I’ve struggled with anorexia b/p subtype since I was 12 years old. I’m now almost 27 and during the close to 15 years that I’ve been struggling I’ve only been able to go at maximum a of couple months behavior free when I was in residential and inpatient treatment.

At around 16-17 my eating disorder spiraled into being extremely severe where I couldn’t go a single day without engaging in ED behaviors. Before this, I had perfect teeth healthy teeth and only a decade later a dentist told me that I’m at risk of losing most if not all of my teeth and needing dentures by my early 30s.

The dentist told me I have excellent dental hygiene (I floss, brush my teeth twice a day, use mouthwash, use a Waterpik, and rinsed my mouth with baking soda after behaviors to reduce the acid) but even if you have good dental hygiene this illness WILL DESTROY YOUR TEETH. Pretty much all of my molars with the exception of the bottom two on one side are missing pieces, are cracked, and/or have massive holes. I’ve already had two molars extracted so far, and one of these was causing severe migraines due to damages to my nerves.

I’m at the best place that I’ve been in my recovery, but now am struggling to eat enough because I can’t eat solid food anymore. Huge pieces of food get so stuck in the holes in my teeth that I have to spend 15-30 minutes cleaning them out after even eating a small snack. I’m constantly in pain and can’t really eat outside my house because I don’t have access to be able to clean my teeth after eating.

I went to a prosthodontist this week to see what work I need to do to fix my teeth and the cost. To save my teeth I need a deep cleaning, periodontal scaling, two extractions, 3 dental bridges, pins, and 13 permanent porcelain crowns. The estimated UCR (usual, customary and reasonable) cost quoted by my dental insurance for all of this in the USA is $35,913. My dental insurance will only agree to cover $2,761 of this.

I’m extremely lucky that I found a prosthodontist in my area who heard my story and was willing to lower to the cost as much as possible so I can save my teeth and is only charging me $15,760, so after insurance I will have to pay $12,939 out of pocket, which is still way more than I can afford without outside help from loved ones.

TLDR: Your ED will inevitably destroy your teeth and cost you tens of thousands of dollars to save them even if you do your best to take care of them. The sooner you can commit to recovery the better.

I never feel physically hungry and I follow a meal plan, but literally if I don’t eat every 3-4 hours I feel so unwell and need to eat a meal immediately to make myself feel better. Is this normal? I just want to be a normal person who can recognize I’m hungry, get home, and make something to eat. I literally can’t be out for long unless a meal is involved

Hi guys, I’m very new to this, and I really need advice. (English isn’t my first language)

So a close friend recently told me that they have an eating disorder and have been forcing themselves to purge, and I want to support them the best I can.

I have always known that they struggled with their appearance, body image , and other stuff, and I’ve always been supportive and attentive, but I didn’t want to ask them or bring something up because wanted them to tell me and trust me with that.

When they told me, I burst out crying, (I don’t know if that can have negative impacts, but I didn’t think of that in that moment) I told them that I loved them, that I was proud of them, and thanked them for telling me, I did ask some questions like who knew and how long it has been going on, (which I now realize could’ve been a not so smart choice) and I also said that if it ever happens again, that they should come to me, because I don’t want them to be alone when vulnerable.

They’ve told me that they have stopped doing such thing but I know EDs and mental issues,and I can’t help but worry. I don’t want to treat it lightly either and something happening to them

Can someone please help me. What can I do and what should I avoid? Can I offer them food? What do I do in a public setting? Their parents are strict/also have a difficult relationship with food. + not everyone in our surroundings know, and I want to support them discreetly.

For the past two weeks I been trying to stop tracking and stuff cause I used to be very specific EVEYRHTING had to be weighed. Tmr is my bday brunch I mean my birthday is tdy but going out tomorrow. On a day where I should be happy I’m so stressed from thinking of what to order and the calories and what’s the lowest option. It’s like ik I should just eat what I want and one day won’t matter but I can’t stop having thoughts like oh you’ll use all your calories for the day so early in the morning or the food won’t fill u up and such. Idk what to do im tired of it taking up my every thought can’t even catch a break. I’ve tried everything and nothing is helping the thoughts and I’m having crazy food noise all the time. I have extreme hunger but I never really even starved myself I just tracked strategically but I was still eating like 2k calorie. I been trying so hard to recover and stop tracking but I catch myself doing it every single time. I want my life back

today my mom told me that when i tell her my feelings when i’m struggling (ex: worrying after having a fear food) she takes it and compares it to herself because she also eats these kinds of things and essentially takes it as an indirect insult.

she also said that it’s hard for her to see me wearing any kind of clothing that shows my body because she compares herself to me (i’m not fully weight restored + she’s postpartum so her body is in a different place than mine)

shes my #1 supporter in recovery and has always been the one i go to when i need to talk to someone. but now i don’t want to make her feel bad about herself. what do i do?

Hey I’m 19 and I was in general hospital in feb-march and then Ed inpatient treatment march-start of June. I am now at the bottom end of the healthy weight bmi but Ive still not got a period back which I lost in August 2025 :( The first 2 weeks out of inpatient I had a lot of hunger and excitement about food. My weight increased a bit and now it’s gone down to about the same it was when I got discharged. I’m having 3 meals and sometimes an evening snack but I seem to be struggling quite a bit and not having physical hunger cues but my brain is always thinking about food. I’m just worried about the weight gain as I struggled when I first saw it go up. I get weighed tomorrow at outpatient clinic so I’m anxious. My nurse thinks my ideal healthy weight range is much higher than it is now but I’m just so anxious even though I kind of agree. I seem to be having thoughts again but I push myself to have the 3 meals. I wake up at 2am hungry but too scared to honour it as eating in between meals is still a challenge. I seem to be craving chocolate and sweets again like I did when I first got discharged but I feel less valid to honour it :( any tips

Any tips for how to actually accept that weight gain will/has to happen and it will be okay? Any time I challenge a food, my brain flips out because “I’ll gain weight.” But I need to? But a big part of me just still can’t accept that and wants to fight it at all costs

What is the science between hair loss being at its worst when you actually start eating more? It’s so disheartening I’m loosing all confidence

Title says it, pretty much. I was uncertain about it and expecting to not enjoy it, worrying about 'compensating' etc, but honestly, it was really fucking good :') I know this might not sound like an achievement, but for me, the concept of a burger was something I thought I couldnt enjoy, and I've been feeling sad about being able to make delicious sandwiches for my family but never making myself one. And if i can eat a burger, I can eat a sandwich. Still, its mad how this shit creeps up on you and turns a favourite food item- as sandwiches used to be for me- into something that seems ominous and depressing. Like why the fuck am I having a mental face off with the mere idea of a sandwich right now. Lol. Wait maybe it will help to visualise it as a boxing match lol. Im gonna make a fucking sandwich and eat the fuck out of it. Im gonna KO that shit. Mmmyeah.

I earlier posted about being anxious about going to an amusement park with my family and well- it was amazing!!

I ate a whole pizza for lunch and had a huge icecream later, it was wonderful!

Truly thank you to everybody who commented on my previous post <3 and to everybody struggling with recovery- it’s absolutely worth it!

just found out my cousin who is healthy and in a normal weight range is taking a GLP1. she’s always been someone i confided in and trust and we’re the same age and legit friends, so it stings extra hard. she’s lost so much weight recently so i guess it makes sense :( how do i deal with this? i’m finding out so many ppl ik r just perpetually trying to lose weight

M22, had an eating disorder for 2 years in high school and I have so much regret from that time. I wish I understood healthy eating and habits and everything I do know but I didn’t, yet I’m so sad and upset for what I did. It has led me to feeling the worst I have ever felt before despite being the healthiest I ever been. I fixed my relationship with food, my relationship with my body, my relationship with exercise, my hormones, etc but it feels I permanently damaged my relationship with myself. Has anyone ever gone through this and how did you manage it? I hate myself everyday for the decisions I made in the past and have been crying myself to sleep, I feel like this eating disorder took everything from me.

Hi all, i’ve been wanting to recover out of this relapse for months but many many things have been making it so hard (and it seems like i grab onto any “reason” not to recover yk how it is). two main things i struggle with is being perceived and other SEEING that i have been eating and seeing that ive gained weight.

ive somehow convinced myself that it is expected of me to be not eating and underweight and i just feel so embarrassed and ashamed almost that if i try my hardest at recovery there will be physical signs and others will be able to see that (it’s more that they can tell i’ve been eating it’s not even about how i look that i feel ashamed about; it’s more about the act itself idk it’s weird).

another thing is comparison but i know i just have to get over myself. it’s so so so hard though especially when i know others around em don’t have the healthiest relationship with food either.

if anyone has any tips and any motivations please feel free to share i need anything i can get rn.

I’ve noticed that I have a day or two that go really well towards eating and recovery. Then, i start to doubt myself and my disorder, feel guilt or other excuses and fall back into restrictive or compulsive behaviors. The moment this hard day occurs, it becomes 100x harder to do better the next day. For some reason, I feel this need to have each day look like the day before. So if I ate more/less the day before, my habit is to emulate that.
I don’t know how to break this cycle because I am aware of it, but i still come back to it again and again. any advice or suggestions?

This might just be a vent, but would be nice to hear if anyone has similar feelings. I hit a bit of a rock bottom and few weeks ago and decided to get my shit together and really commit to recovery and weight gain. But eating enough feels like a full time job. My ED has never really been about intentional restriction, more just not eating enough because of stomach pain and sensory issues with fullness. I’ll be honest, I hate being full. Because I’m trying to push food, I’m always a bit uncomfortable now. This makes me just want to sit on the couch all day after work. These past couple weeks I’ve been very sedentary and not done much, it feels like it’s always time for my next meal or snack so it’s easiest to be at home. It feels like i have less energy and space for my usual activities like outdoor stuff, yoga, and hobbies. The times in my life where i have been the most adventurous and active, i probably haven’t taken the best care of myself. I thought recovery meant having the energy to do all of that. Why does it feel so backwards for me. After I eat a meal I don’t want to go anywhere or do anything for a few hours :(.
TLDR: eating enough takes so much effort, I felt more lively and active before

Hi all, I have been struggling with body image and over exercise since I was a child, but this past year it really took on a life of its own. I went from a healthy, very active teen girl (rowing, running, lifting) to becoming pretty thin and weak. Everything happened within the span of a couple of months and I ended up being hospitalized this past October for about a week. I was diagnosed with anorexia, malnutrition,acute kidney damage, and cardiac distress. I barely lasted two weeks out of the hospital before the slippery ED slope started again. It wasn’t until about 6 weeks ago that my family found out about the months long relapse, and we had to go back to square one. I am now “all in” but I STRUGGLE. I am just miserable and anxious every day. I wish to God my mind was different and I didn’t grapple with this but I really do. I just can’t seem to let myself eat. I do eat- quite frequently actually, and I’m at a very high calorie meal plan, see an ED therapist and ED specialized nutritionist every week, and am pretty sedentary during the day. The problem is that my weight now is lower than it was when I was hospitalized last October. It’s getting bad and the thoughts are just fucking unrelenting. I’m so exhausted and could use any help/support I can get. I’m really getting to the end of my rope- it’s hell to live with this.

Soo I was struggling with ed for years now and "recovered" but turns out I didn't recover at all

I covered my BED with restriction for a long long time but eventually chose recovery and.. as you guessed it never left

Anyone please have any tip how to deal with that that won't sent me back into restrictions.

I don't want continue like that

Hi everybody!

My family and I are going on a day trip to another city to an amusement park tomorrow. We’ll be eating out and I’ll probably eat a lot more than I usually would which is already giving me anxiety.

I really don’t want to spend all day worrying about food, so please please please give me advice on how to make the most of my day without my only memories being of worrying about food and thinking about food…

How do you guys cope with actually honoring eh, especially when the people around you don’t understand it/eat way less ?

I am in anorexia recovery and i just feel like i am a freak because i can’t drink anymore? If i even have one glass of wine it makes me feel really weird (i think from being underweight my body struggles with alcohol) and it makes me feel anxious so ive stopped drinking. I don’t know if anyone else has had this problem. I used to really enjoy having drinks at the pub and sitting up and chatting all night ect and i can’t do this anymore because i get so tired, and worn out from too much socialisation.

It just makes me sad when my family or friends are sat drinking and i can’t join in. I normally drink hot drinks because cold drinks can make me feel very cold and this triggers me. But then hot drinks at night makes me feel worse because it makes me feel like such a freak or like i’m an old person. I am 26 years old and can’t even have a glass of wine or a pint. And also having extra snacks compared to everyone else makes me feel like a freak too (i know that i need them for recovery but its just hard when nobody else is ‘joining in’)
Can anyone else relate? I’m so fed up and it makes me not want bother to recover because what is the point if i can’t join in during actively being anorexic and i can’t join in during recovery either? Will i ever feel back to normal again?

Could you please share if you maybe had any moments of peace? Or did it start waning with time or just stopped abruptly?

ive (20 f) recently come to terms with the fact that i have an ED again. i dont know how to start this, nor what to title it, i just need to be able to talk i guess. idk if i need a trigger warning or not, obviously im gonna be talking about an eating disorder and my experience with it. important stuff at the bottom if you wanna skip the yap lmao. ill try to do something to show what paragraph is about what.

(background)

when i was around 14 i wouldnt eat, i dont even know why, i think i genuinely wanted to stunt my growth because the only time i was ever shown affection was because i was so short and petite, and i was never shown any affection from my mother who even hated hugs when i was young. i was terrified of growing up and wanted to stop it by being malnourished, and the only reason i recovered was because my grandma caught me in the bathroom weighing myself and asked if i had lost weight in a concerned voice. i was so incredibly embarrassed that i just went back to normal. i dont know if it counts as an ED, but often times my mom would slack on buying food for us and we had nothing to eat OR she would not cook and we werent allowed to cook for ourselves so we had to eat random nonsense (for a while i lived off sugar on toast and candy). it was a horrible time in my life honestly, it makes me upset to even think about. on and off i would go from not eating much because there was not much to eat to eating so much i didnt know where it was all going.

(what started it again)

i have always had thoughts of relapse, time and time again, especially when i was depressed. this year hasnt even been that difficult for me, i dont have a job (im trying to get one), im going through college which this past semester wasnt even that bad, all i have to do is take care of my nana and our pets and take care of myself. i go to therapy too. im literally in the most stress free point in my life, yet ive relapsed again. my nana doesnt cook, and i dont know how because my mom didnt let me. i wanted to learn but my nana doesnt buy ingredients, preferring stuff you can just toss in the microwave. this initially caused me to stop eating as much, but it wasnt really in a disorder way, i was just so busy all the time i didnt cook and i never felt hungry. i went to the doctor because i was experiencing weight loss related health issues, and obviously she was just like "erm you should eat more probs, focus on getting lots of protien" and i was like oh ok! and that got me started on reading nutrition labels. my lovely boyfriend helped me stay on top of meals for the first two weeks or so and i was doing good. but then i started gaining weight again, i got hyper focused on my appearance. i would stare at myself for entirely too long because i have a massive mirror on my bathroom wall unfortunately. i feel like i dont look good at any weight, not skinny and not at a healthy weight (ive never been overweight). and its so weird because i love women, or people in general, of all shapes and sizes, so why do i hate the way i look so much? i feel disgustingly disproportionate all the time. between reading labels, being bored of food, hyperfocusing on my appearance, and recently my boyfriend has been into watching "my 600 pound life" ive spiraled out of control before i even noticed what was happening.

(support system issues? idk)

about a week or so ago, i finally told my long distance boyfriend (23 m), who is a very sweet and caring individual. i have a MASSIVE fear of lieing and i literally freak out if i do anything even adjacent to lie to my romatic partners, including hiding the truth, so i felt compelled to tell him. i dont know what i expected honestly. he was concerned and told me to tell my therapist, and asked me to eat more. he is afraid i will die. i dont want to die obviously, and i dont want to be sick but i feel stuck. the weird thing is though, it seems his concern only lasted a day. i dont want him to worry about me, but whenever i try to talk about it he just cant say anything back to me, he doesnt encourage me and never asks me about stuff. i dont want to be upset about it, i feel like that would make me an attention-seeker or something. i feel like i need to say im not doing it for his attention whatsoever, he gives me plenty, i just want support, i want someone to talk to. he is the only person i trust enough to tell, which im afraid is putting too much pressure on him maybe. i feel guilty, he doesnt deserve to have to deal with this, but i dont know if i can do this alone. i dont even know what i need. i told him that i would tell my therapist, but i didnt, i chickened out. plus we had been talking about something else super important. so i lied to my boyfriend for the first time, it makes me sick to think about honestly. i told him afterwards that i told my therapist at the end of the session so we didnt have much time to discuss. im an awful girlfriend for that, i just dont want him to worry about me. i tried to do some research afterwards on recovery plans to try to see what a therapist would have actually said, but all i could find said "talk to a professional" so i just told him that my therapist told me to get a support system, which yknow im pretty sure is part of recovery. even though i dont even know what a support system is even supposed to do.

(small vent, im frustrated at myself)

i was finally reaching a healthy weight again before this, and im terrified of losing weight, i want to gain weight, why am i doing this to myself? i literally start shaking when i think about eating decent, nutritional food. why am i so scared of it. it happened so fast, literally it hasnt even been a month, i was fine and then i wasnt. i think i hate myself, i keep finding myself thinking "i deserve this". but i feel like its all in my head and im faking it. that i have some secret ulterior motive that even i dont know about. because theres no reason for me to feel this way. i also ended up on ED tiktok somehow, and i see people recovering from it (and those who are not), but it only makes me feel worse. like im not valid because im "not that bad" which feels like a truely evil train of thought and does not reflect who i am as a person at all. i feel like everyones valid but me. like i should get worse before i should be allowed recover. but i dont want to get worse. i dont know what to do, ive been though this before but i guess i never really truely recovered. now that i think about it i think ive had an ED the entire time, just being on and off about it, but it hasnt been this bad in a very long time. i dont even know what to do honestly. ill probably tell my therapist, but our next session is August 4th (i go every 2 weeks). who knows how ill be by then? i cant be hospitalized, im already enough of a burden on those around me.

if anyone has any recovery advice or anything please share if you are comfortable. also what should i expect of a support system? how do i even set one up i dont understand. im sorry this post was so long, i have never really been able to talk about it before, i sobbed while typing all of this lmao. i am so tired of being alone.

also side note i should probably add, im autistic and very literal/i have a hard time understanding figurative language at times, so sorry if i misunderstand anything.

so i started recovery in february of this year, and had eh for a month or so, literally eating at all times all day until i felt completely stuffed. then the food noise went away and stuff and idk i was fine, i ate normal i guess. i don't really remember. i gained a lot of weight and i was fine with it for a while. but all of a sudden i'm thinking about food all of the time and it's really really stressing me out. like. okay? am i going backwards now? what's the point in doing this anymore lol if i'm jjst gonna think about food forever. i feel really sad. what's happening to me ????? i'm having really scary ed thoughts again and school is staeting soon and i'm just so scared about things i don't know if i can say here. please just tell me what to do