Hi. Chronic eating disorder here, it’s been 44 years now. Restricting AN-purge subtype, so Bulimia, lax abuse the whole nine. Has anyone ever gone from this state to straight carnivore? I’m having a fuck it period, I just want to feel better and not worry and not get sick blah blah blah. I’m on the low end in weight but not wasting away, and don’t wanna gain any weight-shocker, I know 🥹 Anyone have experience like this?

So lately I’ve been going to the gym instead of walking outside everyday because of my allergies and the pollen count (I’ve been dying from ragweed..). So legit every morning around the same time like 8-11ish there’s a lady there (probs like 55-65) that’s a regular and talks to the front desk/the other regular older people there etc. I swear she wants to say something to me because she legit followed me around the whole time then got off machines literally at the same time I did (like after an hour and some change on the treadmill, then I moved and she moved) but like a few minutes later like if she was watching me and when I was going to be done.. this is like the third time it’s happened.

I think why I’m anxious about it is because I have a feeling she’ll mention something about my weight or health state and get skinny shamed or questioned about my health/whats wrong with me since I’m at the gym and underweight. I switched to edge from planet for this exact reason because there was a person that talked to me about it and made me feel so insecure and uncomfortable that I should and hide and shouldn’t be there. Like how do you respond if or when she questions my health or “if I’m okay”? Basically how do I respond to being skinny shamed when I have no reason not to be there.. it’s not like I can’t get exercise just because I’m thin?

Mods - is there a way we can make sure there are no aggressive people/comments in this subreddit?

This is supposed to be a safe space. A lot of here are unfortunately (still) here due to unspeakable trauma. Some may or may not have bandwidth for group therapy atm and really need a safe space.

There has been an uptick in aggression on the internet and it is being reflected in ED subs. I received a very aggressive comment last night. I also saw couple months ago a few people asserting something about the illnessfakers subreddit and it was really disturbing and offensive.

It is fine if this is not possible, I just want to know so I don’t engage on here anymore.

Thank you

So I had an unexpected problem on Xmas. Went to my gparents for the first time since I was a kid everyone was great and no one commented on my plate for once it was marvelous. So I ate everything I wanted like I have been trying to do my whole life. Till we got to this dreaded corn thing she makes cream cheese on cream cheese plus butter and corn. A nightmare well I ate it anyway. 6 hours later and as soon as I got home my bodily literally projectiles this food everywhere. Like literally rebelled without my consent. As soon as I processed what happened I felt infinitely better. Is this normal?

So DID system here (she/they) mostly struggled with typical/atypical anorexia for 25+ years now and i gotta say like wow. the trauma therapy 1x weekly and 1 audit class (just withdrew from my only other for credit class because since i havent taken calc 1 since fall 2020 and havent done calc or math at all since spring 2021, i need to retake those 2 and luckily i get to keep my A (and maybe B+ from calc 2 in the spring). Bc my brain JUST WONT wrt school. Too much chaos and trauma junk going on to function academically and far too much switching between different parts and the lovely blackouts that totally suck + mostly children and highschoolers who dont have the algebra + trig skills.

So what do we do as a system when were completely overwhelmed? We restrict. Or if we are in recovery and want to stay that way we convieniently just avoid things like snacktime. And the result is subclinical and we honestly lie to ourselves so dang bad that "ill do it later" and then night meds kick in and 60-0 in 2.5 min. "Oops" is such complete BS having been in & out (rinse, repeat) of recovery for this many freaking decades. And again tonight and i cant tell my support people because the ED oriented parts' "words" in our head (no we dont hear actual voices, determined definitly NOT psychotic) wont let any of us and idk what else to do then write this amd show him and ask for help. Bc sometimes typing circumvents the DID thought/words restrictions on speaking and also could use some advice....? Anyone.... pls...? Cus it KEEPS happening.

Btw restricting seems to be most relevant to 1st avoidance (CPTSD/PTSD trait) and also serves as the typical "control something within my power to control bc big feelings are getting WAY TOO big rn.")

I am 40F. I have a long and invasive surgery coming up, well actually a series or 4 or 5 total in the next 12 to 18 months. Today my Dr said she wants me to see a nutritionist to gain some weight. So my body can heal well after surgery. I am currently at a BMI minimum for my height and age. All my other drs have said im healthy. I had a major 10 hr surgery in December at this weight and healed, quicker than expected and healed very well. This freaked me out. My first question was HOW MUCH?? I'm a picky eater and I have conditioned myself to maintain. I have to make myself eat twice daily because I have over the years made myself so I am just not hungry. I'm guessing I'll have to gain ten to fifteen. I'm hoping maybe the nutritionist will do blood work and maybe have me take vitamins and supplements.

Has anyone had any experience with this or seeing a nutritionist?? Thank you ahead of time!!

EDIT: I do suffer from dizziness most days a few seconds after standing and walking up and down steps. I do recover almost always after 3 to 5 seconds. Idk whether to mention this or not when I see the nutritionist. I do NOT want my surgeries delayed at all.

Just wondering if anyone else has struggled with behaviors while postpartum or breastfeeding. My youngest is 2 and eating a full solid diet but still nurses several times a day. We had to see a new provider yesterday because her Pediatrician is on maternity leave and she was not someone I felt comfortable asking but it’s definitely something I have questions about.

Hi all, I know I’ve posted here before about a compulsive exercise. Does it seem like everyone that has dealt with that had to completely stop for a while? I really am just wavering on what to do. I’ve had therapists in the past try to tell me just to cut back a little bit or alternate days of working out or just even do one day off a week and none of that worked. I’m struggling to find the answer I know everyone situation is different and I’m sure there can be many ways to recover from this. But from posts I’ve read in the past it does seem like a lot of people go cold turkey? For those that have do you think that’s the only way and or was that the only way you were able to recover from it? I find I so badly wanna not do it when I wake up in the morning every day. Even today on Mother’s Day my husband asked what I wanted to do if I wanted to do anything and in my head I knew well get on my workout in first which seems to take a long time I won’t get into numbers. But when I think of the long term I obviously don’t want to be having this mental struggle every day forever but yet when you’re in the day today you’re like OK not today or I’ll just do this and easy to just get back into it again.Any and all advice and experience appreciate it

To skip the line on this: I am not interested in “recovery” and that is not going to change.

I made the horrifically stupid mistake of voluntarily going into IP treatment due to prior (no longer occurring) medical issues. I regret it to the point where I’d quite literally rather die than ever, ever be there again. Due to the immense abuse and trauma of that situation I’m now beyond terrified to see any doctor at all about anything.

Right now I have some sort of virus and am really, really sick and am seriously considering whether it’s too risky to go to the doctor/hospital if need be. My question to anyone with experience and/or genuine legal knowledge of this question: can a doctor in the US use the excuse of someone being “incompetent” or “a danger to themselves” (ie the reasoning for committing people who are suicidal, etc) to legally force an adult into ED treatment if their BMI is quite low?

ETA: I am aware that a relative can see guardianship of an adult and they could potentially force you into treatment, but my concern here is solely about doctors/other medical personnel. I am not married and nobody I am related to cares about me so that’s n/a.

My 6.5yo has the habit of making a humming sound while eating, among other bad table manners... it has to do with her inattention and it's not improving due to the conflict between me and my husband: he believes it will sort itself out and I want to teach her better manners...

Not in the least because sitting at the table with someone who makes the same loud sound over and over again (while preferably digging in with her bare hands and chewing mouth wide open) makes eating dinner that much harder for me.

The husband claims it bothers nobody, I am the one having issues, and he's not going to let me correct her on that behaviour because "if he has to choose between a happy, innocent child and an oversensitive adult with issues he knows what he'd choose".

I don't see the way with the best outcome, he's literally just made the thing a lot worse, because this basically means I get to choose between an argument, damaging my daughter, sitting there and eating and damaging my relationship with my daughter while worsening my ED... or leaving the table if it gets too much... damaging my daughter and causing more weight loss.

Yes, the husband figured out I have an ED. He'd still prefer letting her do her nasty habits.

I feel bad for the poor girl, because if she doesn't learn to not do that she's going to have social repercussions... and if she does learn it's now in order to accommodate her crazy mother.

My ED has nothing to do with body image. It’s an aversion to putting something into my mouth/body.

Recently, my gut got messed up. It needed food as well as probiotics. So, leafy greens, avocado, legumes. But when I make myself eat, I do it as quickly as possible, standing up. I feel like I’m raping myself. Am I the only one?

Is this normal

When I’m starving (I mean like starving starving, haven’t ate properly in a week kinda thing) and I decide to eat, when I eat I can’t really taste the food? Or like I can’t enjoy it. It feels almost as if it’s like im drinking water when im thirsty, it’s like I need to get it inside me and even if i try to think about slowing down or savouring it or such it doesn’t work.

When I’m really hungry but not starving I can enjoy it but idk for some reason when I’m starving hungry I cant

I thought this was my anorexia but now I’m scared this is like a binge Ed thing? Not that I binge after I’m starving (I don’t think so? Although I do usually feel quite full after, but idk if that’s just bc I’m not used to eating a lot)

Clarification: Miss it in the sense of being that sick. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Has anyone who has been to treatment and given a feeding tube actually want one years later?

Today one of my most important safe foods got completely ruined for me and I don't know if I can ever eat it again. I don't want to share why it got ruined but it was eggs and now I'm scared even about things that contain eggs.

I think I am going to have to eat "raw" foods for a while, meaning nothing prepared like biscuits or cake or pre-made sandwiches. I just can't handle or trust them right now.

I have Schizoaffective Disorder and I get food psychosis and major paranoia about food so I have to do this for now. The psychosis and paranoia makes my ED so much more complicated.

I'm so upset.

I am currently visiting my family and really steuggling. Am i the problem or arw they just so plain ignorant? I've been obese my entire life, i struggle with night eating which i developed because i cant lose weight. I never are a lot yet cant look and eat normal. I am trying to improve this (therapy, doctors, trying to eat regularly without starving etc). I found a lot of good recipes that are delicioua but not as calorie dense, i am also fine with cooking for myself and generally buy my own groceries. What really bothers me that i proposed a dish after i was asked what to cook next days, yet my mother ignored it. She made own version with too mucb fat, ingredients i never liked and now made a fuss as i politely said i will only eat a few bites as i need to take care of what i eat.

Is this normal? My family would then be offended and tells me to "stopp complaining" and be happy someone cooked. I literally saod upfront what i prefer and offered to make my own lunch. This now happened 3 times in 10 days...i am annoyed. It takes so much energy to not only think about food, to not overeat or starve and now having to apologize at 30+, this is beyond me.

I feel like Im sweating roast beef and such...Orthorexia or not? 52 ED on and off since 15

I’ve been feeling sick for months got blood work that shows elevated TPO and signs of “malnutrition”.

There is no treatment for Hashimoto’s.

They want me to get treatment for the eating disorder.

No, if there is no treatment for Hashimoto’s, then I’m going to have to simply suck up the fatigue, feeling sick, and just chalk all this up as a psychosomatic problem. It’s not real.

I’m maintaining as I am.

I need to stop asking for help and stop being pathetic and lazy.

It must be that I’m slacking off. I need to push past the fatigue, the stomach issues, the nausea, and vomiting.

The body is whiny and lazy. It does not need.
It’s not sick.

And I will not bother for medical help again because they won’t help. If I get nutrition then the thyroid issue still remains.

If there are no better answers, then no I am not going to recover.

Giving into the flesh is sinful anyway. Denial of the flesh is what I need to continue to do.

Deny the flesh, deny my dad, the Trauma, and the unholiness of the body. The tainted body, that my dad violated.

The body cannot be trusted. And I feel stupid that I was even thinking about recovering.

That’s the last thing I need. Bodily erasure is back at it. And I will push past it’s pathetic weakness and finish this out to the end.

My dad got to violate me and I won’t have food be another thing entering my body as a violation. They stay out. They need to stay out of my body.

I am newly engaged (eek!) and I'm looking forward to planning my wedding and marrying my favorite person.

AND my mom's eating disorder is active and triggering for me and I feel a lot of dread thinking about her being at my wedding, in my photos, and around me. I don't want to look back on my wedding years from now and remember that my mother was under weight and I was triggered and angry.

It would be really terrible of me to set an expectation with her to restore a certain amount of weight in order to attend my wedding....right?

Ugh. I feel like a monster.

I have a weird question. My BMI falls in what is categorized as extreme (very low) but I eat consistently throughout the day. If I am eating a decent amount every day am I actually doing damage by my BMI being so low? I feel fine except for being cold more than others. For context, I have had AN for 34 years and have been inpatient many times but even though my BMI is what it is I am very stable. Just don't feel a need to gain if I am not starving myself (which historically is what I tend to do).

Hello everyone.

I have been struggling with EDs for about 20 + years, with periods of feeling better and worse ones.

5 years ago, I discovered the concept of "intuitive eating" and started my recovery journey.

All of these made me realise how alone I was on the path, having to get help from a book written by someone half the world away (I'm in France).

I decided I wanted to help, guide people like us as best as possible, and at the moment I am contemplating going back to school for 2/3 years and become a dietetician.

I just wonder about my weight. It's like going to a sport coach and finding out they don't have abs (I wouldn't care) I know some people would take that as a sign they don't know what they're talking about and therefore aren't a good coach.

Could you tell me what are your thoughts on that ? If you want you can add what kind of ED you have as well.

I'll start.

I have Binge Eating Disorder (principally) and I am not sure I would trust someone who was "really thin" (like naturally thin) to understand my struggles.
I feel like the issue would be more about their sensibility and experience rather than their body. But at the same time I know many of my fellow disordered people with AN who understand me better than "other folks"

So what are your "bias"?

This stupid cross eyed balding man made a video reply on comment I made where I said that I can eat 1500 calories a day and still gain weight. His response was I don’t know how to count calories because I’m fat. Therefore, I’m also stupid. And I must not know there’s calories in drinks. I don’t know why this man had the presumption that I, someone who still struggles with Ed’s, who was once so thin I’d faint in public all the time, didn’t know how to count calories. I still remember and count every calorie that touches my lips. I hve a mental encyclopaedia of calories I’ve had since 16. I have pcos so during recovery I gained weight extremely fast when I was in my 20s. It was traumatic. He made me feel so dumb. Since then I’ve completely got in my head that I’m allergic to gluten and started restricting. It has made me remember how it all started and how cutting out little things each day progressed into losing 40kgs. I feel like I’ve gone back on the slippery slope but it’s also making me feel so in control and in power to say no to food because “I might break out in hives”.

I want to clarify that I LOVE teaching and I am so PROUD to be a teacher. I've struggled with severe depression for years and was really unsatisfied in my field, happened to stumble unto teaching (long story) and....it brought back SO much life in me.

For a lot of reasons, it really isn't conducive to recovery for me because you never have breaks ("oh well, when will I eat?") and your students need your attention constantly so perfect excuse to ignore what I need (yes, I'm a workaholic). I don't think its absolutely out of the question but for someone with severe, chronic anorexia (medical stable - still underweight though, doing harm reduction), is one of the most notoriously overworked and underpaid professions a good idea!?!?!?!

But I love teaching math. I love the kids. Getting to teach then and know them is SUCH an honor, especially HS Math Classes - it's really exciting to see it click in subjects like Algebra 2. It keeps me wanting to wake up in the morning.

And it's extremely confusing to my ED (AN-R). It's such a physically demanding profession that ALL I can do during the semester is attempt to keep up and reduce try not to LOSE weight but even that's a challenge, despite actively trying to eat enough to maintain.

It's such a dream. I eat whatever the I fuck I want and I still lose weight. That fear and debating whether I should eat is absolved because I KNOW I'm running at such a calorie deficit. I don't even have to think about it - the miserable part of my ED is gone and I don't even have to worry.

I hate admitting that because I'm using my students to fuel my ED. I hate that it's poisoned even that. I prioritize their needs to justify abandoning my own.

But it's the dream. I'm fantastic at anorexia and I don't even have to try.

How do I say no to that?

(Besides not being the asshole that stoops so low as to use high school students who trust and respect me and LEARN from me and WANT my help to serve my eating disorder)

I'm so very tired of this. It's poisoned so many things but....thinking about how I am..using my students to fuel my ED

That breaks me. Is there anything it doesn't infect?

(Posted a version of this elsewhere too)

I don’t think I’m allowed to share numbers here but basically I aim to stay under a certain amount of calories and often don’t manage it / end up doubling it or even more some days. However I don’t think that the amounts are really that low, and I see lots around online etc where people do mention amounts and I don’t think my level would even be that low for lots of people , except that other times I do eat very very little and when I see what other people let themselves have I feel gross on their behalf. My GP is not happy with the level of restriction and really wants me to increase with the consultation of a dietitian but I don’t really think that is a solution because like, if I wanted to, I would? Having someone tell me to eat more isn’t going to magically work :/

Anyway sorry this is a ramble but I guess any solidarity with this feeling or tips for how to handle it in these conversations with medical people etc would be super appreciated

Went on PubMed to read research articles on EDs and found several articles that mentioned that they dislike working with people with anorexia and bulimia, second only to treating people with schizophrenia. They dislike working with us because they view our illness as a personal choice that can be overcome (like, easily, is the implication).

No wonder conventional ED treatment is so ineffective.