This is my first post in this support group. I've been keeping a diary lately, for the first time in years, and that helps. But sometimes I crave human interaction, and human support.

My self destruction has grown and evolved over the years, I've cut myself and taken too many prescription pain killers. But the first type of self destruction I ever knew was starving myself. And I've started again.

Every so often I'll go through this phase... I can't say I've ever recovered. It was worse when I was 11. Now I'm older I can't believe it started so young. Back then I didn't think it was self destruction or a symptom of depression. All I knew was that I hated the way I looked down to my core. I sickened myself, I was so disgusted with my own reflection. I felt slow, fat, clumsy and lumbering. It was all I could think about like an addiction. Everyone at school alienated me because I was so incredibly negative and self obsessed. I'd tire people out by constantly talking about my own weight.

The process of rewarding myself and feeling proud for skipping meals began. I'd push myself to go for days without eating, and I'd feel so mentally strong and in control when I did. In contrast if I'd eat anything at all I'd feel riddled with guilt.

Things were really bad at home at the time, to be honest I don't think my Mum really cared. So maybe some part of it was me crying out for attention. Sometimes her friends would point out how thin and sickly I looked but she never spoke to me about it. Unless it was to say bullying verbally abusive things that just drove me further into my own self hate. She'd sometimes say I'd ruined my face and gotten ugly because of the dark bags under my eyes and jutting cheekbones, that I had been pretty but I'd ruined it. But mainly she'd say I was vain and stupid and that all I cared about was my physical appearance, and that I was worthless and had no substance.

I stopped going to school, I felt too weak and tired and people bullied me there. For months I sat huddled over a little bar heater in my room, never going out and wasting away. I went a really sickly greenish yellow color and I could fit my hands around my waist I was so skinny. Eventually the school noticed and intervened and I saw counselors and psychologists.

I'm 22 now and it still comes back. For the past two weeks all I've been consuming throughout the day is coffee. I learnt pretty early on that coffee kills my appetite so it's a trick I use. I have to eat at night because I don't want my partner to know, but I use excuses wherever I can to skip my night time meal and go for an entire day without solid food.

Little things set it off. I'm so ridiculously sensitive... When people say unpleasant things about my appearance I take it out on myself with a couple of days of starvation. I love food so much that it normally doesn't last long. But these past few weeks have felt a bit more serious and a bit more permanent.

I'm an extremely introverted person and don't have many friends at all. My two friends that I socialize with regularly both have a tendency to pick at my physical appearance. I've known them since childhood and I think it's a weird pattern we've all just fallen into. Neither of them are bad people and neither mean to cause me deliberate harm. One of them is more blunt and abrasive, just a few days ago she mentioned to someone in front of my face that when I was a teenager I was 'f***ing disgusting,' in reference to how thin I was. Comments like that have the opposite effect on me, they most certainly do not make me want to embrace being bigger. She also comments on my clothes regularly, but mainly it's my body shape. My other friend is more subtle. She frequently tells me about comments other people have made about me. Often out of nowhere she'll generously tell me her boyfriend thinks I have a flat back-side or he doesn't like how skinny I am... She's always saying things like "you know most men who talk to me find (insert female acquaintances name) much more attractive than you."

I don't know why they feel it's okay to say these things to me... Both of them are on the larger side. I hate saying that, but they're a lot bigger than me. I would never in a million years dream of saying anything to either of them about their bodies. People can be horrible and everyone receives unpleasant comments behind their backs from time to time. My friends seem to think it's okay to remind me constantly. I want to be strong... I want to brush these comments off but I can't. They cut into me like knives until I feel like the whole world finds me gross and disgusting. Even though 90% of the cruel comments I get are about me being 'too thin' I want to be thinner.

I sometimes feel like being thin is all I've got, and I'm not even thin enough. Other times it's just an obscure feeling of being hideous and wanting to punish myself for that. Gaah all I can think about lately is the size of my thighs. I want to stop, but at the same time I desperately want to lose weight and I'm frightened of stopping.

I feel so at war with myself.