If I'd never purged

[ntt_3]

This is probably not a very helpful thought but I think about this often...

When I was 15 (?) my ED began during a summer. I was restricting heavily (for no apparent reason and I'm not really sure why...the start is so weird to think about). Quickly dropped a significant amount of weight and become underweight. My family was a little slow to catch on, I mean I remember my mom saying "You need to start eating...or else." But no one called it an ED yet or anything.

Around October of that year I began reactive eating/bingeing. It's strange, I remember eating a meal with my family, possibly even still restricting during the meal, and then just standing in front of the cupboard after and eating maybe a whole box of rice crispies while standing there. Parents witnessing all of it, not saying anything, probably just happy it was happening. So I gained some weight back through that, enough to be back in a low healthy range.

Then to make a long story short, I began purging around Christmas time. And flash forward eight years and here I am, not completely free of this. The entire eight years hasn't been dominated by the ED, but enough of it sure as hell as.

I really think if I'd never purged the first time, maybe what happened that summer/fall really could've just been a phase. Is that crazy? I tend to believe I'm not prone to purely restrictive episodes lasting more than a few months, but then again it's pretty hard to remove the variable of purging once it's an option, so hard to say. I just wonder if I even would've continued on with a restrictive eating disorder, which certainly has been at least half the battle, if I'd never purged.

And I guess I should stop rambling now but really the bigger point I had in my mind when I started this thread was, assuming I did just end the ED phase then and there instead of beginning purging, how much different/better could my life be right now?

/rant

[Hershey]

Me Too!!! Wow this is something that I think about so often. ugh. This is the only thing in life that I regret. If I could go back in time and stop the first purge attempt, I would. I would also slap myself a few times for even thinking it was a good idea.

[lifenbones]

When did you develop a reason for restricting? What's your motivation for keeping your ED now?

[Queen_mab]

I'm one of those who firmly believe the eating disorder is just a way your mind choose to deal with something that needs to be addressed inside you, it didn't just randomly apperead because you discovered you could make yourself throw up. Don't waste time thinking about what ifs, it is only gonna make you angry at yourself for something that couldn't be helped at that time... maybe you wouldn't have developed an ed but a drinking problem or self harm or something equally mentally distressing and phisically exausting.