Am I too late to join in on this thread?
I started this morning thinking I'd just read a few posts, but here I am, 45 mins later, reading everyone's stories.
I started Atkin's 2 weeks ago because for the past 12 years I've been using the "starve yourself/stick your fingers down your throat" diet. Up until a couple of months ago, I thought I was normal. Scary. What's scarier is trying to change that; scarier still is that with change comes the uncovering of who I am.
There's a passage that really spoke to me and got me to post on this thread (sorry, I don't know how to do the fancy block quote thing):
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So, with this in mind, isn't eating right not just a commitment to a diet, to the things you eat, but a commitment to one's self? It seems to be about self-respect really. I'm still trying to fully realize this, of course. I can say it, but still find myself wanting to eat chocolate bars outside of RM, and sometimes doing it, saying to myself, "Screw it, what does it matter, I should be able to eat chocolate just like everybody else whatever I want. I should be allowed to do what I want."
But what am I really saying when I say these things to myself? The rhetoric sounds like I'm in control, like I "know myself", but really, underneath those words is a fear of lack control and so-called strength, of not knowing who I am and feeling a lack of worth.
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Commitment to change, lack of self worth, not knowing who I am when I thought I was so self aware-- these are my 'issues' too. Even the commitment of 'putting it on paper,' saying it out loud to myself, finally coming clean to someone else-- "I have an eating disorder"-- is frightening and bizarre and unreal to me because I can't believe who I've been and who I've become without me realizing it.
THANK YOU all for your stories and insights. You all have an amazing, supportive forum here.
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