Isn't this a great diagnosis. Especially for those who feel ashamed, or scared, or embarressed. "Not otherwise specified".. It is the clinical definition for those who don't fit the cookie-cutter qualifications specified by the DSM-IV.

The girl who has all the symptoms of anorexia, but still gets her period. Or the girl who is some anorexic, and some bulimic symptoms, but doesn't meet all the qualifications for both.
I could say that I didn't know what I was doing, but that would be a lie.

I could say that I knew what I was doing, but that's not true either.

I was eleven years old and believed that being fat was the worst thing ever, witnessing the struggles my parents had faced with their weight all througout my childhood and of course the thin-worship society I grew up in. He called me fat, I don't know why, probably teasing me because he liked me. When I said, "No, I'm not fat!" his reply was "Not fat, pleasantly plump." I knew that I wasn't fat. I was 5'1" and weighed 90 pounds, but I just couldn't stand to be called that. I thought that if I had an eating disorder, then he couldn't call me fat. That was my reasoning. So I started faking eating my breakfast, trying and finally learning to throw up the half a sandwich and an apple that I ate for lunch, and eating as little dinner as I could get away with. I don't know when it started or when it stopped or why for that matter, but I never got caught. I never even lost weight because I was going through my growth spurt, I started thin and stayed thin.

The only problem is that once it gets to a certain point, you don't have control. You brought it upon yourself but you had no idea what you were getting into. You think that it doesn't matter anymore, that you've gotten beyond that, then your life gets stressful and it comes back in full force and you can't eat. You just can't. Spending time counting calories means less time to think about everything bad.

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