My Eating Disorder Story

I have a secret I used to write about a boy named Peter Moon please strive to eliminate his bad habits it started with no Netflix and continually escalated from there he had to cleanse his life rid himself of any distractions so he could fill the void with worthwhile things the next game no video games and no staying up past 10 and no junk food and pretty soon it was all spiraling out of his control in his effort to fill the void he had only deepened it it grew with a force so strong it sucked the rest of his life away and before he knew it this void had devoured everything he loved soon I found myself fighting the void [Music] Peter wrote [Music] my name is Mel and today I am opening up about something that is very personal to me which is my eating disorder story this is not something I normally talk about openly the reason why I decided to film this video and talk about this publicly is because I've reached a point where I can say that I've officially recovered I'm so happy that um I am not in that place anymore but there is also a part of me that knows that I was not alone and there are new people who are developing Eating Disorders all the time I feel a responsibility to share my story online in the hope that even one person watching this will feel inspired to get better I am not going to be discussing in detail my unhealthy eating habits I'm also not going to be sharing any photos because I don't think that's going to be beneficial for anyone who does have unhealthy eating habits I want to start off with an explanation of what a typical anorexia is you're most likely familiar with the term anorexia nervosa some symptoms include an intense fear of gaining weight a desire to lose weight trouble concentrating low self-esteem fatigue anxiety or depression and Suicidal Thoughts I experienced all of those things and the reason why I was diagnosed with atypical anorexia and not anorexia nervosa is because I was not underweight there is this scarily underweight image that is associated with the word anorexia and if you don't look like that it's really easy to convince yourself that you don't have a problem and this is a very serious issue because like anorexia nervosa atypical anorexia can lead to serious health issues hospitalization and even death despite not looking as dangerous between 25 to 40 percent of patients entering inpatient eating disorder treatment centers are diagnosed with atypical anorexia patients with atypical anorexia can be just as medically ill as patients with anorexia nervosa and they can have even greater eating disorder Psychopathology just because you look healthy doesn't mean you actually are healthy and that goes both physically and mentally the development of an eating disorder just depends on a lot of biological social cultural factors some personality traits as well can make you more susceptible to an eating disorder for example if you are extremely ambitious and competitive and perfectionistic and I definitely match those qualities growing up looking back on my childhood I can sort of pinpoint things here and there that may have contributed to my eating disorder but there is no one thing or one big event that just made me have an eating disorder I remember thinking like oh I absolutely love food like that could never be me I just don't understand it and yet I still ended up developing an eating disorder so it's definitely not something you're born with and it's also not something that happens overnight another thing that I wanted to address is this question of why did you care so much about how other people saw you I really feel strongly about breaking this misconception that Eating Disorders are all about body image there is a lot of talk about social media and movies and celebrities and this unhealthy display of how bodies should look in the media and that's definitely true there's some truth to it once the eating disorder kind of had its grasp on me social media did make it worse there are a lot of horrible pieces of content on the internet that feed into Eating Disorders there are some very toxic communities but to say that it's all on the media is a huge misconception I think social media played little to no role in the development of my eating disorder what was the strongest really was this element of control I wanted to be more of an outgoing person and so I was really putting in the effort to get to know people and you know to to be more social and friendly and it wasn't working there were times when I performed really poorly on a test I studied a lot for and I would see other other kids Ace those tests I've had a lot of personal projects alongside school and I remember feeling like the effort I put into those projects also wasn't paying off like my books were going nowhere my blog wasn't growing when I first started restricting my food it was not with the desire of any kind of outcome I didn't do it to lose weight I didn't even really understand why I was doing it seeing that have a result on my physical state and my mental state was really satisfying the one thing that I put intention into actually reaped results the eating disorder gave me a sense of control that I felt was lacking in other areas of my life it was something that I was able to hide very well I still was a great student in school I had a social life I hung out with friends and I kept writing books and pursuing all of my hobbies despite that fact it still was a very big part of my life I was just in general very weak and very moody anything related to food would make me upset I just hated you know any mention of food I also experienced a few panic attacks that would just come randomly as well there were a lot of like um mental health issues that I experienced because of what I was doing and the unhealthy mindset that I had now you may be wondering how I could have restricted my food intake for five years and not be underweight I was completely scared of the idea that I had an eating disorder it freaked me out so whenever my my weight would get to like the verge of unhealthy I would start eating normally again out of fear and then I would feel guilty for gaining the weight back and I would restrict again I was constantly gaining and losing the same 20 pounds over and over and over again and it was exhausting and it was horrible but all right let's talk about Peter Moon let's talk about Peter Peter moon is a character director from a book I wrote called capsule I wrote this book while I was in high school his struggles were more in sync with my own struggles compared to any other characters in the story I was actually working on the book capsule during the absolute peak of my eating disorder I was no longer in control of my habits my habits were in complete control of me and it was at that period of time when I started to really wonder if I did have a problem of the few people that I opened up to it wasn't really taken very well a lot of the times the response was like oh you look great like you shouldn't worry about it or like oh you know we're all insecure we all skip a meal here and there you know it's not a big deal people really didn't understand that this was much more than a physical thing this was much more than an insecurity because I felt like I couldn't really talk to anyone or I didn't feel comfortable talking to anyone writing really became my emotional Outlet I was also really inspired to break the stereotype that Eating Disorders are only for insecure teenage girls there was actually one specific event that led me to feel so strongly about um having you know a male perspective on eating disorders and that was based on a stranger I met I was hanging out with friends one day and some of their friends brought their friends I ended up kind of off to the side talking to a stranger and we ended up having a very deep conversation he was a year younger than me also a very ambitious student who was very social he didn't seem like the type of person who was struggling mentally his story had nothing to do with wanting to look hot literally those are his words and hearing what he believed was the main contributor to his eating disorder really inspired me I wanted Peter's character to have nothing to do with how he looked and everything to do with his desire to be perfect and his desire to do something right Peter moon was really two things for me he was a way for me to spread awareness about a topic that was very very important to me without having to open up in a public way Peter moon was also a source of therapy for me him taking the first steps toward recovery was sort of a way of me giving myself hope that this is something that I can overcome and I don't have to be stuck here and maybe I can learn to not care and to not follow the rules that I've set for myself I was able to experience a taste of healing before I was ready to heal myself publishing capsule was a huge step in my recovery Journey people haven't really talked about it publicly in reviews and stuff but I have received some very heartfelt emails and DMS from people who have really been able to relate to Peter's character that you know means so much to me like that was really My Hope after much debate and confusion I had this realization of I can't live like this forever I got in contact with the hospital and talked to someone about what I was going through and I really had pessimistic thoughts going into this because I genuinely didn't think anyone would take me seriously due to the fact that I was in normal weight but they did take it very seriously and when I was diagnosed with atypical anorexia I was unexpectedly emotional like it hit me really hard I think because I had been denying it for so long from that point I was in touch with both a psychotherapist and a nutritionist whom I worked with for about a year I am now at a point where the psychological aspects of my eating disorder no longer have their hold on me and if I want to eat healthily and exercise I feel like I can do that without it affecting my mental state whereas before any habits somewhat related to my habits during the time of my eating disorder would have brought me back down a bad path my message to anyone who is struggling with unhealthy eating habits cut it off before it becomes too serious and if you have been trying to cut it off and it's hard that's a sign that it is too serious and I really advise you to seek help if you are wondering thing whether or not you have a problem if that's been a huge stress to you what I would say to you is that healthy people don't stress over whether they're sick enough if you are not struggling with an eating disorder then I really hope this video has been informational keep an eye on your friends and family and if someone that you care about opens up to you about their unhealthy relationship with food it probably took a lot of Courage for them to do that so please hear them out because you never know how serious it could be before we end off I would like to share that 100 of all profit for Book Sales of capsule between today November 22nd and December 22nd will be donated to Nami a non-profit organization with a mission to spread awareness about mental health so if you'd like to read about Peter Moon and support a good cause I'll have a link in the description below thank you so much for sticking around until the end of this video please give it a thumbs up so the algorithm will promote it to people who would maybe benefit from seeing it and I will see you in the next video [Music]