I finally feel comfortable sharing this...so here I go...
Orthorexia is a relatively new term to describe an eating disorder--specifically obsessions around healthy eating. It's probably on the rise due to all the fad diets out there. It seems like there is so much confusion on what is a healthy diet. It's not an "official" disorder yet, but it has had such a large impact on my life that I really feel it should be classified as a real disorder so people can get help. It wasn't until I realized what I was doing to my body that I knew I had to make changes.
I think my disordered thinking about food began when I was about fourteen years old. This was around the time that I became a vegetarian. The problem--I didn't know how to go about implementing a healthy eating plan, so I started just eliminating meat products from my diet. I added in new stuff like veggie burgers and veggie corndogs. I was an on and off again vegetarian, mostly eating junk foods, for about three years before the full-blown eating disorder hit. I have also experienced terrible anxiety my whole life...well at least as long as I remember. The anxiety became unbearable when I was about seventeen years old. I was going through a lot of stress...I quit the church I had grown up in, a classmate of mine died, I was trying to figure out my future, applying to colleges, feeling alone, etc. Everything was piling on at once, and I couldn't take it. I didn't know how to cope. I was searching for solutions, anything to help to help tame the anxiety I felt on a daily basis. I googled everything I could about anxiety, and many sites said to make dietary changes like eating less processed food, less sugar, less caffeine, less gluten, less dairy. I will full throttle and eliminated all of these things. I still wasn't eating meat. So all I ate mostly for two or three years was fruit and vegetables. Occasionally, I'd cave and eat rice or salmon. I ate huge salads with avocados, beans, nuts, olive oil, etc. I thought I was doing my body good. At first, I remember feeling sick. I was hungry and had headaches and was cranky. But as the months went on, my hunger pains went away. I still had very bad headaches though.
I began wondering why I felt so bad. I went to a million doctors. At the beginning of my dietary eliminations, a doctor told me I had iron overload. My iron stayed high for over a year, but finally came back down to normal. I still don't know what really caused this, but the doctor said it probably had something to do with inflammation. I think it was probably caused from the stress I put my body under. A little over a year ago, another doctor tested me for autoimmune disease markers. I tested positive for anti-RNP markers. I was sent to a rheumatologist, and he did more tests to see if I had diseases like Lupus and Mixed Connective Tissue Disease. He was very busy and didn't really explain things to me but told me I was fine and sent me on my way. I didn't think he was right. I went another year still believing I was dying of an autoimmune disease and googling all the diseases and self-diagnosing before I went back to another doctor. I was referred again to a better hospital but had to wait about four months (which about brings us to the present time). I went through more blood tests. This time two doctors came to talk to me. They both said they didn't think I had an autoimmune disease and that the ANA test is not very reliable because about 20% of healthy women will test positive for it. They spent a lot of time with me and were very thorough. I finally believed them. All of this time, I was very worried that I had some incurable disease, which made me want to control my diet even more.
During the worst of it, it just felt like everything was going wrong with my body. I was dealing with such severe nasal congestion that I never had problems with before. I went to the allergist but they didn't find anything I was allergic to. It was so bad I couldn't breathe at all through my nose and had to undergo turbinate reduction surgery. I also spend hundreds at chiropractors and physical therapists for my back which was constantly in pain.
I'm finally at the point where I realize that my "healthy eating" was not healthy at all. For long stretches of time, I was probably eating less than 500 calories a day. My weight dropped a little, but not too much which was weird because I was eating so few calories. My mom would comment about how thin I was, but I didn't look anorexic. I think that's why I let myself continue on so long because I couldn't see the physical damage being done to my body. Also, as bad as it sounds, I started to like having people tell me I was thin...so it was probably a little bit of anorexic tendencies as well. At my worse I was 112 pounds (I'm 5'4). I've gained about eight pounds and am up to about 120. My muscles feel stronger than before, but I think I still need time to recover for my bones, which crack and pop and ache a lot.
I'm twenty now and almost free of this awful disorder. I still don't have an appetite, and I long for the day when my stomach will remember that it needs food and starts to growl again. I'm sick of eating "when I know it's time to". And the anxiety is still here. I realize it was naive of me to think that I could control my anxiety with food. Anxiety stems from many different factors, not just one thing like dietary choices. The thing with eating disorders is that nobody just chooses to have one. It kind of sneaks up on you. You make one choice and it can ruin your life. I never knew what I was doing to my body. I didn't realize how few calories I was eating because the portion sizes of the salads were so large. Lack of food wreaked havoc on my mind...I couldn't think straight, and the anxiety drastically amplified. I couldn't concentrate and became socially isolated. I deeply regret the years I lost obsessing over food choices and missing out on dinners and losing friends. I look back now and just feel sorry for the old me..I want to go back and hug me and say "it's going to be okay."
I just wanted to share my story, and I hope this can help someone in a similar situation.
I also wanted to thank the friend who first told me there was a healthy eating disorder. She was the first one to recognize that something was wrong with me. Because of her, I googled it and found the term "orthorexia". I owe her much gratitude.
