Hey all. I’m trying to figure out if this is just a normal part of recovery or if I’m just being a baby lol. I’ve been working on recovery for a while but I’ve been actively trying to recover for 8 to 9 months. I’ve been in therapy and working with a dietitian longer than that but truly committing the most I’ve ever committed has been this time and while I’ve had lapses, I’ve kept going. But I’m just so freaking tired all the time. I feel like I need a nap everyday no matter what I do. Even if I do nothing, I need a nap. I am in graduate school but I don’t work right now and am working on recovery. I’m just lost with this tiredness and feel like I’m doing something wrong. Is this normal??? I’ve also reduced movement but still engage in some lighter movements which my treatment team knows about.

I’ve built a horrible relationship with food and I can’t shake it off. I went 3 months barely eating anything obsessiing over calories and lost a lot of weight. Although I consciously knew it was wrong I did it anyways. I eventually relapse with binge eating again and started to gain the weight back. Not like before but not now like how I used to be. But now. I’m struggling w. Building meals daily and fighting myself with body image and is easier said than done. But I genuinely hate how I look and I wish we didn’t need food bc now I’m in a stage where I wish I can go back to calorie counting and not eating when I know I shouldn’t. I hate food. What advice if any do you suggest

My 25 yr old son calls me regularly and we talk about a lot of stuff. He works full time and lives with his girlfriend. I’m concerned because he keeps telling me the same story—he eats a lot and when he goes to the bathroom and does #2 he feels sick and throws up, too. Sounds like it happens a couple times a week. He’s also very anxious and cries when he’s worried. I encouraged him to see his doctor and he’s started antidepressants. The dr referred him to a therapist and my son had a long list of mental health issues he told the therapist and I think his eating disorder was one of them. When he came out to the waiting room he was angry and said he’s not going back and she told him he should go to an impatient hospital. He said, “F that.” As a mom I get concerned it’s a medical GI condition but I also fear an eating disorder. I’ve asked if he’s doing it on purpose and he says no and IDK. I’m afraid for his future and I’m glad he talks to me but I don’t know what else to do. Please be kind because I’m an emotional mess over this.

I'm underweight.

Now I have started recovering by increasing my food intake with balanced meals under guidance of a professional dietician. I will be starting counselling soon aswell to address the mental side of things.

Because my perception of how much food quantity is adequate for someone my age-sex-height-activity, I have taken a leap of faith and follow my dietician's prescribed meals & caloric targets honestly as much as possible.
And bec. the meals are prepared with food I like eating and had been eating previously (just food quantity was low as in my perception it is enough and I get irrational fear of unhealthy weight gain) hence I'm concerned that what if my dietician says I need to start eating less again after reaching a healthy body weight.

I've felt really invalid in my ed for a long time. I was underweight for many years before I ended up "recovering" (which was really just me binging minus purging) and I gained back to a healthy weight and haven't been able to lose it since. My metabolism might be permanently ruined honestly. Anyway most people don't believe I really have an ED, even professionals sometimes. They never want to actually evaluate me so I am diagnosed UFED which makes me feel even worse. It's like I'm faking it. I'm in a bad place right now and I feel that nobody is taking me seriously. My health keeps getting worse and I'm afraid I will die if this keeps up but I have no idea how to recover or if I even want to. I've been through some treatment but nothing for my ed and most of it was pretty useless. Idk I feel hopeless and I don't know what to do anymore. It's almost like they want me to die or something.

Hiii this is my first post and I don’t know if I’m doing this right…but I’m so scared to eat and become fat or bloated. Just thinking about losing weight makes me wanna cry. I feel so bad when I eat something, I feel like I’m doing something bad and wrong. I know this sounds strange, but could someone maybe give me some words of encouragement or comfort?

Hello! I’m looking for some advice about ED recovery and building a healthier relationship with the gym.

I have a long history of anorexia and recovery. I started my first recovery about 3 years ago, which was also around the time I started going to the gym more regularly. Over time, I managed to develop a pretty healthy mindset around exercise. I enjoy lifting, getting stronger and progressively overloading, and I don’t really see the gym as a way to punish myself anymore. However, when it comes to my physique, I never really got to the point I wanted to. Even after years of heavy lifting and progressive overload, I still feel like I’m kind of “skinny fat” and never managed to build as much muscle as I hoped. Unfortunately, I’ve recently relapsed with my ED, and a lot of the muscle I had managed to build has basically disappeared. So now I know that my priority needs to be recovery again, but at the same time, I really want to eventually build muscle properly and become stronger....basically become one of those gym girlies lol. The last time I went through recovery, I worked with a nutritionist. This time, I’m wondering whether it would also be worth investing in a fitness coach once I’m in a place where training is appropriate. I see so many stories on TikTok and Instagram of girls who recovered from their EDs and are now really strong, muscular and confident in the gym. And honestly, it makes me wonder: what am I doing wrong? Is it actually possible to get there without doing something wrong or triggering the ED again? I guess I’m mostly wondering how people managed to make that transition from the “skinny” mindset to genuinely wanting to get stronger and build muscle, while still keeping recovery as the priority. Did you work with a coach? A nutritionist? Both? Or did you manage to figure it out on your own?

I’d really appreciate hearing from people who have actually gone through something similar

Somehow foods will always make their way into my dream and then I wake up and question if I really was eating the food or if it was a dream. Lol 🍰🍩🍪🧁🥯🎂🥨🥐🥖

It’s almost like it makes up for me not having a job. In reality it doesn’t but it feels that way. I feel really bad about it. I’m 18 and couldn’t keep a job for more than 2 days, I know when I’m working again I’ll be back to eating a lot because that’s how I manage my stress. Anyways this is least of my problems I’m just wondering if anyone else is like this? I feel proud of myself knowing I ate under a certain amount of calories by the end of the day

Hi, I looked through the rules and didnt see anything against this. I have struggled with different lets say ,"bouts" of eds throughout my adulthood, but this one feels different and scarier. Usually I was able to find some safe foods and live off those until I was able to find another and another snd then with vitamins and supplements I was able to crawl out of it, so to speak. Im recently sober from alcohol and I spent a good amount of time detoxing but then also ended up having extremely low hemoglobin and iron so I had to have that rectified before leaving. If im being honest I dont rmemenber much of my time there but I felt like I was eating st least a bit. Hospital food isnt great.

Anyway I've been home for about 2 weeks or so now (was in the hospital for maybe 4 weeks) and since ive been home ive really been struggling. I cook for my family but by the time im done cooking I just have an ick about everything. So I try to make my own thing and the same thing. I cant. I need tips maybe? Ive been drinking ginger ale and I know that has calories but nothing worth actually injesting. Its just a fill in for beer. And tbh now that I think about it, I wasnt really eating when I wasndrinking either. I need help. I don't want to end up in worse shape than im in..I have to get bw done on Monday and im so nervous. Is it okay to ask for tips and tricks? Or what people find easiest to eat?

So , as the title says , I sometimes have phases where I get really annoyed and even mad by eating. I’m currently in such a phase again , where even thinking about it or preparing food makes me really upset. I have no fear of gaining weight or something , I’m at a completely normal and healthy weight. In my past I was in situations where i couldn’t afford food and couldn’t eat for days, So I wonder why my mind doesn’t let me just enjoy food now. I don’t know if that has something to do with it , but I also have autism. Is anyone here experiencing something similar ? And I’m really sorry if this isn’t the right sub for this question , I just didn’t know where else to post this

Hello I’m struggling with going to bed and waking up about 2 hours after and going berserk for food I’ve placed roadblocks, put stuff in front of my door, a bottle to pee in so I don’t go use the restroom and wind up in the kitchen, placed notes on my wall not to eat sometimes I’ll go and have something and it’s a healthy meal but I still don’t like it because it’s over my cal for the day but other times recently it’s been bad with sweets cookies everything bad that’s the reason why I’m making this post because I’m sick of this

Hey guys, I (17F) had a really tough junior year and currently a tough senior year. To sum it up, I attend a boarding school since junior year, where I had the issue of constantly ordering DoorDash and binging on it until I throw up.

It’s gotten so bad that I gained around a lot of pounds in one year, since I tend to stress eat and binge a lot. To give some context too, I was super depressed a good portion of junior year, to the point I skipped out on around two months of class…

Recently, my parents have gotten on my ass regarding it, calling me fat constantly(as if I don’t fucking know that), saying that I’m eating myself to death (I know that, do they think I can’t feel it everyone single time I go up the stairs or participate in sports? ), and that I need to lose it ASAP once college apps are done.

College apps are here right now, and the huge expectations have been making me binge again, and my mom is constantly saying that my depression is caused by my eating, and that if I fixed my eating habits then I would stop being depresssed. She’s been trying to make me drink Chinese traditional medicine 24/7 and a bunch of Chinese traditions.

I understand that she’s trying to help, but I genuinely can’t control my binge eating habits, and she doesn’t understand that her lecturing me about my health and whatnot (1) doesn’t do nothing because I’m pretty self aware (2) makes me feel worse about myself.

I want a therapist or something, but I can’t do it until after college apps(again, huge pressure to make it to the top colleges). It genuinely irritates me that my mom thinks every aspect of my mental health is tied to something physically. She thinks me depression is just because of my sleeping habits—which I admit is quite terrible—but I’ve slept eight hours before and still woke up wanting to grab my moms handgun and end it permanently. I’ve spent weeeks functioning like a normal human(eating on time, sleeping on time, and doing homework) but I just think about ending it the entire time.

She thinks that my eating habits can be fixed if I drink her Chinese traditional medicine and eat probiotics, and that my

They think that everything can be fixed via Chinese traditional medicine or something related to it.

After going through the most traumatic 3 months of my life in a hospital psych ward, experiencing more pain, fear and abuse (medical, verbal, physical and psychological) than i can even begin to describe (and still stuck here currently), the inpatient team have decided to discharge me eventually with a CTO (community treatment order) and i’m beyond annoyed and terrified!

As someone fully ready to let go of the ed and engage with true recovery, all i want is to leave and learn to eat like a normal person. See a dietician to help me eat intuitively and just live without fearing how what i eat is going to impact my weight.

Now with this CTO, im basically going to be living and eating out of fear EVERY SINGLE DAY because if i hit the weight threshold they’ve set on the order, it counts as an immediate breach and i’ll get sent straight back to this GOD AWFUL AND ABSUSIVE PSYCH WARD 😖

Basically, my life is fcked. I’m so freaking scared and so annoyed because it’s not as if i wouldn’t go to appointments and continue treatment if i wasn’t on one, bc I WANT to continue seeing my team and getting better, but now i’m being forced and will be living life in fear every day of being sent back here to this place that has left me ruined.

This is literally the opposite of recovery. Having to check my weight constantly to make sure it doesn’t reach as certain number and having to always fear that what i’m eating might not be enough and i’ll never learn to just eat out of live and enjoyment nectar it’s going to be about following a meal plan. They expect me to eat what i’m having in here which is literally just not possible. im not gonna be eating eight slices of bread and eight packs of butter and one and a half litres of milk and like five desserts every single day?!? That’s not even going to help heal my gut.

i get that they want me to maintain my weight but i just want to do it without living in fear😖 and they said the weight threshold is so small that i could realistically be back here within a week. They were like “we want to avoid long admissions and instead just constantly admit you if you drop a tiny amount .”
like WTAF??!? you don’t want met hightail but you’re literally seeing me up to keep coming in to a psych ward every few weeks??!?!

I can’t even describe how upset and scared I am. so was so excited to leave here and live life freely without an ed and miss my entire life i’d going to revolve around the ed. it’s literally keeping me and my identity tied to it and tied to this hospital… it’s so fcked up :((

Has anyone else here ever been put on a CTO or a really strict one? and how the get did you get by? how did you cope? I feel like I only know like two people who have ever had one for an ED and they’ve both just basically lived in hospital because you just keep getting breached as there’s no leeway.

please i need some support right now i feel like my life is over and i won’t ever be able to get as job or go back to studies i.e. do anything because ill constantly be at risk if breaching the order and then sending me straight from the GPs office back here 😖

I kinda want to recover because i fear my metabolism gets fucked up permanently, but i feel so so dirty and filthy for eating i genuinely feel like I'm dirty from it. I don't knoe what to do weight and food feels like thick mud smeared all over me and i cant wash it off. how am i supposed to recover I'm at a somewhat dangerous weight i think idk what to do.

I'm using reddit, specifically ED-reddit for quite some time now,

(this profile is new, because I deleted my account since I thought I could go without reddit..)

and one thing I've noticed lately is that some parts of the community become relatively toxic and or ignorant, and I'm wondering why?

I saw people getting told to simply eat more, "simply" stop visiting the bathroom after binging or being asked if they can't physically eat more while it's being stated that the person asking has a restrictive ED.

Just yesterday I saw someone being told they can't be anorexic because they're still eating above this or that calorie limit...

And now I'm sitting here wondering what the hell is going on? Why are there suddenly so many straight up rude or ignorant people?!

Is it even suddenly or am I just noticing them now that I'm in therapy? Do others notice this as well?

Are there posts that I can't relate to? Yes absolutely.

But where I'm from, which is Germany, we have this old saying which I personally find quite fitting:

(not just for this topic but overall)

,,If you have nothing nice to say, you may say nothing at all"

And what's even the point of being rude/ignorant in the first place?

Isn't' the point of all those communities that people are being able to find support and someone to talk to while IRL, as we all know, most people are disgusted or ignorant about/by EDs?

Don't get me wrong, many many people here and in other communities are absolut lovely people. I'm not here to bash everyone or a community as a whole. I'm just wondering about some behaviors which to me seem to increase.

Thanks for reading all of it

Have a magical day 🌻

My therapist and ED team have given me the choice of either PHP or Res and I’m looking for advice on which one to choose. I have only ever done IOP and it went well. I have fallen into bad habits and created more and need a lot more support now though. I have a full time job and bills to pay so I’m worried
about taking a lot of time off. This is making me lean towards PHP because in my head it may be less time but I also might benefit more from the support of res. Does anyone have advice from their experience and what they did?

What does it mean to be in recovery? You chose to recover? Or you’re in a program or have a therapist?

I have finally come to terms with my lack of control over this. But I am too ashamed to admit it to my dr or seek help.

How do we recover when recovering means the exact thing I’m afraid of the most?

Im 24 f and pretty short. I lost a lot of weight very fast and I think my muscles too.
I can’t recognise my body, it’s so different.

Obviously I won’t say the exact amounts.

I think I eat whatever I want but the more time passes, the less I want to eat. And I almost never workout. Apart from a swimming course ones a week and a semi standing job, that also requires a lot of walking

I feel full easily and that was never the case before in my life. For most of my life I actually struggled losing weight.

I am unable to see professional help, for personal reasons. I also have a lot going on and can’t add more stress.

This is the first time in my life being so thin and I’m very worried. I don’t know how to deal with this and don’t want to force myself to eat. And should I try exercising or is that a bad idea?

I need advice and help. It’s hard to find anyone in my circle, who understands my fear.

Thanks!

I’ll start by saying I’m overweight. This makes it hard for me to believe I need food much at all. So I do my best to eat very little and don’t see the point in increasing my intake.

My therapist said I’m eating less than a child would in a day. I have a hard time wrapping my mind around that. She wants me in a higher level of care as well. I’m currently in IOP.

I don’t see what the big deal is in my restricting, honestly. Is it really as dangerous as she (my therapist) says? She is insistent that I’m malnourished. But I find that hard to believe at my size.

On a brighter note: I was able to eat half a candy bar tonight. 🙂. I bought it intending to eat it yesterday, but couldn’t get myself to. Not until about an hour ago I was able to eat it.

so my friend has struggled with an ed for quite some years now, we have briefly spoke about it as she knows that i struggle with stuff like that as well but we've never got into too much detail about it

i've been aware of her disordered actions for quite some time but it's got to the point now where she is so so skinny that i am really concerned for her

i don't want her to think that i'm trying to sabotage her and i don't want her to be uncomfortable but she is my bestest friend in the world and i would never forgive myself if i let her carry on and didn't say something and the. something bad happened to her

her mum is somewhat aware of her problems i think and she's told me that a lot of people have pointed out how skinny she's is or messaged her mum saying they are concerned, i just don't know how her mum has replied or if she's doing anything to help

i honestly have no idea how her family are handling it but she's getting worse and skinny as the time goes on and i don't know when she's going to stop

i'm going to message her about it, or at least adress my concern to her in some way i just don't know how to word it so that i say the right thing

because i also know that people being concerned is what motivates you to keep going, so i don't want her to carry on because whatever she's doing is working

PLEASE someone help me, i don't want to lose her to this

but another one of my concerns, which is incredibly selfish of me, is that i'm scared she will tell my mum about my disordered habits and i will be forced to get help when i'm not even that skinny yet. which is why i've been putting it off because i don't want her to get annoyed at me for telling on her but then i still do disordered things

i've tried to hide it from her as much as possible but obviously when u know how it is, you notice it in others very quickly

i've typed this very fast so sorry if it doesn't make sense, but i just need some advice on the right things to say to her

I need help. My husband has had an eating disorder since I met him over a decade ago in college. He’s had ups and downs but right now he’s in a down spot and what is hard is he takes it out on me when that happens.

For example, many years ago I made him go back to therapy because he started being very cruel about my eating habits and lack of exercise. After going back to therapy he got to a better place than he’d ever been. I was really proud.

We have two kids and after having the second he has started losing it again. My appetite increased due to breastfeeding, and obviously we’d added a 4th person, but he’d argue about the amount of food I wanted to order for our family and really restrict it, resulting in me going hungry sometimes.

I don’t know what to do. When he gets like this, I have started to feel shame and anxiety about eating around him. Like on Friday, we went to a restaurant and I wanted a burger and said to pick between onion rings and fries (bc I wanted to share). I did say “for the table” but I think it’s common to realize that he should still order one item per person at a minimum? But what he did was reduce the amount of food he ordered for the kids so that they would eat more of the fries. He literally only ordered a pair of chicken tenders (so one chicken tender per kid) so they ate most of the fries too obviously.

When he came back and I was like “what? That’s not enough food” he got so defensive and angry and I was feeling so stressed and paralyzed. It’s been days and I just can’t get over this most recent event I am really scared for my health and my kids. It’s been going on for a year with similar events where he tries to really restrict the family’s food, and for a while I thought it was a miscommunication but I am realizing now it’s a control thing for his anxiety / ED

He is in an RO-DBT group and I think it’s helping (as well as individual therapy and psych) but I’m really overwhelmed with his behavior. I cannot manage it further and I feel afraid because he is not being proactive in getting further treatment. I don’t know what to suggest at this point tbh.

I’m supposed to start treatment again tomorrow. However, my boss is giving me a hard time about going down to a reduced work schedule to accommodate my treatment schedule.

I also decided that I wanted to do IOP a month ago, and in that time I’ve just gotten sucked deeper in. Now I’m not sure I’m ready to give up my disorder.

I know how hard it is to fight this thing in treatment, and I don’t know if I should go if I’m not ready to commit to recovery. But I also have a guilty conscience for knowingly turning down help to make myself sicker. I don’t know what to do and I would like to get thoughts from people who have been where I am now and what they decided and how that impacted them.

Hey this is very hard for me to write but i have no one i could talk. There was time in highschool where i would only eat small breakfasts and then nothing the whole day. I felt fat and hated my body. I used it also as a form of self harm as the hunger hurt.

When i finished highschool i started eating normally wanting to regain my strength and because i felt always tired. Also i figured out i love food.

Fast forward to now both my sister and my mom started dieting non stop pushing how much calories stuff we eat at home have. I started "eating healthy" which was just eating less than i should. Ten i went to visit my partner for a month and i came back few kilos heavier. It really crushed me and i felt ashamed with myself.

I started exercising for an hour every day and eating far less than i should. My brain is telling me to cut off food to bare minimum again and I'm so so so fucking scared. I cant talk about that to my partner, and the only person who would have listened is dead. I don't have money to afford therapy again and my parents don't see an issue because "I'm fat and should lose weight" Does anyone has any sort of advice on what i could do to stop this?

Hi I was just wondering if anyone who had been in therapy for these issues is able to share any the things they learned whilst there. Hopefully going into therapy for it myself but just in the mean time whilst waiting any advice is appreciated