On Dcomedieta I am hosting again a testimony of  Valentina Fassone , a reader of mine who, after years of problems with food and an eating disorder to fight , managed to find her own food and lifestyle balance. She had already told us something about her experience of her, how she started and how she was trying to get out of it, in the article: “ From the desire to lose weight to obsession “. Now she tells us more about what it feels like to have an eating disorder.  I think it is right to continue talking about this testimony, because many readers will find themselves in this description of the disorder, and this will perhaps help them to understand that their fears, their fears and their struggles are alas very common.

STORY OF AN FOOD DISORDER
by Valentina Fassone

It is not so simple to be able to say that you are out of an eating disorder, I believe that basically you never completely detach yourself from that way of thinking that takes your breath away , that imprisons you in a world of sacrifices and planning.
Sometimes I realize by myself that I make a mistake and go after those cursed little voices that scream in your head , scream that you are gaining weight and that consequently you cannot afford to experience food in a natural and spontaneous way. Voices that shatter your head in front of a pizza, a cake or a simple plain pasta, there is no food that does not arouse fear in those with an eating disorder .
Everything is too much, everything questions your physical appearance, it seems to live in a narrow and dark cage but you have to be aware of the fact that they are voices created by a non-lucid mind, a mind that does not really belong to you.
Many times I feel the desire to go out, to go out quietly for dinner or to have an aperitif, a snack, a breakfast, anything that other people do with ease and serenity , but for those who continue to give importance to those rumors is not easy, everything becomes a tremendously complicated climb. It is always in a continuous struggle between two parts of yourself that come into conflict , precisely your healthy part and the one that instead imposes on you the privation.

Until a few months ago I believed that for all this there could be no remedy, that I would be trapped in that part of myself for my entire existence while now that I can claim to have gotten out of it for at least 70%. I believe that we can free ourselves from that sick part completely and I want to fight to defeat that 30% left and reach 100% to be a healthy person in all respects.
I therefore face my current fears which ultimately are: unscheduled dinners, those perhaps in the company of people who do not know me, who have no idea about my past.and that I honestly don’t even want them to know about it, they still make me tremble more dinners and lunches together in a single week or in a row, restaurants where you can order everything you want ( all you can eat to be clear) scare me because I go from not giving myself anything to ordering everything I read on the menu without being able to stop myself, I cannot really listen to my body and what it asks of me, I do not perceive my stomach and I hardly feel the taste of what I am eating, i panic and i start to feel inadequate in front of the people around me, i start to feel ashamed of myself and my behaviors.

In these cases I feel the need to disappear, to leave the scene, I would like to disappear and appear when everything has come to an end. I begin to have the impression of being at fault , of being the wrong person and of not being able to give myself anything I would like so I begin to feel guilty for my thoughts and attitudes and the body begins to make me feel cold sensations and hot until I can stabilize myself to regain control of myself, a very complicated thing that I can only do lately thanks to someone special.
I think it is very important to find a person who can understand us without judging us and who gives us serenity. Only in this way can we control and exercise ourselves to defeat those fears that still remain standing. Only with extreme courage and willpower will all this go away and therefore the memory of the bad times past will remain , everything will make us even stronger and make us appreciate every moment of life, will give us the opportunity to enhance what we previously considered superfluous. Now personally I want to set myself challenges to overcome, limits to cross in order to get closer and closer to that beautiful and long-awaited 100% I was talking about before. I’m sure I can do it in the right time and with the right approaches, I don’t think we need to run, one step at a time towards the right direction is more than enough. I am also sure that any person can do i