am i disordered?

i wouldn't consider myself to have an eating disorder, but upon reflection i am not so sure. i think in the past that i have always been a bit conscious of "good" and "bad" food, always trying to eat relatively healthy, but allowing myself to give in to cravings every now and then - sometimes a bit too much!

i have always been fairly skinny (i have never weighed over 9 stone) so maybe that is why i don't think i have a disorder. i cant have anorexia because i don't have a reason to! i don't feel that my life is out of control and that the food is the only thing i can control etc, like they tend to say about a lot of anorexia sufferers. yet, recently i am beginning to think that i don't have a normal relationship with food.

i remember the first time that i thought that i needed to lose weight. i was 15 or 16, it was just after easter so i had been a bit of a piggy then, and mum had bought a box of mini brownie bites. they were scrummy and i polished them off quickly, so she kept on buying more to keep them topped up. after a couple of weeks of this i bent down in front of a mirror with just some jeans on and saw my belly bulge over the top. this horrified me, and upon weighing myself i saw i was at the top end of 8 stone.
i  had always been skinny and i wasn't going to let that change, so i went on a mini diet (mainly just cutting out the brownie bites!) and soon got back to about 8 and a half stone.

the lightest i have ever been was when i was 15 and i dropped to about 7 and a half stone (approx) and that was during a period of depression where i felt sick all the time and had absolutely no appetite, so i didn't even mean to lose the weight.

i think since then i have gone through phases. for a few months i would eat whatever, then i would fill my lunchbox with rice crackers and vegetables, then eat whatever etc etc. especially when my friends always commented on how incredibly skinny my best friend was, when i was sure i was skinnier than her! so i tried to make sure that i was. i dunno why! jealousy i suppose

but these phases seem to be getting more frequent and more intense over the last year. it started with joining gym, then a calorie and weight tracking website when i noticed my weight creeping towards the 9 stone barrier again. so i just started eating healthier, maybe snacking less, just having a chocolate bar once a week etc.

then i began making lists (mental and physical) of what i could and couldn't eat. there was "yes", "no" and "maybe". this used to pass the time while i was working on the checkouts and judging every food as it went past, trying quickly to look at the nutritional content labels without anyone noticing.

when  no one was around and i had a massive craving, i would stuff my face with it - but not swallow - spitting it out and flushing it away.

sometimes i would swallow the food, and i would try and purge it back up. despite many attempts i have never been able to do this, even after looking at pro mia websites for tips. so without being able to purge, i would look at ana tips instead. with each phase of more "normal" eating then my "diets" it would be stronger reinforced that eating loads makes me feel sick, which meant i would get fat. and i couldn't make myself sick, so the solution was simple - don't eat it in the first place!

i think the latest phase is probably the worst, and probably began just before easter. i noticed that i was starting to get a bit of cellulite when i clenched my bum together, which i was not happy about- i nearly cried! so i went on a mini health kick. my flat mate and i are oddly similar - we both seem to be very concerned about weight and health, but also obsessed with baking! and we were never any good at resisting a baking urge! (even if we did do it the "healthy" way - it doesn't count if you still binge on them! she always said "because we used low fat butter etc, we can have more!). So I decided to get healthy again and to lose some of that fat that was developing into cellulite (eww). But before that came a couple of weekends visiting friends at different unis, which were weekends full of eating and snacking! and then a weekend to Amsterdam (you can never resist the munchies ;) )

when we got back from our heavy Amsterdam weekend, we decided to go on a juice diet for a week, which was really good and taught me how little i actually needed. pancake day then loomed (of course we stuffed ourselves silly all day eating nothing but pancakes!) and we made a pact to give up something for lent (not for religious reasons, just because)

i gave up chocolate, which at first was hard because i had been having so much of it around that time, but then it got okay (i don't crave it at all now!) and i started to add other things to my list (pastry, crisps, chips etc). i restricted more and more, but felt good about myself after all the rubbish i had been eating.

so during lent was easy - i had an "excuse" to not eat chocolate and eat the fruit dessert instead, and no one thought it was odd. but then that ended and i got a pile of chocolate on easter day. it was a lot. well, it was also a lot less than i usually got - i got some easter themed presents instead, but after going so long without chocolate it felt like loads. i managed to pawn some off on my brother, boyfriend and friends, but i still had quite a bit left over, so i had some. then it turned into a binge. i loved the first few bites but then i kept going, despite feeling sick. and afterwards i felt so guilty. it was horrible.

so i majorly restricted my diet after then, and i am still doing it now. but i think its getting more than that. i am beginning to obsess - weighing food, often to about half the recommended portion size, leaving food, secretly throwing some away. and some times when my mum was cooking/serving food, i felt really anxious. sometimes scared (especially at talks of ordering takeaways).

maybe I've been in denial about my eating habits. i dunno if they fall into any category or label. but at the moment i like the feeling that i get from being in control of myself. i like that i don't have to resist cravings, because i don't have any anymore (nowhere near as bad as before anyways).

sorry for the essay, just felt that i needed to say that. would love to hear what you think (if you can get through it!)