wasn't obese, she was just healthy even the doctor said she was healthy and it was a normal weight for her age. But people are mean without realising that they shouldn't joke about it, and they insulted her. My sister started to stop eating, or she started making her puke after eating. She lost a lot of weight. My mother after complimenting her, starting to be anxious when she find out that she was making her puke. So my mother took her to a doctor, which didn't change anything except the type of her eating disorder. Nowadays what's happen to her is some bulimic tendencies, she tends to eat lot of thing and after she makes her vomit, or she restrict herself the next day. 

My brother was really skinny when he was young. And my mother always wanted him to gain weight, and she starts to call him weak, a scrawny, a twig. My brother starting to be complexed about his weigh, and appearance. He didn't have to, he was cute and young. Now my brother is an addict to the gym, and the protein and obviously now he is forcing himself to eat even when he isn't hungry. This came with the fact that our father sometimes forced my brother to eat his food. It was so hard to watch him do this, and it was breaking my heart to see my father do something like that, and my mother just watched without doing anything. Meanwhile my brother was crying, I wanted to help, but I couldn't because my father threatened me, I don't remember what it was, but I knew that I couldn't do anything. At that time I used to think that once I was at a certain age, I will take my independence and take my brother away from our parents. Now it seems so far, because I went away letting my brother alone. Until recently, I was thinking that he was doing great but recently my best friend told me some aspect of the situation that I didn't think of. 

It's the fact that I was always a sort of protection for my brother in front of the wrath of my parents, now he is alone. And I know that once my parents are angry the words they said, are harsh, and even if they didn't always mean it, it still fixed in your head. 

But I told you this, to make me forget that I still have to talk about my eating disorder. 

I think it's kind of similar to my sister, in the fact that I didn't have friends because people find ùe fat, ugly and I was the intello. If at school there was some insult and they call me a cow, my family wasn't technically supportive either. My grandmother watched everything I ate during the family dinner and she commented when I asked for more. She would told me to eat less, or to let other eating, she wouldn't let me have dessert. My mom would also told me that I was overweight so she would restrict my regime. She would want me to loose the weigh I gain. At that time the only thing I wanting was to stop eating. But I couldn't, so instead I did a lot of sports, more than a 12 year old girl would do. I was already swimming in a club, but I added to that wrestling (lot was one of the sport where the weigh isn't a problem), rugby, basketball, volleyball. I remember at that time, I was feeling alive because I didn't have the time to think. But with all these activity I didn't lose the weigh I wanted so I started to skip meal and specially the lunch at school. It was easier because I didn't have friends to force me to eat. And during my lunch break I was always in the library of the school I even became friends with the librarian. 

When I arrived in high school I started to skip my breakfast too, because I was the first one to wake up, and I have the role to wake up my family, so, I could easily pretend that I already ate, but putting some plates in the dish water. After all they didn't even care because as the middle child there is a whole theory about being the forgotten one. I can assure you that it's true. But just in case, I pretended that I eat. And nobody saw nothing because it didn't impact me much, whereas my sister when she didn't eat, she fainted a lot at her school. 

So I lost the weight I wanted to. But it wasn't enough for my mother, she wanted me to be complex about my legs which were to big, or even my belly. 

Now I don't even care what she thinks about my body, because I understood that she will never change, and I rather be the way I want to be skinny but with other eating disorder. 

Yeah because I still can't eat normally and the only one aware is my brother. He was the only one to see that when I was serving myself food, my plate didn't have the normal quantity and he try to signal my parents. But for anything related to me, they didn't pay attention so they still didn't know. 

Now my eating disorder, for my point of view is not that serious, but when I told my brother he was shocked. I told him that I couldn't have 3 meals per day. And the maximum I would ate, is the lunch but sometimes I told him that it happen that I ate 1 meal every 2 days. He tried to tell my parents that I didn't eat properly but when I denied it they believed me. I don't know if I was reassured or if it pained me that they didn't try to find if it was true. 

But I think my mom maybe realised something when one day she just asked me to show her my fridge and it was empty. She forced to go shopping, and asked for a photo. 

After that she didn't even mention. So I don't know. I think it might be more serious as I tried to eat twice per day, but I want to vomit if I eat a second time. 

So I stayed at eating only one meal per day. Due to all of this, I don't look at me in the mirror anymore because I hate my reflection, I know I shouldn't care about my appearance and what my mom wants me to change. But it's hard when it comes from your own mother. 

After sharing this, I want you to be careful of what you say to people. Words can hurt deeper than actions. And do not critics people based on their appearance, it's a bad habit and it can compared to fat phobia. And what's hard it's that you don't know the impact of your word, if my own family don't know my eating disorder, you won't know if someone has eating disorder or no, so be careful when you speak. 

It's common to say that you all don't know the thinking or the story behind every person so be careful. 

Just keep that in mind. 

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If you want to know more about this story just keep tuned.