Messages By: carla_nyc

Hi this is my first message on the Dr Phil website. I was watching the show on Friday and noticed a preview for a show about a girl who is so influenced by Mary-Kate Olsen that she purges with a picture of her. I am the exact same way- when I was watching the show I quickly identified with the level of glamour and sucess thats now associated with eating disorders. My eating problems started long before I began to take notice of all of the shrinking celebrities now in Tinseltown, I became bulimic at the age of 13, and have struggled off and on with both bulimia and anorexia since then ( I am now 18)- this past year I've really gotten out of control. I feel that my perfectionism ( I've obtained a 4.0 average and graduated from a top school in the top 2 percent of my class- and I am starting NYU in the Fall, I've taken a year off to travel.) has lead to such a tremendous amount of stress and exhaustion that I need to keep atleast one thing in control in my life- my body. I am about 5'5 and 100 pounds, but my goal weight is 85 pounds, because thats Nicole Richie's weight, and I think she looks great now. I paste pictures of her together in a scrapbook and whenever I want to eat, I look at them- and imagine myself being that perfect. I also pasted a picture of her on my bathroom wall and when I am purging I do look at it. I feel the same way about Mary-Kate and Lindsay Lohan, but Nicole RIchie is my favorite "thinspiration." I weigh myself about 5 times a day and make up little rules in my head about punishments for eating too much. I never go above 400 calories.....I'm hoping to get treatment soon though, since its been happening for years now. Although celebrities obviously didn't cause my problems, seeing them in magazines with gorgeous bones poking out certainly doesn't help.