about me.. well. i'm a queer teenage kid who is struggling with mental illness (depression, general anxiety, eating disorder), among other things. i want to have people to talk about this stuff with, which is why i was excited to apply for this writing position when i saw the requirements and thought maybe i'd be good at this. if i make a mistake, please tell me and i'll try to fix it.
TW: suicidal thoughts, abuse
All of this could’ve been prevented. All I needed was my mother to support me, build up my self esteem, get me help for my eating disorder, be someone I could talk to. Instead she tore down what little self esteem I had bit by bit, contributed to my eating disorder, and was generally untrustworthy, unpredictable, and indecipherable.
Recently I started an Intensive Outpatient Program for people with eating disorders. In group therapy one of the care providers said that humans want 3 sorts of things, power and control, attention and acceptance, and security and certainty. Something along those lines, anyway. And she told us our eating disorder tries to provide one or more of these things, and thats why people feel they need their eating disorder. It fulfills a purpose for us.
I can’t imagine living past my 20′s. I don’t know why. Maybe its the eating disorder, the depression, the increased chance of being the victim of violent crime due to being black and queer.
Ever since I started developing my anxiety, I had several issues with getting good sleep – being unable to fall asleep for several hours, having nightmares and bad dreams almost every night, and/or being unable to stay awake during the morning. But it was a while into my eating disorder before I started having dreams influenced by it. The general template is this – I am faced with a huge array of my favorite binge foods (another thing my eating disorder has ruined is the concept of favorite foods – they became associated with the ravenous compulsion to binge and the self hatred which followed my indulgence and fueled my restriction… so when I’m asked ‘what’s your favorite food?’ I flinch).
I would like to welcome the newest member of our writing team, Starfish. In her first post with us, she tells us her coming out story. Thanks for sharing with us, Starfish!
When I decided to confide my doubts about my sexuality to my mother when I was 13 years old, I had a vague idea of how she would respond. She had always impressed upon me that discrimination was bad and that homosexuality was ok and not to be made fun of. When I choked out, ‘I think I might be bisexual’, I thought she’d be surprised. Maybe ask if there was a certain girl I liked.
