Hiii lmao I'm back again. Once again, I wld like to talk more abt what's actually happened to me and my general experiences with ED shit. Rn though I will just talk abt where I'm at currently.
I'm not rlly ED-d atm, sort of. I've been at a healthy BMI for a good number of months now, due to having been actively trying to gain weight. It has actually been a lot less scary and more positive than I expected. I hope to start strength training at some point so I can build some muscle instead of just fat.
I will say that engaging with queer (mostly NSFW) art and positive, normal depictions of fat or even just non-skinny bodies has been super helpful (especially for drastically lessening the brainworms around other people being fat & conventional beauty standards !). Also being around queer people who find body fat attractive and/or desirable and/or fine & normal has been good particularly for my feelings about my body.
I like my belly. I think it looks better than it did when I was at my lowest weight. The skin folds more nicely when I sit down, and its shape makes my new body hair look great. Not too keen on getting bellybutton fluff for the first time in my life, but it's alright. It's kinda enjoyable to remove. I think the stretch marks around my armpits and inner thighs are alright, they add visual interest and I'm sure that there are plenty of faggots that would go crazy over them. My forearms actually have some meat on them. I'm stronger, more muscular, I have better emotional regulation and relatively normal energy levels. I have stamina. I have room in my brain to think about lots and lots of interesting, exciting, and cool things. I can enjoy eating food without feeling guilty and stressed and miserable. I can go an entire day without thinking about anything eating disordered, easily. My face looks better. The little fat pouch under my jaw is kinda nice. I used to stick my tongue to the roof of my mouth all the time because I thought it looked so bad, before I started starving. I barely get binge cravings. Barely! I haven't properly binged in months! Years, maybe! I've been getting way less acid reflux, though I think I have made myself permanently more prone to it. Food makes me feel good. Eating makes me feel good. Not in that binge-drunk way, but in just a genuinely satisfied, healthy way. It is possible.
That being said, I have absolutely not shaken the ED completely, of course. If I skip a meal, undereat for a day, whatever, it doesn't feel like anything "that bad" (esp now that I'm at a healthy weight). I ought to take better care of myself, but I know I won't mind being a bit unhealthy in that way. "At least this way I won't gain too much weight." I think, "It's only one day.". Undereating does make it more difficult to sleep, though, and it makes me unable to focus (even when I can't feel the hunger cues), and I'll feel a bit lousy, and it can give me acid reflux that doesn't go away until I eat. I'm upset that I never got to my UGW. That's what I planned, to get there, enjoy it for a while, then finally actually try to recover and gain weight. I got into that awful, messy, sticky, hazy binge-restrict cycle though. It feels like depression and poor impulse control and blundering around in an agonising fog. I know I'd feel like shit at my UGW. I know I'd feel like shit, be unhealthy, maybe be in actual danger idk, and I'd probably not even feel like I was thin enough. I'd probably not even be satisfied. Or maybe I'd get scared, realise I'd underestimated how thin I'd be, how unhealthy I'd be. I don't know. I know it would feel good on some level though. I know I'd enjoy it in a perverse sort of way. I know I'd feel satisfied for having reached that, even once I gained all the way back up. I'd know how I looked at that weight. I haven't been yearning for it as badly as I expected. I can live with never reaching that weight. The thoughts have been creeping in more in recent times, though. Whispers of temptation. For a number of reasons. I shouldn't give into them, and it'll give me hardly any satisfaction to just starve a little bit, I'd want to go all the way into it. It might feel good, still. I worry that if I lived alone I'd get back into it soon, if not now. We'll see what happens. I don't want to lose what I have, the good feelings, the positive self-image, the non-warped perception (that I thought totally wasn't warped), the strength, the care.
Bit of a weird place to leave it, but that's basically where I'm at. I don't think I'm going to get back into this, as much as I'd love to. I hope this has been helpful or at least interesting to anyone reading it. Thx.
