I just read through mychart and it explicitly says that I look "well-nourished."
I am clinically, objectively, underweight and went to the dr for symptoms related to my AN-R???? I'm spiraling. Does this mean that they think I am fat? I'm deeply upset by this especially because I try really hard to avoid the doctor.
What does this language mean??
Skinny people existing. Anyone's bones showing. Skinny people on the street. Your friend dieting. Anything and everything diet related. Food. This sickness is pure misery and i seethe at the people who are sitting and glamorizing it. If you glamorize this hell outside of your head man genuinely fuck you. I have become such an insecure miserable person. I used to be an ambitious responsible adult. I fucking hate this illness it has taken away every bit of my happiness. Fucking everything is a trigger. I will recover out of fucking spite because fuck yall who glamorize this bottomless pit of fire and fuck anorexia and fuck mental illnesses. My life has become centered around numbers and there is truly nothing more pathetic, painful and shallow as this
I’m a 17 year old dude and I’ve struggled with disordered eating since I was 14 or so. It used to be just because I was insecure and wanted to be thin, sometimes to punish myself as well but these days it’s not about that. It’s not about control either, in fact it’s not really about anything at all.
I don’t know why I starve myself anymore. I’m basically a grown man so why do I feel the need to eat less than a damn toddler? Beats me. I suppose it’s just a habit at this point. You’d think that with no reason to keep looking weight it’d be easy enough to just recover, right? It’s not and I can’t. I suppose maybe I like seeing the numbers go down and I feel a sense of superiority over fat people (I feel disgusting saying that but it’s true)
I don’t even really want to recover anymore, I view this disorder as neutral and just a part of my life at this point. I eat enough that I’m not in catastrophic danger of major health complications and I’m not underweight anymore so I just don’t see a real reason to put in all the effort to recover, especially since trying to recover is what sent me into my current spiral of hardly eating. People around me have started to notice my weightloss again and I don’t even feel validated anymore. I’m just annoyed that they’re commenting on it and might try to stop me.
I think I’ll have this disorder until I die but I don’t think it will get to me before my other mental health issues do
So I had a really bad bout about a year ago. Lost a lot of weight, body was exhausted. Then I decided to recover because I had so many problems. Okay, started eating a bit more and eventually gave in to the extreme hunger. Queue 2 months ago when I noticed how much I gained (but actually really healthy bmi) and I hated how I looked. So back comes the restriction. I've now lost some, not extremely but I feel like my body can't go "so deep" anymore as last time. I feel like I need to eat, that I was barely recovered from last time. But I'm so so so scared that if I start eating normal again, I will be heavier than even right after recovery. It really makes me want to restrict more and more because then at least I have some leeway to gain some.
How can I eat more without gaining excessive weight? Because then the whole cycle starts again. Anyone else had this?
This is what this illness always convinces you of
It tells you lies
That you could be sicker
That you aren't as sick as this other person with anorexia. So you don't feel sick enough. You feel like you need to make yourself worse, to be taken seriously
That the number on the scale could be lower
That you have not developed this particular medical complication, so therefore, you aren't that sick
That you feel absolutely fine, and if things were really that bad, you would feel much worse
That because you aren't in a hospital right now, everything is fine and you aren't that bad
Even after doctors, therapists, nutritionists, your parents and family have told you that you need help, that you need to eat more, and that this illness is deadly, part of you will be in denial
You hear repeated phrases from medical professionals
"You can die of anorexia nervosa. This is an illness that requires treatment."
And yet, when you are really sick, you will make excuses as to why you do not need treatment
Doctors say "I am concerned about your weight loss."
You look in the mirror, and stand on the scale, and see that you need to lose more weight
People treating you in a hospital say
"You have to eat more. Your low weight is putting too much strain on your organs. You can die if you do not work on treating this."
Your malnourished brain convinces you that the doctors are wrong
You are angry your parents made you come to the hospital. You cannot see the danger you are in
Because you aren't eating at first, you are told you will be given a feeding tube
This scares you, so you reluctantly agree to start eating
But the whole time you are in the hospital, you are scared. Scared of giving up the control this disorder convinces you that you have
You always see imperfections when you look in the mirror
You try to have a sense of control, which you believe comes from monitoring what you eat, what the scale says
In reality, anorexia is controlling you
It started controlling your thoughts and actions, the day you couldn't stop worrying about your weight
No number you reach is ever good enough
That feeling of validation, of being sick enough, never happens
Even when you are emaciated, your brain will lie to you and say you aren't that sick
Even when doctors are worrying, when therapists are repeating to you that you can die from what you are doing, when your family cannot stop asking you about your weight loss, even when you have been warned that you need intensive eating disorder treatment
A part of you is going to be in denial and say that you can continue at this low weight you've reached
You say that you don't need to be in a hospital. In the depths of anorexia, getting treatment is what you view as scary
You think it means you will lose all the control you've worked so hard for
But you never had any control. You are being controlled by a life threatening mental illness
Even as you become dizzy and weak from not eating, you won't see it
When you've been forced to go to the emergency room by your therapist, you won't see it
Even after being admitted to an inpatient facility, and even after sitting in front of doctors, who tell you that your eating disorder is life threatening, you won't see it
Even after you pass out in front of your parents, you won't see it
When your mom asks you to weigh yourself in front of her, and she breaks down crying when she sees the number on the scale, you won't see it
Even after a friend of yours who was anorexic, passes away from complications of the illness, you won't see it
And even after you have developed really painful medical complications because of starving yourself, you will still be in denial
Afraid to stop what you are doing
Afraid to change things
That voice that tells you "I am not that sick."
You are that sick. This disorder is twisting things, making you believe things that aren't true
Your illness is valid.
Your labs don't have to be abnormal for you to be really sick
And organ failure from anorexia can happen at any weight. You don't have to reach a certain weight for things to start going wrong. This illness is unpredictable
Even at your sickest, as your body suffers the consequences of not eating enough, you won't feel like you are sick
The moment you think "I'm not sick enough."
This is a sign of how much you are suffering and how sick you are
does anyone go through bouts of both insomnia and hypersomnia?
I used to struggle a lot with hypersomnia due to depression, I would sleep more than half the day, but lately I've had nights with barely any sleep. it's currently 6AM and I have to leave for class in a few hours. I can't sleep at all.
I'm not sure if this is due to my eating disorder or not.
I’ve quit therapy just now. I’m not happy with it and it’s ruining my life. I’ve never felt so miserable and unmotivated since giving up anorexia. I don’t even feel like I ever had it. It was just a diet gone wrong. They make this massive fuss over nothing. I’m so happy I quit, I feel free again.
I have been getting irritable an hour or two before dinner time. I don’t know what will fix it other than well, dinner time.
I haven’t restricted like this in quite some time and my kids are older now. I do what I can to comfortably have a “normal” dinner with everyone to not let it show that I’m ocd mathing everything that goes into my body. Scared to step on the scale.
I don’t know what to do.
I just took a cake out of the oven that I asked my s/o if there was time to bake it before he made dinner and he said yes. When it was done I told him I would leave the oven on and he said “ya, set it up to 400.”
He still hasn’t started cooking and it’s been about 20 minutes. I suppose he doesn’t see how desperate I am. It’s my fault. I should do better and just let this all go but I can’t.
so i found my mom's scale...it was in one of her drawers. my metabolism is still screwed up and it's pissing me off. i don't know what to do about it. all i wanna do is restrict but it's not helping me l0se weight. i just wish i wasn't like this...
Im in recovery for about a year now, but in the last five months ive been at the same weight. Recently i made the choice to go all in and gain more weight, but ive been noticing that i am starting to gain more feminine curves mainly around my hips. I ve always been dealing with body dysmorphia and its starting to take much more space in my head now.
Any thoughts to how should i overcome it?
2 days ago i ate a lot of chocolate, bread with yogurt and honey, banana, granola, a lot of apricot jam, 6 baklavas etc etc and 2 big pastries right before my dance class…
i had to finish the class earlier to go home because of how i sick i felt. Felt like throwing up plus I had to go to the bathroom and this is proceeding until today. Didn’t have any good sleep since couldn’t sleep at all and had to go to the bathroom way too often…
This really woke me up from the constant overeating though….
The day after i was so sick i just ate some sponge cake, bread roll and a bit of ice cream….
Today I have yogurt with sponge cake for breakfast and I again feel soooo sick…
what do i do? what do i eat? what should i def not eat? HELP ME PLEASE I FEEL SO NAUSEOUS
I’ve recently started upping my intake to a more sustainable number, after I passed out on a bus. I’ve been recovered and i’ve relapsed 3 times now and It’s incredibly tiring, and this time around I have no medical support etc around me. I’ve decided on my own to up my intake, but I feel as if my view on food has become warped, and I no longer know what’s a “sustainable” number for me.
Im afraid that I’ll go up in weight, even though I know that it probably needs to happen, even though I have a “healthy” BMI at the moment.
Any advice to follow through?
Is anyone in the same situation?
Sorry for messy layout, I’m on mobile.
Does anyone find this illness extremely isolating? I feel like people are avoiding me and even like some people are scared of me. No family or friends have checked on me since my diagnosis a few months ago. I’m just alone.
Hi! I am helping my parents ask this question and I hope it is alright for me to ask this. My sibling has been saying that she can't eat much in a go and so she eats two meals a day (around 11am and 5.30pm). But she would come out to snack every hour between 8pm till midnight and she mentioned that she would get hungry(?) and if she does not eat she got get this gastric types of pains. She consumes antacid daily. Do you guys experience this? I think she is trying to recover but is keeping quiet about things as of now so we aren't sure what's going on. My parents are really worried.
p.s Please do excuse my poor English and I hope I do not come off as rude. Please do let me know if this post is too inappropriate and I will delete it. Thank you!
Edit: I forgot to mention that she has anorexia and has restricted her meals + overexercise for 2-3 years.
Has anyone been to Ngamai Willam Residential in Melbourne, Australia? If so, what was your experience like? Or experience of residential treatment in general. I’ve only been to outpatient and inpatient before.
hey, so for a bit of background on my situation im a 16f and im currently attending an iop day service after being diagnosed with anorexia. I first opened up about my struggles around 6 weeks ago now and my mum took me to the doctors the next morning where I was then sent straight to hospital. I was there for 3 weeks and ive now been out for 3 weeks and attending the iop (an alternative to being sent inpatient).
Anyways so I have this friend- let's call her holly- and she has always claimed to have struggles with her eating. I was always so so supportive of her and id constantly be encouraging her with simple things like "food is fuel" or if she'd said she still ate after a high anxiety day id say she did amazing etcetc. However, id never actually see Holly struggling with food, which I know may sound unfair to say as many struggle silently, but she acted in the complete opposite way to how she described her relationship with food. She would eat constantly, still a healthy amount of food, but I mean she'd have all 3 meals and would always be snacking at school. She even started a weight gain journey and carried on eating as she would but just started drinking like protein shakes and stuff aswell just to help her along. This was successful as she has gained weight now and I think shes in a relatively happy place with her body.
Despite all of this, she still has this thing where she still claims she really struggles with food. Then i began to struggle with restriction but I didnt tell anyone about it, I very much kept it to myself. I dont know why it started, i had been battling depression for a while when it started so i think it could've come about as a result of that where i just wanted to control something when i felt like my emotions were so dull and out of my control. I kept it very well hidden but when I was at school some of my friends would notice if I wasn't eating lunch and would ask why to which id just say "im not hungry". However this happened one time and Holly's response to this was "im supposed to be the one with the eating disorder here not you" before carrying on eating her lunch. This was the first time I properly thought like, what is even going on.
Then she would still come to me and all our other friends like "i had a complete breakdown to my mum about food yesterday", so we'd all ask why and she would say things like "i just dont enjoy it anymore". This again baffled me because:
its obviously important to enjoy food, but you dont have to constantly enjoy it
she was literally lying.
I remember we got invited to my friends house for dinner a few days before she came out with this statement and we had tacos. I just had two, filled mostly with lettuce. She however had 1 taco and also got very excited about having some of the taco mince in a wrap instead! She also snacked on my friends Christmas chocolate and even asked for some of the fancy looking truffles my friend had. To me this does not align with her claims of struggling with food.
Instances like this happened alot and it really deflates you when you can feel your body literally giving up on you and you feel like you can't tell anyone yet she was jumping on the first opportunity to say she was struggling with food but displaying the exact opposite.
It didnt just happen with the food though. There was one time where she came to me and another of our friends at school and claimed that the night before she had thoughts of "what's the point anymore". We obviously supported her loads but she wasn't hiding it, she told everyone about how "suicidal" she was. At the time i was still really battling my depression but I had refused all help up to that point. Eventually I was forced to accept help as I couldn't even get into school anymore but what was Holly saying to all our friends whilst I was off? "I hope she doesn't get as bad as it got". Is that not an insane thing to say? I already struggled with not feeling valid and id only just agreed to going to camhs and I find out shes saying this behind my back.
Back to the eating, when I went into hospital, my mum told me to tell her as i wasnt going to be at school and it wasnt fair to lie so i told her and she said "i know how hard it is". But no she doesnt? She doesnt know what its like to slowly feel your body getting weaker, to feel your heart getting slower, to have your hair fall out in chunks, to have your period stop, to never feel warm, to not be able to think properly, to lose your relationships with your family and friends, to lose all the love you have for yourself but feeling stuck in it. In some twisted way not being able to stop something so damaging- she doesnt know what thats like. Holly wanted to come and visit me but I said no as I wasn't up for visitors which was true but it was also because I just didnt want to see her. I just felt like she wanted to be nosy and see me in hospital. Yesterday I invited Holly and another friend over to my house just for an hour or so and it was lovely to see them. Mainly we talked about random stuff as I didnt want it to be focused on me but they asked how things were going so I explained little bits. I just said about all the different people at the day service, what I do there and how the therapy should be helpful and stuff. I also made a joke about one of the first things my boy best friend asked when I told him about it which was "if we go out to do this thing would you still eat with the rest of us". I just said it was a typical thing for a boy to ask but like, I couldn't even think of that right now as im struggling to even eat at home just infront of my mum, let alone at an unknown restaurant infront of everyone. I thought nothing of sharing this at the time because, why would you when gossiping with your two best friends?
I received a text later on from Holly saying "ive decided im gonna go to chums" (which is a low intensity mental health service). I asked why and what's been going on to which she replied "my anxiety has been really bad, I haven't been okay for a decent amount of time, if get scared over big meals out and ive decided I dont like eating out all the time as I feel not in control". I was genuinely gobsmacked. For me there's a few things to unpack.
after seeing me she has now decided shes not okay and needs to go to therapy
she now gets scared over eating out- something she's never mentioned before- but has decided to mention it now after I explained about it. to add on to this, she has just been on holiday for a week and when she visited, she was telling us all about the food and the fact they had all inclusive breakfasts and ate out every evening on top of just eating throughout the day.
she used the word "decided". She's "decided" she doesn't like eating out. mental illness is not a choice, I didnt choose to have anorexia but I do and im fighting to get my life back.
why the flip is she telling me this? It triggered me so bad because it felt like my ed voice scored a point. It felt like she was validating my ed and the fact that it believes not being in control is bad and eating out is bad. I mean why would you say that to someone who's just started their recovery journey? If she truly struggled with food I feel like she'd be more aware of how much harm she could be causing by saying that.
I just responded by saying im probably not the best person to speak to about it right now. I feel a bit bad because I know id never forgive myself if something truly was happening with her but I just dont believe it for a second. Am I like going insane for thinking she wants attention and is almost jealous of my ed? Am I right for just having shut down the conversation? Im so lost but from my pov she is just not a good friend.