So...

Thu, 29 Mar 2007 23:17:09 GMT

I haven't decided whether or not I'm actually going to post in here regularly or not yet....but I may as well say a little about myself.

Current stats....

Height: 5'9"
CW: 104
HW:157
LW:92
GW 1: 90
GW 2: 85
BMI: 15.4

My ED really started when I was a freshman in high school...but I've always been weird about food. I lived in Croatia until I was 10 and then moved to Phoenix, AZ. I started taking ballet when I was 4 years old, and right away was immersed in a world where being skinny is everything. When I lived in Croatia the Yugoslavian civil war was going on, and the mentality was that you were put in to something at a very young age and you had to devote all of your time and energy to it...succeeding meant surviving. In my class I was supposed to become a ballerina...and that was it. School came second...everything came second to perfect turn out and pointed toes. Because it was such an intense atmosphere, there was a TON of pressure from all directions to be tiny and in perfect physical form...even at that young age.

When I moved to the US things were obviously different, but from my parents and the dance masters at the Russian studio I found in Arizona, the pressures were the same. "How about you go excercise so your stomach doesn't get bigger", and "Don't eat that, you'll get fatter" said my dad at least once a day...implying that his tall, 100 pound daughter was already fat. From my ballet teachers, I got "We're not adjusting the costume...if it doesn't fit, lose some weight." I was already a hyper-prefectionist about everything, and nothing I did was ever good enough for my parents. My dad beat me when I didn't win dance competitions, when I brought home anything less than an A from school, and sometimes just for no reason at all. Looking back on it now, I don't see how I could have ever avoided Ana.

In spite of all that, I managed to maintain pretty healthy habits with my eating until freshman year of high school, when the unthinkable happened....I was in the middle of a rehearsal and managed to completely blow out my knee when I landed a leap badly...I tore 2 tendons and the cartilidge under my kneecap...the doctors said I would never dance again. My life was over.

Assholes..they didn't know anything. I was back up and dancing within 6 months of my surgery. However, the 6 months of no activity put my at a whopping 157 pounds. I had never weighed that much in my life. I went back to my dance company absolutely mortified at what I saw in the mirror...at that moment I embraced Ana and Mia with open arms and never looked back. I got myself down in the 90's and got hired by Ballet Arizona for the last couple of years of high school.

Right now I'm going to college in Chicago to get a degree (so that when I'm too old to dance I can get a "real" job :) ) and dancing at various studios in the city. I've been hospitalized 5 different times, spent a total of about 6 months in various in-patient clinics, and have seen more nutritionists, psychologists, trainers, and psychiatrists than I can remember. It doesn't matter. I still hate myself.

I'd love to get to know anyone in the proanorexia community who has a similar situation, or is just looking for support. We all need to stick together!

Love and skinny thoughts,
Mar

Deja vu all over again

So...