Hello! I find myself here mostly from complete loss of hope/control. I started gaining weight around 7/8 years old and shortly after I began cycles of diets and restriction that inevitably developed into binge eating. After a massive weight loss in a very short time when I was 18, I have spent the last decade only capable of eating in binge form and having to “get my fix” on a daily basis or it consumes my every thought until I do. I only recently(within the last 2 years) realized I had binge eating disorder and have since tried therapy and medication interventions with no change in behaviors. Surprisingly enough, I have this extreme perfectionistic necessity and that has only escalated my binge eating habits further. It’s not enough to lose weight, I can’t mentally accept a weight loss of less than a pound a day despite knowing it then drives my binging and weight gain more and more. My behavior has become less driven by the food and more like an addiction to starving and binging and the calmness/relief I personally get once I binge each night. Binging takes over my nights and is on my mind most days alternating between my next extreme weight loss or diet plans. I have done everything to control myself and yet I still find ways around it all. I locked up all my credit cards, all the food in the house and I somehow managed to break into these things and get food still! My behavior is so “crazy” and socially unacceptable to me that I can’t even let myself discuss it fully to anyone! Everyone tells me that it just takes willpower and I’m drowning in binges thinking that they have no idea how much this is not about willpower, I have no control! Sorry if that came across dramatic, just feeling a strong hatred towards binging and restricting controlling my life and feeling such a mental exhaustion from the constant thoughts of food for so long. I often wish I just had a switch where I could turn it off just one day and give myself a mental break.