Not sure what's wrong with me :-(

Hi, I’m new here and very confused/scared about my recent behaviour. I don’t even know if I’m in the right place, I’ve read a lot of things on the internet recently but I’ve never braved posting anywhere because I’m scared of people I know stumbling across it and realising that it’s me posting. I will give you a brief overview of what’s been going on lately and if you have any advice at all that would be greatly appreciated!



Basically, I was diagnosed with depression about 6 weeks ago and have been on citalopram ever since. I went to the doctors last week and he’s doubled my dosage to 20mg and prescribed me with a book to read that he thinks may help me. I’ve been put on meds because I have a huge paranoia problem, I always think I’ve annoyed people and worry about what they think of me. I also find myself upset a lot of the time for things that shouldn’t really be bothering me that much. I’m angry all the time and always feel like the world is against me. Nothing seems to go right for me. I’ve had a horrible year where pretty much every situation I’ve touched has gone spectacularly wrong and I feel so lonely. The main core of these thoughts and feelings (that I can pinpoint anyway) is my weight. I have always been bigger than everyone else and I’ve always been bullied about it. Not so much anymore, but it’s obvious that everyone thinks it and I dread to think what people must say about me and my disgusting frame behind my back. I have a good group of friends who have never said anything to make me feel like this, if anything they sing me praises so I have no idea why I allow myself to feel like this. But it’s getting progressively worse and it’s scaring me. I am trying to lose weight, so far I have lost over 1.5 stone in just under 2 months but it just seems to be taking so long and so much effort to achieve and I’m losing patience with it because of my depression and the feeling of everything else being against me as well as my weight.



This is where my latest problem has started…for about a month now I’ve been making myself sick. Not all the time, mainly when I’ve been out drinking alcohol because I have the courage to actually follow through with my thoughts then, but I always want to be sick after pretty much everything I eat but I just can’t do it because I live with my parents and they’ll hear me and I don’t want them to. So to compensate for that I do it as much as I can when I’ve been out drinking alcohol because I can blame the drink so my friends won’t suspect anything. But the truth is, I’m never sick through too much alcohol because I never drink enough to get to that point, I’m just massively using it as an excuse these days to get away with being sick as much as I can then passing it off to my friends as “I’m getting too old for all this now, I just can’t handle my drink” etc. I don’t know what to do, I’m making myself violently sick at least once a week because I feel so guilty after eating/drinking and I just always think to myself “you would lose so much more weight if you hadn’t of eaten/drunk this” and then I go to throw it back up. I don’t think the making myself sick problem has gotten too out of hand yet because most of the time I don’t actually do it – I just think it, but that’s only because I don’t want people to hear me, which I think is a problem because I clearly would be throwing up more if I could get away with it. I go to the gym all the time and feel horrendously guilty if I don’t go. I’ve noticed that the days I don’t have time to go to the gym are the days that I feel I have to make myself be sick. This is where I think it’s getting out of hand, it’s becoming obsessional and I don’t know how I can stop it. My throat is also constantly sore from being sick, not because I’m sick overly often but because when I am sick I make myself be sick several times until it hurts too much to do it anymore.



I told my best friend about this and he’s the only one that knows but he doesn’t understand and just urges me to go to the doctors. All he really says to me is “it’s clear you have a problem, you tell me about it but then when I suggest going to the doctors you play it down like you don’t think it’s a problem…so you either think it’s a problem or not…go to the doctors if it is, stop doing it if it isn’t and you feel you can control it” which doesn’t really help my situation as it makes the paranoia problem so much worse because I get scared that I’m pushing him away and he’s tired of listening to me moan on about my problems, and it also makes me feel so ashamed that I’m obviously worrying him with all this. I’m scared that he won’t want to see me anymore because he can’t be bothered if I’m just going to stress him out every time I go to the toilet or we eat out etc. I also fear he thinks I’m just attention seeking when I told him I’m making myself sick, because I am overweight so I just feel he was probably thinking “yeah, right, sure you are”. I didn’t tell my doctor about this when I went to see him last week either, I don’t know why it just didn’t feel right. I’m just in a very dark place at the minute and I really don’t know what to do =( my head is all over the place and my behaviour is getting worse, which I didn’t really expect considering I’m on medication for depression. I just fear that I’m eventually going to push all my close friends and family away and in the end I will be a very lonely person and it’ll all be my own fault.



Sorry for the length of this post…I could have written so much more but don’t want to bore you all with the nitty gritty details of why I’ve become depressed. Like I say, I don’t even know if I should be admitting to myself that I may have a bulimia problem and seeking help about it or if I seem to be in enough control of this issue to defeat it on my own?



Thanks for reading. Really need some advice if you have any please!

Hi,

To be honest, the advice that your friend gave to you is quite good. What are your fears about raising this issue with your doctor? A doctor cannnt read your mind and needs to know what's going on inside it in order to help you sufficiently, but this of course involves you talking about it. I've have bulimia for nearly 4 years now I think - maybe more - but Im at the stage where I have given up fighting it and have just accepted it as being part of my life. Fighting it proved too much effort and it was preventing me from progresing in life. So, my logic is that I can progress but that the bulimia is just going to have to come with me.

I'm not sure what more I can add to that really...

Kevin

Edit - I should add that your doctor - on hearing about your eating disorder - might refer you to a therapist (perhaps a CBT therapist).

Hi Kevin,

Thanks for your reply. I don't really know why I fear bringing it up with the doctor to be honest...I think it's just because this whole facing my problems thing is quite new to me and it seems to be loads of things hitting me at once if you know what I mean? So I just don't want to keep going back to the doctors and being like "oh while we're on this subject, I think I might be bulimic as well?" I just think he'll think I'm being a drama queen or something. I know he's a doctor and obviously won't think that, but that's the paranoia problem which has put me on meds in the first place messing with my head. I also like to think that I don't have an eating disorder so don't want to mention it, which is why I've come on here to see if people on this forum recognise my symptoms and can empathise with them which may help me face it that I have an eating disorder? I don't know why I'm in denial about it, the friend I told knows me inside out and he said I'm not myself, which really hurts because I don't want to upset him/push him away I think one of the main reasons I'm trying to fight it is because I don't want to hurt my friends and family...and admitting it is like losing a small battle with it, if that makes sense?

This all just sounds so silly which is why I haven't posted anything anywhere before, but I'm hoping to get some good advice on here because I don't actually know an awful lot about bulimia. From the small amount of reading I have done about the subject I seem to tick a good number of boxes, which is scaring me because now I am clinically depressed and possibly bulimic

P.S. The book that my doctor prescribed me with is a CBT book, which I'm hoping will help me. I do think that therapy could be worth a shot but he told me there's a really long waiting list for that, which is why we're trying the book first. Maybe I should get on the waiting list as well though? Even when I go to the doctors I don't fully open up to him because I just feel silly and like I have no valid reason to feel this low so I feel like an idiot telling him what's wrong. I realise this won't get me anywhere, but I don't know how I can suddenly change my mindset and just tell him everything?!

Hi,

I managed to get straight to the top of the queue for CBT therapy when it was offered to me, but that's because I was suicidal then and was a 'special' case. Normally, there usually is indeed a huge waiting list. It depends on the state or country that you're in though. As I don't know where you live, I cannot really comment any further on this and be accurate. I know that feeling of denial about it very well though, but I can assure you that this is an eating disorder. They manifest themselves in different ways, and yours just so happens to appear when you're out drinking. I think that it's all habit related, because when I'm not at home, my bulimia vanishes. I've always binged/purged at home, and so this is where my Bulimia and I get cosy.

You dont have to admit to anyone right now that you have bulimia, except maybe for admitting it to yourself. If you can do that, then the next person really sould be that doctor whom you see..


Kevin

Sorry, I forget I have next to no information on here. I'm a 22 year old female from England, so the state of our health care is debatable. The waiting list is huge...I'm told 6+ months at the minute so my argument for not getting on the waiting list was "I'm hoping I'll be better by then" but I've seen little/no improvement since being on medication so at this rate I won't be any better. If anything I've gotten worse because the symptoms of bulimia only started after I started taking the meds. I just feel so helpless and I know it's all my own fault because if I just admitted it to myself and explained to my doctor I would probably feel a lot better. My dad has questioned me about this earlier this evening as he's becoming suspicious because I apparently look like I'm going to throw up when ever I eat with him and the other day I actually said I felt sick after eating. And I just snapped at him and dismissed it...I don't like the person I'm becoming because of all this stuff that's going on

I know the only advice you can probably offer me is to be strong and admit it to the doctor, but I'm feeling slightly better for getting my feelings out on here and seeking advice from somebody who understands where I'm coming from. My friend kept saying to me that he didn't understand so he's not the best person to talk to because he can't advise me, which is why I decided to come here. I know it sounds bad but I was a bit angry at him for not even trying to understand me, I felt like he was just dismissing it as being a silly phase and I'll get over it - he doesn't want to know. Which I know is harsh of me to think that of my friend, but it's so frustrating feeling like you're going through this alone. It makes me feel even more isolated and like I am just over reacting/being silly because "nobody else is going through this, so what's your excuse?" I'm at a point now where I just fear telling people how I'm feeling because I don't want them to think I'm even more abnormal than they probably already do

Sorry if this seems to be going in circles, but thanks for listening to me...

Amy

Heya,
First of all i just want to say, i felt EXACTLY how ur feeling right now, only 3 years ago, when my bulimia was just starting off.
The mistake i made was not getting it sorted right away, i was making myself sick like 4 times a month, so i thought it was no biggy.
If i had gone to the docs then, i wouldnt be dependent on that high i get after being sick, i have to do it at least once every day now, and its taking over my life.
So what im trying to say is, as hard as it is, get help now, because the further you get dragged into this the harder its going ot be, i know from experiece. As much as every single cell in your body is screaming at you to not say anything to the doctors, do it, it will be the best thing you can do for yourself right now.
Secondly i just want to say, about your freind not understanding, not a single person who knows about me understands, apart from the people here. unless youve been in the shoes, you will never know how uncomfortable they feel. the same principle, if he hasnt had an ed then he wont know how you feel.
Im from england too, only im 16, nearly 17 now and im on the waiting list for an eating disorder clinic, have no idea how long its gonna take.
Hope your ok, and I hope you get the courage to do whats right, just think, do you want to be feeling like this for the rest of your life?
Best wishes.
xxxxx

Stuck_For_Life wrote:So what im trying to say is, as hard as it is, get help now, because the further you get dragged into this the harder its going ot be, i know from experiece. As much as every single cell in your body is screaming at you to not say anything to the doctors, do it, it will be the best thing you can do for yourself right now.

I suppose that is pretty much what you must do here, peacemaker (Amy). You can't keep putting this aside waiting around for it to get better. Be proactive with this and prove to everyone that you can sort things out for yourself in life. I used to be a terrible lazy person (I'm not saying that you are), but after I got through the worst of my bulimia and depression, I seemed to have become this extremely tenacious, pro-active, and 'no tolerance' guy.

...we don't have time to be wasted on s*it like this anymore...


Kevin