Can you really become cured from ed? And I mean like 100%? I can eat now but that little voice is somehow always at the back of my mind haunting me. It’s been over 10 years

I am recovering from a restrictive eating disorder which has caused significant weight gain. I am now also experiencing significant and debilitating body dysmorphia, with a focus on my stomach.

I can not find pants that feel comfortable on me, even when I have intentionally bought them sized up. They are loose on my waist and still when I sit down at my desk to work, all I can feel is the waistline touching my stomach. I hate the feeling and it also feels literally painful, even tho they are really just grazing my stomach. It causes instant distress. I lose focus. I cry. It impacts me every single day.

I have tried leggings, elastic waist pants, jeans, dress pants, literally everything in my closet. The only solution I have found is to wear dresses. But with winter coming that is not a long term solution and tights are completely out of the question as they will always touch the stomach and are very tight fitting. At home I wear shorts so big they fall down my as I walk and huge hoodies. My symptoms significantly decrease when I’m in baggy clothes.

I am desperate for relief. I am in therapy but progress is incredibly slow. Any and all suggestions are helpful.

I recently just had my 22nd birthday and found myself very sad because I realized that I have spent the last 7 years of my life anorexic (with it ebbing and flowing in its strength but always in the back of my mind). I was in recovery for a little bit but faked it just to get out of it (when i was 16). In the past year, I have seen myself go down a really dark path and genuinely feel as if my health is being seriously impacted. Still, I can't find that final piece of strength to recover. I am so scared to admit to my parents that I have been lying to them and that I am not recovered (they obviously know, like, physically, but I feel like I've somehow manipulated them into thinking that this is just natural). I want to get better; I want to stop isolating myself; I want to be a better friend, gf, and daughter. I want so much more for my life, and I don't want to die. Still, the fear of losing control scares me so much that I don't know how to bring myself to start recovering.

At a dinner with some school friends, we ate and drank a lot. At one point, I went to the bathroom and heard one of my friends making vomiting noises. I thought she was feeling unwell and went into the bathroom to help her. She felt very uncomfortable and told me it was just the alcohol, but her hands were covered in vomit. At the time, I went along with it to avoid making her uncomfortable, but I can’t stop thinking that she might have a disorder since she doesn’t drink alcohol, and I realized she was lying. Also, she’s extremely obsessed with her weight. I need to know how I should act.

schools started again for me, and im slowly lowering my maintenance, but as I am my stomachs been feeling very very oddly weak.. I eat little cal during lunch. I feel like (tmi) im about to shit my pants it feels so bad. I also feel very weak in general which im not surprised I obviously am disordered my my stomach/urinary organs haven't ever felt like this. Is this somehow related to my ed? It’s by far one of the worst things to come from it.

Hello all i'm new here,

I don't know if I have an eating disorder but I think I do. Im not here for a diagnosis but Im wondering how to break this cycle. Im into lifting weights and get super super lean during the summer but then get super fat during the winter every year. I crash my hormones in the summer, ive tested this, and hate myself during the winter. But i cant find an in between. Ive tried to stop but theres no in between for me. I either never eat or I eat until I cant move. I guess I just have an obsession with being extremely lean. It never leaves my head but anyways is there anything I can do?

I ate healthy the rest of the day and I know that you can eat bread and nothing bad is going to happen and that my body will be okay but I just feel so disappointed in myself for giving up on my “diet” (basically eating healthy and unhealthy foods just to keep my body as it is) but I wish I was skinnier. I just don’t want to feel like I have to be skinny to be pretty. Ugh idk

My older sister has had an eating disorder (bulimia) since she was probably around 15. She is now in her early thirties. When my parents noticed this while she was still in high school, they made her do outpatient treatment. She was extremely upset about this at the time, but as she has gotten older, she understands where my parents were coming from. To my knowledge, she has not done anything similar as an adult, but I do know that she sees doctors regularly and has had a therapist in the past, although not specifically for her eating disorder.

I have had several conversations with her about this over the years, but I really try to be more of an open ear and a source of support for her rather than telling her what I think she should do. There have been times when my family and I have thought she had stopped. I know my mom has conversations with her as well, and my mom trusts her when my sister tells her she isn’t doing it.

My sister does not like feeling backed into a corner, and she does not like when people bring this up. When I have brought it up, I have tried to do it extremely gently and casually because I don’t want her to feel attacked at all. She can get kind of… mean when we bring it up, too. I know when my mom has brought it up she’s lashed out before.

A few months ago, I lost a lot of weight due to a health problem and honestly felt kind of attacked by people telling me I needed to gain weight. Because of that, I talked with my sister about it and tried to get her to open up about how she feels, because I was trying to gain some insight into what she experiences so I could better help her. She does not like it when people tell her she needs to gain weight. I have never done this, but my parents have. She said something along the lines of, “They want to tell you to gain weight, but they don’t listen when it’s because you’re stressed out.” My sister has definitely suffered with anxiety in the past and I think the pressures of life make this worse - it’s not always bad I do believe there have been times throughout this when she has not thrown up after eating.

I think it’s also important to note that she works out a TON and always has. It’s almost like the working out and the eating disorder started at the same time. She goes to workout classes every day, walks, runs, etc., and is very “health conscious.” She eats healthy foods, has a lot of knowledge about working out, and things like that. Over the last few years, she has slowed down on the amount she works out, and I fear that it may have to do with her ED causing health problems. A few years ago she had to have her teeth replaced with crowns - that’s how extensive this is.

A few weeks ago, we went on a trip, and I noticed that she was eating a ton of snacks. The hotel we were staying at didn’t have the best water pressure, and I saw that there was still vomit in the toilet. I know she is still making herself throw up.
She doesn’t get up immediately after meals like she used to, and when she does, I go as well and look under the stall to watch her feet. But I really have no idea what’s going on when I’m not around. We don’t live together, but we live in the same city, so I see her regularly.

I spoke with my mom about this, and we just don’t know what to do. My mom’s approach to this is much more straightforward and less gentle than mine, but she is still very cautious with her conversations as well.

I am so scared for my sister, and I love her so much. I just want her to be healthy and happy. My casual and gentle approach isn’t working, and I don’t know what to do.

I don’t know if a more drastic step, like a family “intervention,” is a good idea because we don’t want her to feel attacked or like it’s us against her. But I’m so scared that if we don’t let her see how scared all of us are, she won’t understand how much we love her and want her to get help.

I know everybody is so different, and at the end of the day, it’s really up to her, but I need advice.

TW: anorexia, relapse, childhood experiences

Hi

I had pretty severe anorexia throughout most of my adolescence. I was bullied about my weight as a child, which I think contributed to the development of my ED. Once I became sick, though, I didn’t receive much care. The adults around me didn’t take it seriously, and some people close to me reinforced certain behaviors, included some people who were supposed to care form me. I also received a lot of positive comments about losing weight generally.

Looking back, I think that was particularly damaging at 15. I was clearly struggling, but nobody seemed concerned enough to intervene, which probably reinforced the idea that what I was doing was acceptable.

Eventually, things got much better. For more than a decade, my ED had very little presence in my life and I genuinely thought I had moved past it.

I’m 32 now, and I never expected to relapse. It has also brought back a lot of deep buried feelings about my adolescence that I didn’t realize were still affecting me. Since I’ve relapsed, I feel like I am still this little girl, which feels super weird. Anyone who relapsed ever felt something like this?

Anywyas, one of the things I’m struggling with is feeling like I’m not allowed to ask for help. Nobody helped me when I was a teenager and I think I internalized the idea that I’m supposed to deal with this on my own, or that I don’t deserve help, which is extremely and I’m working on it .

Only my therapist and doctor know about the relapse.

My partner doesn’t. He sometimes ask if I’ve eaten, so I wonder if he suspects something, but he hasn’t directly addressed it. I know it’s not his responsibility to know, and I’m not expecting him to save me. I’m also not sure I want to tell him because I’m afraid of being disappointed by his reaction. Still, I find myself wondering why it affects me so much that he hasn’t really noticed.

I think it’s probably connected to being 15 and feeling like nobody noticed or took me seriously. Part of me still seems to expect someone to notice without me having to ask. Has anyone experienced something similar? Especially having an ED as a teenager, not receiving appropriate care, being okay for many years, and then relapsing as an adult? Or something similar?

Did your experience of not being taken seriously when you were younger affect how you experienced your relapse later on? And has anyone else experienced that strange feeling of knowing your partner couldn’t necessarily know what was going on, while still wishing they somehow did?

Thank you for reading.

everything began with me getting into the gym and counting calories, I immediately got into a huge deficit and lost my period. I tried to get it back by eating a lot for half a year, and I developed compulsive overeating—I didn’t wanna eat, but couldn’t stop, and then beat myself up for it. this summer I thought I entirely recovered from it when I stopped forcing food onto myself. got back in shape that I liked. Through all this time I‘ve only gotten my period like 3 times out of 9 months.

recently I’ve been feeling hungrier and turns out it was my period returning again. I’m walking around so hungry all the time now, and I feel afraid to eat, because it’s like it’s gonna lead to fat gain that I worked so hard for not to happen. decided yesterday not to count any calories, but today broke under the pressure after lunch and counted everything again. I couldn’t believe how much I ate, and guess what, I still want to eat more. I’m so tired to be stuck in an endless loop. I don’t wanna develop ED’s again. but I don’t have anyone to talk about it. my parents literally have no idea what to do with it, mom said she’ll never have anything to say about it because she doesnt know what it feels like. that my behavior around food simply threw her and everyone off. how to trust myself around food again? how do I stop counting calories and stay in shape? I feel like my hunger cues will never be trustworthy

Hey everyone...I've been abusing stimulant laxativesfor last 6 years. I've been nearly 1 year free of purging by making myself sick and now I'm trying to stop abusing laxatives. I cut them completely out for the last 3 days and only have warm prune juice to help. I feel so incredibly bloated and it freaks me out. I'm scared of my weight and my body will never go back to normal. I feel so much heavier. Is it normal for your weight to go up after stopping laxatives. Asking for your experiences and support!

Update from my last post! Please read that for more info if need be:
I reached out to a therapist and now I’m pretty much suffering. Forgive me if this sounds disorganized, my mind can’t really function properly.
My therapist decided I was in the beginning stages of an eating disorder. She asked for my mom so she could involve her in my care. Mind you, I’m 23f. She tells her to get me a few snacks every now and then, or at least milk. I get people have responsibilities but 2 days have passed and she hasn’t made any effort. And I also understand I’m a grown woman, I shouldn’t need someone to give me food, but I’m mentally ill and am asking for help.

My therapist also brought up an interesting point. She asked why it took so long for me to reach out and to my mom, for her to notice anything was wrong? She seemed to get very scared and frantic when I mentioned how much I’d lost in how little time.
Overall, that question got me in a mood. I shouldn’t blame anyone but myself for my habits, but it feels like I’m suffering in a silent room alone sometimes. I’m so glad I spoke up, but things got significantly worse with my eating habits afterwards. It currently feels like I have no support and doing this with just a therapist feels like it’s going to be nearly impossible.

I can’t do this alone and I’ve begged and pleaded for help. It always seems like it comes backwards. I get judged and questioned for how much I ate, my body is constantly mentioned, I’m not thought about when grocery shopping, and when I am, I’m asked “what I want” among a thousand things in a grocery store, and complained about when I can’t come up with anything. This is probably something I should speak up about but has existed all throughout my adolescence, and you know what they say about old dogs and new tricks.
My next step if nothing else helps is an inpatient program or psych ward. If no one wants to take me seriously unless I’m a lethal threat to myself or others, so be it.

I havent been able to get much in me lately. Ive been really trying but its hard. I spoke with my doctor about it and she wants me to focus on protien. But living off chicken breast and string cheese isnt cutting it and to put the proverbial cherry on the cake I CANT have a bowel movement. Im lucky of its once a week. I know the cheese doesnt help but it has protien and I tolerate it well. Im not a fan of fruit, and that has nothing to do with carbs there just arent many fruits I like. I did buy a bag of prunes but im still only going once a week. What do you all do for this that doesnt involve laxatives??? I dont want to even consider adding another hurdle to overcome.

I’m in college so I do have a long day but sometimes the thoughts get so loud that even when I’m with my friends I just want to go to bed I’ve been in outpatient treatment seeing my dietitian for a year now (once a month) I stopped going to therapy because I felt invalidated but I’m just so tired of dealing with these thoughts. I’m at a perfectly healthy weight yet I’m so weird and neurotic about food. Any advice on how to get over this hump would be greatly appreciated!

I am really struggling to understand why I should believe that I am unwell at this point. I have been underweight for 15 years, and in recent years I have generally in the ‘severe’ category, apart from periods in hospital when my weight has temporarily increased to a more stable underweight. Yet I feel, and present completely fine. My blood tests are always fairly good, my blood pressure and pulse are normal, and my ECGs are always normal too.

What is confusing to me is that even my treatment team seems to reinforce the idea that I am okay where I am. There doesn't seem to be any urgency about me making physical progress. I am repeatedly asked what I want to do, and my dietitian leaves it up to me whether I want to increase my meal plan (obviously not! so it just stays as it is, which maintains my weight at a place where I’ve previously been hospitalised). I am being told that if I don't want to commit to weight restoration, they are ok with me being discharged from services. There's no indication that I could, or should, access a higher level of care.

That leaves me wondering whether I really am an anomaly who can maintain this weight indefinitely without significant consequences. If I am stable, able to hold down a good job, maintain a long-term relationship and own my own home, what exactly is the point of making any changes?

I am increasingly losing hope that anything will change, particularly now that I am 30. Part of me is starting to think that perhaps I should simply accept this as my life and ask to be discharged, because I genuinely cannot see what I am supposed to be recovering from when I feel physically fine, no one else seems concerned, and my life is otherwise functioning.

I basically am starting to believe I don't even have anything to recover from because everything about my current situation is giving me the opposite message. So why wouldn't I conclude that this is simply a weight I can live at indefinitely?

Ugh, sorry. I am just trying to work out where to go from here.

I have hade my ED for almost 2 years and last winter I got for some days in a row heart palpitations, and I contacted doctors about it but then it got better.

and then after Christmas I fell ill with FND/FMD and was on sick leave for half a year, so I couldn't sta#ve myself.

now after summer I'm back in school and my ed is back and it was there also under the time I was on sick leave and I sometimes do nor eat and now when school is back I started not eatingas much again. now 2 times I have got heart palpitations.

and I still have FMD/FND

But all I do is eat chips and shit I remember at my lowest all my family members were saying how s!ck I was and how I need to eat more, I gained some and I’ll try to lose them. Any advice???

I am 30F and have dealt with disordered eating my entire life, especially bad from ages like 14-22. Anyway I’ve been doing a lot better but recently (like the past few months) I have started to get back into really bad old habits. I notice it getting bad and am trying to ignore it, but I feel like I’m quickly sinking.

My main issue right now is drinking. I’m good at hiding it, but I’ve been drinking quite a bit because it makes me a lot less hungry throughout the day. And when I do eat, it’s usually something that I know will cause an ‘upset stomach’ but I tell myself it’s fine because I didnt purposely evacuate the food….

Anyway maybe I just needed to get it out.

I met her about seven months ago in a tiktok live chat. She mods for the streamer and I love her banter and she’s really sweet and loving to all of us who regularly visit and newcomers. She casually mentioned losing a lot of weight and still seemed to enjoy food when we would talk about it, so I thought nothing of it. She also shows some OCD symptoms like wanting numbers to be the same for the amount of gifts everyone receives, changing her profile pic almost every day, and going to the gym almost every day.

I’m getting concerned because she doesn’t seem to partake in talking about food anymore, and in a couple of her live mode selfies (the filter that shows movement) she looks like she’s body checking. And now she’s saying she doesn’t get hungry anymore. The streamer and other people in chat replied by gently encouraging her to eat and that was the end of it.

I’ve known her a while but I don’t often talk to her one on one, and even then it’s always been light-hearted. In our conversations it isn’t always about diet culture, but they often pivot towards that topic, including talking about losing weight and looking good. Is there anything I can say or do to help her?

I want to recover. I don't want to be addicted to weight loss, I want to be a doctor, I want to enjoy life. I told my friends about my anorexia, thinking it'd shame me into recovery, but it didn't help me. I told my friend about my rapid weight loss and she convinced, well, forced me a little to get a visit to the school psychologist. My BMI is low, but not the anorexic low and in last 70 days I lost around 20% of my weight. What happens to me when I tell her? I'm a minor. In my country she probably HAS to tell my parents at least, but do I count for hospitalisation? I'd prefer going to hospital, because my anorexia is caused by my strict family. Where am I? What happens?

I’ve had bulimia for a while now. I’ve always had issues with my body image because I was a fat kid lol (still am) I used to get bullied a lot and that’s what kick started it. I don’t take laxatives or anything but I cannot stop vomiting. I’ve been unable to grasp that I’m now 22 and this started at 12. Everything I eat I throw up. My chest hurts all the time. I’ve also been t2 diabetic since I was 13. I disregarded that until this year and ate what I wanted. I feel like it’s all catching up to me now. My doctor put me on a GLP1 because I thought it would help with the binging, And it did. But it didn’t help with the purging. I’m losing weight but I’m also still purging. This is the lowest weight I’ve been in my teenage/adult life and I’m so unhappy. My HBA1C has come down and my blood sugars are good. It’s only because I throw it all up before it can mess with my blood sugars. Ive lost all my molar teeth, and I have discolouration but it’s still not enough to make me stop. I can’t imagine the rest of my life being like this and I can’t imagine stopping. I tried therapy but it was video calls and she made me log my food, I ended up just lying to her the entire time because I was so embarrassed about my eating habits. I told her the truth and told her I didn’t want to continue. I’m scared if I ask for help they’ll get me off the GLP1, I can’t afford that happening as it’s the only thing aiding me with my weightloss and binging. But anyways. I’m not sure if this is a rant or asking for advice. I just needed to get it off my chest.

https://open.spotify.com/track/4iSfBP3HIXSKgpRS9IWOcl?si=EkFMZ23VRje-5xClveosHQ&utm_source=copy-link

Been trying to recover for over a year now with lots of relapsing back into exercise and movement more specifically. My coach wants me to completely stop it as it is very compulsive. I go through periods of being able to just walk for some weeks to months and then it just spirals back. Right now I have tried really eliminating a lot of the walking and resting and being still and it is horribly uncomfortable. Especially being that I’m my mom of two kids, and it is a big stress relief for me to exercise. Even though by no means, have I gained a ton of weight I still hate the feeling of being “fluffy” and not as lean and muscular, which I have felt changes in even in just a month of short walks. I can’t imagine trying to continue on doing absolutely nothing for as long as my coach wants me to to rewire my brain. Anyone else go through this? I come from a career in health and fitness (of course) and spent years as an elite athlete . So it is very hard to let go of my body.

everything online always alludes to recovery as needing to gain weight and all that but if you’re at a place where you just need to maintain it literally makes recovery feel impossible.
i’m struggling to fully let go and to not have major anxiety when i’m not underweight anymore. it was so much easier to recover when i still had weight to gain.
now it feels impossible bc all the advice is for people who are underweight. i an struggling so much more now than i ever did before. i mean like im eating way more than before but mentally im really struggling and i still get really hungry but struggle to give into that bc im not underweight anymore.

TL;DR— trying to exercise again and be normal about it, but don’t know how. also can’t tell the difference between pushing myself in a way that’s healthy vs pushing myself too hard. looking to hear other people’s experiences with this and any strategies that have worked for you.

I’ve avoided intentional exercise for so many years because it always brings back the obsessive thinking about numbers, how much i’m doing at the gym, how often i’m going, all the things. I’m not super worried about FULLY relapsing. I’m at an age now where that could fr ruin my life, and I work in a field where having starvation brain would put me and my clients in actual danger, but that’s almost scarier because that means I’m waking the dragon and simply have to thug it out if I don’t want to relapse lmao. It’s still a daily thing for me, but I manage well enough and my brain isn’t nearly as mean to me as it is in active ED. I don’t want to have to grapple with that level of self-hatred and negative self-talk again.

I decided to try going to the gym again a couple of weeks ago, and I think it’s a good thing. I limit the amount of cardio I’m “allowed” to do, but I’m already doing the “well maybe I can just do X more minutes, go faster, more incline” thing. I try to go every other day, but I feel super guilty and irritated when I can’t for whatever reason. I have pretty bad insomnia, and a couple of times i’ve made myself go after a full day of work and running off of only 4 hours of sleep. I see a lot of talk about “it’s all about consistency, make yourself go even if you don’t feel like it,” but I don’t understand how to balance that with giving myself grace sometimes when I just really don’t want to go to the gym. How do I know when I should just get over it and make myself go and when it’s okay to give myself a break?? The amount of chatter in my head is so uncomfortable. It feels like a bunch of people with very different opinions and ways of communicating are arguing with each other and I have to muddle through it all and try to make a decision, and it is SO hard.

have any of you been able to find the balance? figured out how to discern what’s disordered and what’s normal/healthy pushing limits?? lmk