I guess the best place to start is at the beginning.  My name is Michael and I have lived with and battled various eating disorders for most of my life.  People have often asked me when it all started or if there was an incident that triggered it. One of my earliest memories was being at the pediatrician's office when I was pretty young, probably between 3 - 5 years old.  I distinctly remember him telling my mother that "I was a little overweight".  Sadly, this is one of my earliest memories as a child.  As I grew up, I was always conscious of my appearance and my weight but the real ED issues didn't surface until I was an adult.

 

I always knew that I was a little different growing up.  I came out as gay when I was 16, which brought it's own lengthy list of issues and insecurities to pile on top of impending ED.  As I became an adult is when the ED really began to surface.  The gay community and lifestyle can be very shallow and superficial.  I, and my circle of "friends" were soley focused on vanity...extreme workouts, dieting, drugs...whatever brought us closer to "perfection".  Because I have always struggled with self esteem issues, this lifestyle just added fuel to the fire and quickly grew into anorexia and a few bouts of bulimia.  The bulimia was luckily short-lived, but the anorexia grew worse with my discovery of diet pills.  They were a staple in my life for countless years and were my go-to whenever I dealt with "food guilt"....which was the majority of the time.

 

On top of the diet pills, my body perfection obesssion morphed into Body Dysmorphia.  In the last few years, I was able to wean off of the diet pills but have had a few weak moments and resorted to my old habit of popping pills.  Over time, I have had a realization of just how dangerous the drugs and the pills were to my body and how they were affecting my mental health.  

 

I would love to be able to tell you that now, in my 40's, I have grown out of all of my insecurities, perfectionism and BD, but I haven't.  I struggle with BD each and every day of my life.  Every time I look in the mirror, every pair of pants I put on, every shirt that hugs my body....they are all constant reminders of my weight.  The gay part of me wants to be muscular, fit and well-built, but the ED side of me wants to be thin with a single-digit body fat percentage.  Every single day is a battle between the "2 Michael's" in my mind.

 

Monica and I are not professional bloggers...actually, neither of us have ever blogged before.  We are just people....people just like you who suffer with the same ED and DB issues.  We know that there are so many others who share these same struggles, and this blog platform of being able to share our stories and hear your stories will only bring this darkness within us to light.  Darkness cannot survive in the light and with every word we type, every story we share, the light grows.  The more the light grows, it begins to overcome the darness.

 

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness cannot overcome it.  -John 1:5 NIV

                                                    

We are here because God and our faith have brought us here to tell our stories, to help inspire others and to help ourselves.