"Anorexia nervosa is an eating disorder that makes people lose more weight than is considered healthy for their age and height.

Persons with this disorder may have an intense fear of weight gain, even when they are underweight. They may diet or exercise too much, or use other methods to lose weight.

The exact causes of anorexia nervosa are unknown. Many factors probably are involved. Genes and hormones may play a role. Social attitudes promoting very thin body types may also be involved.

Family conflicts are no longer thought to contribute to this or other eating disorders.
Risk factors include:

Trying to be perfect or overly focused on rules

Being more worried about, or paying more attention to, weight and shape

Having eating problems during infancy or early childhood

Certain social or cultural ideas about health and beauty

Having a negative self-image

Having an anxiety disorder as a child

Anorexia usually begins during the teen years or young adulthood. It is more common in females, but may also be seen in males. The disorder is seen mainly in white women who are high academic achievers and who have a goal-oriented family or personality."

I suppose I first struggled with food when I was around 8. I was an actual real life nightmare to feed. I just wouldn't eat. I got the usual generic "if you don't eat your dinner you won't get ice cream" to be fair, i generally didn't give a rats ass whether I got the ice cream or not I wasn't hugely bothered. I never really understood why I couldn't bring myself to eat like a normal 8 year old. I was just scared of..well..I don't actually know what exactly I was scared of I just knew I couldn't really eat.

Things fairly normaled out for me (ish) until I was about 12 or so, everything started to change and I didn't appreciate it a whole lot, my body was growing in different places and I was uncomfortable with that and after having difficulty settling into a school I didn't really want to go to I just found I felt very out of control of my own life. After a very brief stint of being bullied I found I could control certain areas of my life. I started to self harm (WHICH WAS FAB) not. And cut down on my food without really properly realising what I was doing-I was heavily involved in sport so I just figured I was being healthy. It got progressively worse over the years and I continued to restrict my food until i got to a time in my life where I would just go for days or a week or two without eating. It was particularly difficult to be fair.
Anywho I moved to England because too many people close to me we're recognising my problem and I wanted to run away so I left and did a course over there, which, I never really went to because I was far too busy drinking alcohol, overdosing on laxatives and not eating food which in turn made me incredibly weak - also fab - not ;) amongst other things that are still particularly painful to go into and also entirely related to my post on forgiveness. I think it is fair to say I was in a pretty broken place :(
My turning point came when one day I had just had enough. I put everything in order-literally. And tried to kill myself. I am not being light about this. I took everything. I was on steroids for an ulcer in my stomach I took all those, paracetamol, brufon, codeine, vodka and bleach. I full heartedly genuinely did not want to live anymore. It was a painful time. I really called out to God that night, I couldn't do it anymore. I really wanted God to intervene.
No word of a lie the next day I woke up. I was partially disappointed but mostly relieved-I felt like I had a little bit of hope, like God had something for me.

I started this healing journey, I came home from England where I had a little bit of accountability and got back involved with church. Slowly but surely from being involved with the right people my heart started to heal and as I grew to understand God and His love for me I didn't feel as big a need to starve myself...unfortunately it wasn't quite as simple as that because that sort of journey takes time but I walked it and made it through to the other side eventually with a small scuffle or two along the way. I had such an incredible healing that I thank God for every single day otherwise I wouldn't have been here. Who knows where I would have been.

I decided that I wanted to spend my life working for God so went in for an internship in my church that I am currently in and as a side note before I move on quickly I am really enjoying it but more recently I have had to face some difficult obstacles.
We as interns have been given an incredible opportunity to go on a missions trip to Thailand, whilst we won't be spending a great deal of time with prostitutes, the thought of being in an area surrounded by men who abuse young girls and women is something that is causing me a great deal of stress, worry and fear, which is apparently causing a somewhat minor relapse.
Whilst I don't condone any kind of starvation "minor" I use the term only because people around me are aware of it and so potentially the relapse won't last very long.
This is comforting-more comforting than I realise right now I think but it is comforting to know that although I am struggling intensely right now to eat anything more than 70calories in a day there are people praying for me, watching over me and walking with me during the rejourney into healing.
The most comforting part realistically is knowing I'm not alone in this. It's not something I have to do on my own, I have endless amounts of people who want nothing but the best for me and they're going to be there for me and support me through the hard times and celebrate in the good times with me too.

I think my problem is that during my recovery I was never really taught how to deal with stress and pressure and criticism in a healthy non-dangerous way!! So I suppose this is my latest challenge, finding a healthy way to cope without resorting to old methods. I do wish it was as simple as "oh here's a healthy way to handle everything now I can eat" but unfortunately it's not, and unfortunately for me despite people realising the trouble I'm in and the struggles I'm having I'm not sure they comprehend just how fast and how deep I have fallen back into anorexia. I literally can not eat. The thought reduces me to panic attacks and tears and melt downs. I think more than anything I'm scared. Scared people will give up, scared people will leave, scared ill get kicked off the internship, mostly scared really that this time it could kill me and yet I still can't bring myself to change. It's frustrating how much harder it is than people (or even myself) realises.

Life shouldnt have to be this difficult :S