She battled the insidious disease for many years. "I could stuff myself with up to 2 kg of food"

Paulina Cywka "Wprost": When did your relationship with food change? How did it all start?

Aleksandra Dejewska* : At the very beginning, I was of the opinion that everything started when I got braces . It was at the beginning of high school, and then my weight dropped drastically. However, today, with hindsight, I know that it was just a trigger. It all started much earlier.

Already in middle school, I had a distorted self-image. I judged myself as fat. I hated myself. I didn't accept myself.

So you could say it all started long before I got my braces, a moment I once considered the beginning of my eating disorder.

Where does this self-hatred and distorted body image come from?

Many different factors contributed to it. I grew up in a home full of tension and conflict. My parents were very focused on arguing with each other. The rest was somewhat secondary. My home lacked such emotional warmth and closeness. Physiological needs were met, but emotional needs were not given much attention.

In my home, there was no showing of emotions. There was no cuddling, no affection, etc. As a result, no one taught me how to manage emotions. I did not know how to control them or show them in an appropriate way.

I had no space to express anger or frustration, and by nature I am a very sensitive person. I bottled everything up. I took out all the anger on myself.

My struggles with eating disorders began in the 2000s. It was a time when dieting was “in”. It was fashionable to compare yourself to others – celebrities, people known from films or television. This also had a strong influence on my development, self-perception and all my later decisions. You could say that my situation was caused by at least a few factors.

These were the little building blocks from which I eventually built a distorted self-image.

So you could say that these disturbed relationships with food were the tip of the iceberg?

In a sense, yes. Contrary to popular belief, eating disorders do not result from a mere desire to be thin or a mere fear of gaining weight. There is almost always something deeper behind it. A need for acceptance, belonging, closeness.

What did your disturbed relationship with food look like?

My relationship with food was gradually disrupted. Many factors appeared that made it difficult. And this started at the early childhood stage. I was never taught to respect the feeling of satiety.

My grandmother, who raised me for a while, believed that a child should not feel hungry. Therefore, everything always had to disappear from the plate. I could not leave anything on it. I was overfed.

Over time, I began to improve my mood with food. Then, already in middle school, the first hunger strikes, dietary restrictions and diets appeared, which I could not stick to. My relationship with food deteriorated more and more. At some point, I reached an extreme.

That is?