"How sick were you?"

When I tell people that I had an eating disorder and went to treatment, I am usually met with some variation of, "How sick were you?"
They usually follow that up with, "Like, how skinny did you get?"

I don't answer that. I will not answer my lowest weight. I think it feeds in to my eating disorder.

However, I will answer how sick I was....

I threw up everything I ate. I drank water just to throw it up. I was addicted to the feeling of control I got when I stood in front of the toilet. The rush of endorphins was powerful and I was a slave to it.

I counted every calorie that went into my body. I weighed myself multiple times a day. The number on the scale determined myself worth.

I avoided friends and going out when I felt too fat. I stayed in my dorm room, trapped by self loathing.

I kept journals to record my intake, my obsessive thoughts, and calendars.
I loved calendars. Every day I wrote down my weight in one color. Goal weights were written in red. If I didn't meet the goal weight I had written for that day, there was hell to pay.

I couldn't walk into a room without measuring everyone. Who was skinnier than me? Who was the skinniest person in the room? The prettiest?

Just writing about this makes me cringe. My mind was so broken. I was obsessed. But it was much easier for me to obsess about calories and my weight, than it was to think of what was really hurting me. I wasn't ready to face the loss of my childhood due to being molested, or the multiple deaths that haunted me. I didn't want to think about how sad I was.... so I thought about how "fat" I was.

There was just a loop that went around in my brain, like a song stuck in my head, it shouted at me about food and appearance. But it was shouting above a voice that reminded me how hurt I was. I listened to the shouting.
When I got to treatment it took a long time to get the shouting down to a normal speaking voice. Then I had to concentrate on the little voice and heal all of those old wounds. It was exhausting. But now that shouting voice is merely a squeak that pops up once and a while.

So yes, I was very sick.
And now.... I am in recovery.