'would i say I've always had an eating disorder?' is a question that doesn't necessarily have a simple yes or no response to it when i think about my journey from the very beginning. So let's take it back to my childhood...
Apparently i had a really bad asthma attack when i was four years old. I say 'apparently' as i cannot recall the actual event myself but i do remember my time spent in hospital afterwards. In general, i remember feeling sick a lot growing up and all the severe vomiting episodes i had due to my Gastro Oesophageal Reflux Disease (GORD). I don't remember it but my Mum always says (as per a specialist's recommendation at the time) that she tried me on different "diets" to see if anything would help my stomach - i guess it never did. Overall, i just remember feeling scared all the time i guess but i probably wouldn't have known how to describe or explain the feeling i always felt back then.
On eating itself: It's not that I didn't like eating, sometimes i even really enjoyed the experience but i would get really sick most times (if not always) during/after doing so. This persistent experience and the feeling of just overall feeling scared in general in life would definitely make it hard, if not impossible for me to eat at times.
I never understood how i could go from loving the idea of eating something one minute to being overcome with fear and not being able to do so the next. Although at these times I'm not even sure that i could identify that this is what was happening to me. All i knew is that i suddenly felt awful and couldn't/didn't want to eat in that moment anymore. Family didn't understand this either and their negative reactions to how I'd behave would only worsen how i felt in that moment. Sometimes this would lead me to cry while being out in a restaurant and so forth. The examples i could give are endless!
In school: i overall remember struggling to eat my own packed lunches (packed by my Mum) but somehow was fine to eat canteen lunches? If i wasn't getting a canteen lunch, i would go ALL DAY without eating, which would only worsen my acid reflux too. Again, this was based around some kind of felt fear, not any kind of body image struggle or etc.
This kind of 'pattern' is something that would continue into my high school years, where i had also been diagnosed with various anxiety disorders. The most prevalent being Generalised Anxiety Disorder (GAD), Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD), Panic Disorder and Health Anxiety.
I still didn't even know what was going on with me after receiving these diagnoses. I just knew i felt like i was having an asthma attack & was going to die, like all the time.
It's safe to say that i was finding life super tough at this point but the next part of my developing journey is what would really accelerate or consistently worsen my struggles surrounding food (and is what still applies to my experiences current day).
Around the age of 17 or 18 (roughly) i developed a terrible throat infection that affected my ability to swallow food. Very quickly i started to develop intense fears of food after food due to them feeling stuck in my throat when i would swallow them. Even after 2 courses of antibiotics this issue was still very much present. For reference, I'm now 27. I feel like I've been robbed of life and living overall since this first started. It's clearly been a long time since this issue first surfaced too.
Insert -> depression diagnosis and many, many medical investigations time and time again never gave me any answers as to why i couldn't (and i had stopped) swallowing/consuming solid foods....
You see, i did hear the term 'disordered eating,' thrown around by a doctor i was seeing for a period of time in my teenage years but at that time and since then, I've never actually been diagnosed with an eating disorder. As i stopped eating due to this swallowing issue, i never even considered that i could have developed an eating disorder, even with my past behavioural patterns and accelerated, (then) new issues surrounding food that surfaced and have persisted ever since for me.
The latest term that has been thrown around in the mix is that i have a 'swallowing phobia.' The trouble is, is that this term still doesn't feel like a diagnosis to me, as it still hasn't opened up any solid treatment options for me. I feel like I'm a floater or someone who keeps falling through the cracks because i don't seem to 'fit' anywhere?
Recently I've done a lot of research myself online (as I'm doing really badly again) and the only eating disorder i feel like i can identify or resonate with is Avoidant Restrictive Food Intake Disorder (ARFID).
While i haven't come across anyone with my swallowing issue specifically, the similarity is that in people with ARFID (the stories I've heard so far anyway) seem to all have some kind of medical and psychological trauma that led them to developing issues with food in some kind of way. Also very much like myself, any present day challenges will also worsen their struggles further (almost like a relapse) but rather we haven't even hit any kind of consistent 'recovery.' It's like we just keep getting triggered too often, i hope this makes sense!
(Disclaimer: this is just my interpretation of what ARFID could look like. There is no set rule book for how ARFID can be experienced. For educational purposes look up the term or ask a doctor if you think ARFID may be affecting you or someone you know).
Final thoughts: clearly my journey continues and while I'm currently at my absolute worst, it's oddly enough seemingly led me (hopefully) that bit closer to finally getting a diagnosis (I'll keep you updated!).
Keep in mind, this post doesn't include every single medical or psychological event that I've been through or even still may experience. My aim here was to put across how an eating disorder can in-fact be developed through both medical and psychological trauma, rather than it having anything to do with body image, etc. I've never struggled with my own body image.
I would have to presume that you've learned something about me in this post today! I truly hope this finds someone who needs to know they are too infact not alone.
If you have any further questions drop me a comment and let me know what else you'd like me to write about on this blog.
with love,
~ Karly.
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