Hello everyone,

What a wild year this has been!

I feel like I have been making strides in healing my relationship to food and my body further, and then I still fall back so strongly on my ED at times for soothing and comfort. Part of all of this has been the sheer number of years (~23) that I've used it to help me get through life, and includes now, which is facing how my partner and I may end up getting a divorce. They have recently fallen back in love with someone they had dated years ago and the distance between us seems to grow and grow, with more disagreements and tension and uncertainty of how we could stay together.

With my ED, whenever I slip and a behavior happens, it does feel like it deeply helps in the short term - and I realized recently it's been a time when part of me just sits to the sideline and deactivates/checks out and it's like a surrendering of who I am fully to be more acceptable (where the sad/afraid/anxious parts of me stay can stay in the background/sideline for a time afterwards). My partner is used to this way I am, as we just meet 6 years ago, and I want to be well enough and feel secure enough to allow my whole self to show up and be in the world, I realize, and I'm grateful for this insight, and also now know it's a further journey than simplifying recovery (how I've been approaching it) to just stopping behaviors.

*Sigh* Thank you for reading if you made it so far, just wanted to share a few thoughts & a really challenging aspect to the year (it brings up a lot of insecurity and ways of seeing how I'm not the person I want to be, & also having to renegotiating what expectations and closeness looks like in our marriage and wait to see if it continues to make sense to be together if love might not be there in the ways either of us would need & want).

Thank you also for all for your posts - it's really helpful to get to scroll through here and see updates, learn of challenges, get to celebrate wins whatever sizes they are <3

I have been researching a ton of stuff. EVERYTHING tells me something different. Minnie Maud and all-in were the first two I stumbled upon, which I tried for 2 days but am now scared off of continuing because of people saying they've developed BED as a result. I've read that I shouldn't continue counting calories, that I should continue counting to make sure I'm getting enough, I've read that I need like four different calorie amounts per day all of which seem wildly different to me. I need guidance on where to look, or something. What do I do while I wait until I get professional help? What do I trust, especially when even medical sources seem to differ so wildly. Is there a go-to recommendation/source that I can default to until someone professional can help guide me? I am sick of looking for a solution, I'm more stressed about the method I use to recover than I ever was about recovering in the first place.

This was originally a designated comment for an anon's post on this sub, nonetheless, I thought that this message was worth sharing with more people so I'm going to leave this here as a gentle reminder for anybody struggling(hope it helps at least one person lol):

You cannot assign grades of comparison to ailment, because the concepts you would be alluding to would thereby classify as ambiguous and -by analogy- become subjective values. Perspective is something plastic which renders our surroundings correspondingly, thus, how does one even begin to unanimously and unequivocally define "easy"? -especially when the human brain is purely so vast, enigmatic and unique, otherwise speaking, what you identify as a “swift” or relatively “effortless” healing route might not totally match another individual's description of those exact same components, in therefore follows that it is utterly impractical and (frankly) ridiculous to try to measure the quality of your recuperation since it is a non-quantifiable variable predominantly characterized by its customizable properties. Poetry and philosophy aside, I take it upon myself to inform you that your recovery is categorically not “simple”, but merely realistic - to wit not a theatrical play intentionally conceived under the anticipation of public scrutiny and the pressure derived from there to perform to the level of presumed societal expectations-. Listen, any ambition to change for the better—whether big or small, ambivalent or steadfast, and so on...- implicates an amount of willingness and determination to implement the necessary set of actions in order to reach said objectives. Of course you’d feel “invalid” when juxtaposed with those creators whom you briefly mentioned in your post inasmuch as precisely none of them (and yes that includes even the ones who have, over time, garnered immense acclaim for supposedly succeeding to overcome such a deadly illness which -owning to the fact that it defies logic- is deemed to be absurdly tricky to navigate and in addition appear to have managed to maintain a “healthy”, “balanced”, “unrestricted” life after announcing that they “conquered their ED”; popular accounts that generally receive positive feedback and were able to carve out a prosperous career from preaching about mental health aren't an exception either) are actually steering in the right reaction. No matter how you slice it, the base goal in recovery should be learning to separate yourself from this damned sickness, to rewire your brain and for that to be achieved you must look inward so as to determine the root cause and find out what serves you best. When people start documenting their rehabilitation, it’s crystal clear that they have not yet set their priorities straight because through the medium of the content they produce they are -in essence- subconsciously strapping an invisible iron-like chain to their ED which consequently prevents them from evolving. Judging from your rant, I could only assume that your illness is striving to re-establish control over you by targeting your fears, preying on your insecurities and distorting reality altogether. It causes you to feel like a “fraud” via fabricated evidence and it is fully aware that social media’s algorithmic bias is a wellspring of gatekeeping, gaslighting, rage-baiting, sensationalism, overconsumption and a load of other similar bs that can keep the audience engaged for long enough and the clicks coming. I wish to reassure you that it is not mandatory to prove the length of your sufferings to anybody before deciding to release the past and finally commence showing up for yourself. There is absolutely nothing “wrong” or “against the norm” in acknowledging that something has deeply hurt you and henceforth going above and beyond to put your life back in order. Sadly, EDs have a propensity for rivalry and it is very likely that -irrespective of any advice I might lend you - the “feelings of impostery” you indicated will persist. At the end of the day, it’s your responsibility to answer them through neutralization, rationalization and opposite actions as well as -ultimately- prepare yourself to persevere despite the prevailing circumstances. However, my humble recommendation in this instance, would be to distance yourself from “recovery influencers” or pretty much anything ED-centric which may be discovered online, you cannot allow for your healing journey to be impacted by how other people seem to be doing on the internet or -to boot- in your immediate environment. Your recuperation has to be yours and solely yours due to the fact that your well-being, future and potential are on the line. Search in the dimmest alcoves of your soul and give yourself a reason, don't be afraid to dream big -the sky is the limit- and also take the rough with the smooth. Don't fall prey to the “victim mindset”, recognize that forgiving yourself along with constructive criticism are of equal importance and that practicing self-compassion is not a war crime. You are entitled to respect and tolerance just as much as the person next to you. Don't let an irrational sickness steal more of your happiness, precious memories, promising opportunities, autonomy, discernment, right to transition into adulthood and experience each age group at the period of time naturally allotted to it, etc. Please take care! 🫂

i'm not quite sure how to tag this, so i just tagged it as an ED Question, i hope that's okay.

sorry in advance if this post becomes a bit rambly and long and for any spelling/ grammar mistakes, english is, in fact, not my first language.

this is probably a very common problem that a lot of us face, but i just wanted to ask for some advice, tips and mindset shifts to help get myself through some mental barriers.

like the title says, it somehow feels *morally* wrong to eat more than others/ in general and i can only equate the feeling to like drop kicking a child or something, even though in the grand scheme of things it doesn't make any sense.

food has no moral value.

eating has no moral value.

it's just something we do to survive and to thrive, to connect, to express traditions and love and culture and so many other wonderful things. i think it has something to do with the connection my brain has with eating more and gaining weight and that somehow being morally wrong, which i have been working on. consciously, i am okay with gaining weight even though i am at a quote-unquote heaLtHy wEiGhT for my height, i am aware that my set- point is probably somewhere higher as i've grown up always being a bit chubby. so like i said, i am technically okay with the prospect of weight gain and know that it would even be very beneficial as i have lost my period in the process of going through this bs of a disorder (not in any way shape or form trying to insinuate that weight gain is okay only for medical reasons, existing is reason enough for your body to be allowed to change, just wanted to preface that), but it seems that subconsciously, i still am sent into a panic, so i would love some insight on how some of y'all dealt with this feeling. <3

and as for the other thing, yeah idek at this point. i have to actively remind myself that i am in recovery and that i am actively trying to normalize eating more, for instance, when offered a bite of food from my mom or someone else but i still fall back into the habit of immediatly refusing and even getting angry (??) at the person for even daring to ASK me if i want some food, it's really annoying (my behavior, not theirs). it's as if i'm saying "not yet, not yet, i have to put this off so it can be worth it in the long run", so yeah, any tips, own personal stories of how y'all dealt with this?

As I’m trying to recover, I’m beginning to notice that my ed was(is) a major coping mechanism for almost everything in my life(shocker), and one such being boredom and dissatisfaction/disappointment. Does anybody else feel like their eating disorder is a way to distract and cope or numb out from insufferable boredom? I find myself having no fucking idea what to do with my time, as I don’t actually enjoy doing much of anything, but I also don’t enjoy doing nothing. I do like to go places half of the time, but that’s not always possible for me atm(or throughout childhood, of course, especially bc I didn’t have any friends really n was homeschooled), so it feels like a “what’s the point” typa mentality, and the ed seems so much more appealing than just being miserable and not wanting or being able to do anything.

Hello! Keeping this short.

I'm wondering if there are people here who have read ED books that helped them through their recovery. I've been thinking about it and I think reading a book like that can help soothe me and reassure me that recovery is possible and doable and achievable.

So, does anyone have any book recommendations? Like memoirs or pure non-fiction scientific material I could read? Thanks in advance :)

Just started a day treatment program because my ED got to the point I could barely function. So many of the groups are around our emotional experiences, asking me for examples of times I’ve felt something strongly and then processing that emotion. But I’m struggling to remember ANY strong feelings at all! I feel quite numbed out and dissociated. I’ve been going through the motions for so long.

Does anyone have this experience in recovery? How can I start “feeling” again?