JAN'S STORY: "I HOPE YOU'LL ALSO FIND OUT ONE DAY THAT LIFE'S WORTH TO BE LIVED."

Jan, after therapy

"Hi Medusa.

At first I just wanted to tell you, that I think, your page is one of the most important in the whole "pro-or-against-eating-disorder" thing.

I'm very sorry for my bad English, I hope, I'll find the words to tell my story. Maybe it'll help anyone to find his/her true self and leave his ED behind.

Half a year ago I thought my eating disorder started in 2008. Now I know that this is not right, it's just that nobody recognized.

When I was at the kindergarten I was a very small and thin child, always underweight. When I started elementary school I also started binging, I don't know why. With 11 years I had a weight about 130 pounds (about 145 cm tall), my parents always asked themselves what was wrong with me (another interesting point maybe is, that my younger brother (I'm 4 years older) started binging also when elementary school began).

I always hated my weight. I always hated my body. I always felt useless, unable to be loved, outstanding and misunderstood, my phobia started with about 8 (I feared nearly everything. Day, night, people, loneliness, darkness, mirrors, talking, and so on), my depressions with 11, with 12. I tried to kill myself or the first time.

With 14 I was diagnosed with Borderline, I was also cutting myself. I was so full of hate and all of it was against my worthless existence.

Jan, a half year before her bulimia started

With 15 I started therapy at a psychiatric ward and stayed there for 5 months. When I went home, I thought it might go better from now, but that was not the face, it went worse.

After another try to kill myself on New Year 2008 I had my second therapy on a ward. I started purging but nobody saw it. At this time it wasn't often, about 2 times a month.

In July I found pro-ana-pages and that was when my ED was complete:

First starving for about 3/4 of a year, I lost nearly 50 pounds. Then my body didn't wanted to do this anymore, but I wanted to, so my bulimia went out of "control" (of course, it's been ALL out of control before. But I never realized).

One year in hell passed, I still don't know how I survived it. Then I went to a clinic which was specialized on eating disorders. This was where I found out, that my ED did not start when I found pro-ana. Where I learned what kind of problems I ever had and why I tried to hide them behind symptoms like cutting, purging or starving. It's been all the same but my parents never saw my problems. I was always the one who said: "I can't live on like this, I need to go to a psychologist", my parents never realized. This does not mean that they didn't take care of me, they just... did not SEE the problems.

Jan, during therapy

After the last clinic I moved out from my mother’s house. I'm living alone now and slowly I started to LIKE myself. Not loving, not yet. But there's an acceptance and some days I look in the mirror and think: "Hey. You're a pretty girl, aren't you? Why did you hate yourself all this time?"

In the end I still don't say that these 15 years of mental disease are wasted. Because they made me being what I am now and they made me also realize that life's often harder than the other might know.

I'm happy at the moment. I like myself - and I LOVE life. And I am glad I survived.

Best greetings to everyone. I hope you'll also find out one day that life's worth to be lived.

Jan."

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