I (24F) relapsed with AN in the past year. I’m so miserable and all I want to do is eat my favourite foods, not force myself to exercise when I’m not physically up for it, have dessert, I’m so so miserable and tired and exhausted from all of this. I just want to stop being sad. I want to stop revolving my life around losing weight and being thinner. I want to recover. But the last time I relapsed, when I actually went all in with recovery and did fully recover, I started out UW and felt like I had a “right” to recover.
This time, because I started out slightly OW due to medication weight gain, I’m now still at a normal weight. This is making it super hard for me to convince myself I have any reason to recover. I know it isn’t true, but my brain keeps telling me I have nothing to recover FROM and no reason to eat more if I’m not even UW, despite the fact that I’ve lost quite a large amount of weight in a fairy short time, but still - my brain only fixates on the fact that I’m still not UW, therefore why should I have any reason to eat/recover? Even at my lowest, I never had any major health issues, my labs were always normal, I never fainted despite having POTS already, so I already felt undeserving of recovery then, let alone now. Yes I’m cold and weak but most of my anguish is mental, which feels like something I need to just suck it up through.
To be super clear I mean no invalidation to anyone who isn’t UW with this, in my mind it truly only applies to myself and I absolutely don’t think anyone who isn’t UW is any less valid!!! But yall probably know how our brains love to make us the only exception. I keep thinking once I get to an UW bmi I’ll feel valid and then I can recover, but I know very well from my last relapse that that is not how it works out. I hate EDs so much.
Do any of you have any advice on overcoming this/have you felt the same way? Sending love to you all ❤️