Binge Eating + Food

I can't stop it. I often get like it when I am depressed. Each day I say to myself that's it I need to control it, no food at all tomorrow. Then I wake up the next morning and the first thing I do is open the fridge.

My main diet is quite healthy. Well, it's not unhealthy. I don't usually have breakfast as I am not up in time but about a half hour getting up I will probably have boiled egg and soldiers, or a bagel and boiled egg. Then I won't snack and I'll have my evening meal which usually has lots of veg in it. It's just after that I find myself binging on crap. I hide it as well as I am quite ashamed of it.

Food has been something of a problem for me for a long time. Often with the binging. I have tried making myself throw up on numerous occasions but I can't get rid of enough of it and being sick is something I have a fear of.

Also, I do sometimes stop eating all together. When I was first sectioned in August 2011 I didn't eat for over a week. It was a control thing. I only started again because they cottoned on to what I was doing and stopped me from doing things such as smoking and stopped giving me any medication. So I would lie awake at night because I wasn't allowed a sleeper or any of my normal meds. For a while I would be able to have a sandwich in my room but this ended up down the toilet most of the time. I was then transferred to the horrible PICU where all patients sat around one table at meal times so I couldn't do that anymore.

There were also times when I was on the nice PICU where I went through stages of not eating. It was a self harm strategy when I felt I couldn't do anything else and when I felt as though everything in my life was out of my control. But at the moment I am self harming in other ways so I have not come to that yet. I can't do it at the moment. And in some ways I feel like I am such a failure because I can't. I want to be able to control it. I want to be able to not eat.

My body image is something I have not been happy with since as long as I can remember. I am not one of those people who say "I'm so fat" and are actually about a size 12. I actually wish I was a size 12. I am fat. I weigh about 16 stone and a UK size 18-20. I have tried to do things about it in the past but I have never lost more than a couple of stone before putting it back on. It doesn't help with the medication either. I am on Depakote, which, in some clinical trials has shown weight gain to be a side effect, Lofepramine (which doesn't list weight gain as a side effect) and Quetiapine, which as a anti-psychotic it is well known to cause weight gain. I am not sure if the medication helps, but if I feel like this on it, I am scared to come off it in case things become worse. I can't cope now, never mind if things were worse. Although, if I am honest I can't see how things could become much worse for me at the moment.

It's like a vicious circle for me. I don't know what causes my problems. I wonder if my weight is some of it as it does get me down and causes me to have low confidence at times. If I am unhappy I eat. If I am unhappy I starve myself. Really not a good relationship with food is it. I prefer it when I can starve myself as I feel in a way as at least I am doing something good. If I can starve myself I can lose a few pounds. I feel in control. But this is usually the thing that comes last to me when I can't do anything else. The last time I was able to do it was when I was on arms length obs on a PICU. No chance of self-harming in the ways I usually would, but at least if I did that there was some element of control.

I have never actually talked about my issues with food with anyone as there has not been anyone I have felt I could do it with. Yes, my psychologist is fantastic but he is a bloke. It's this that is also the reason I don't discuss with him how I don't want to date/go into a relationship because at one point there is going to be sex and I hate my body as it is a mass of scars. But, I have never talked about it with the female members of staff I was close to or counsellors etc. At the end of the day I am ashamed by it. I see it as a weakness in myself.