I consider myself being "recovered" from my eating disorder for at least 2 years or so now. I struggled with my eating disorder since I was 9 or younger maybe, started recovery when I was 17, and am now 21. I struggled with very restrictive eating and sometimes I would binge/purge. I was pretty severely malnourished but avoided going to inpatient treatment, and my recovery (starting when I was about 17) consisted of seeing a therapist and trying my best to increase my intake on my own.

When I was 18 I started dating my ex boyfriend and relied on him a lot during our relationship as far as eating went. He is quite a bit older than me and has never struggled with food, and never had to worry about having enough money for food so he had a drastically different way about food. I just ate whenever he did, usually ate whatever he ate and we'd prep our food together. I did make meals on my own but I always knew there'd be food around the house and we always made at least 1 meal a day together.

As of 3 months ago, we are broken up. I am worried because I know I am not eating nearly enough and I feel unwell as a result. I know I need to eat more but thinking about how I'm going to get/make a meal is so overwhelming and I feel like I don't even know where to start. I also am moving and doing so much in my day that eating doesn't feel like a priority to me even when I feel hungry. I keep telling myself "I'll go grocery shopping tomorrow" "I'll figure out a good routine for eating tomorrow" and then tomorrow comes and I say it again. Another big struggle is that I often feel nauseous at the thought of eating even when I'm hungry. Sometimes I feel like I can't eat if I tried.

I do know how to cook and I have money for groceries. Don't have money to be eating out all the time.

Does anyone have advice on this or good resources that I might be able to use in this situation? I appreciate any constructive thoughts you can give me. I just want to be healthy, gain weight, and have the energy to focus on what I really care about. Thanks for reading and for any advice!

Hi guys, my older sister has been struggling with an ED for about 15 years now (she is 25) but I don’t know exactly what she struggles with (ex: anorexia, etc.) because we don’t live in the same country and she is incredibly secretive and never tells me anything even when i ask openly. But she gained a bit of weight in the last few years and says she hates her body now. And i wanted to buy her some pants recently but she refused to tell me her size because i think she was embarrassed. Mind you me and my other sister are pretty skinny which im afraid triggers her maybe. I wish she could believe how pretty i think she is (the prettiest one of our whole family literally) and how her weight never ever matters. My question is, how can I approach her about this? What should I do to help her? What would you have want to hear from a loved one while struggling with an ED? Please help, I just wanna help her and she is my baby

Hello,

I have had an ED for at least 6 years. My moms are getting frustrated with me. We have been over creating a meal plan, creating a grocery list from that meal plan, and buying groceries. I have not done those things. I live by myself. I have been in therapy for my ED for over a year. When they came over to my apartment and saw that I had no food in my apartment, they lost it with me. They are considering putting me in an institution involuntarily since I clearly cannot take care of myself. I have forgotten to go to therapy before for months. Is it normal for an ED to last this long? Do you think I need extra help since I am not getting better? Am I not putting in enough effort?

Hey massive trigger warning to anyone that has dealt with purging. The only reason I’m explaining my thought process is so that I can get more direct advice for my situation. Please please please don’t read if you might be triggered at all 🫶🏻

I (21 f) have a history of purging. It has almost nothing to do with how I feel about my body and never has for me personally, it’s more of like I get super anxious and thought spiral(I have ocd) and I’m left with this deep pit feeling in my stomach that I have the urge to get out. When I was a teen I got over this on my own but recently these feelings have come back for me and I ’m having a hard time finding any resources or helpful info online as for most it’s a cycle of binging and purging and it has to do with more of a body image thought process. I know I’m not the only one obviously I don’t mean to sound special or anything I just wondered if anyone has been through something similar and has any tips or advice for me going forward. I don’t want this to control my life again but I’m having a hard time coming up with healthier coping mechanisms.

My girlfriend is twenty-eight and has struggled with laxative abuse since high school. She's recently made tremendous progress in reducing her laxative use. While we were on vacation recently, she did bring laxatives, but managed to go an entire week without taking any. She had her first formed stool in three years. A week later, she did take a few pills. She was initially afraid to tell me because I have been so proud of the progress that she has made, but I reassured her that she will get nothing but love and support from me. Generally, we communicate very openly about her laxative use. We discussed professional help to continue with her recovery, but she does not seem interested in going down that route.

Tonight, I noticed her bottle of laxatives is gone, and I asked her how she was doing and feeling in regards to her ED to try to open a dialogue. She said that she threw them away, and I dropped the subject for fear of making her feel shame or fear of disappointing me. However, I think it's more likely that she is taking them and hiding it from me.

I have no desire to apply external pressure for her to seek professional treatment and help, as I believe this might be counterproductive,and the likelihood of it being helpful without her desiring to participate is low. Nevertheless, I would like to see her pursue professional help.What is the best way for me to continue to support her and encourage open communication? What is the best way to help support her recovery? What advice can you give me?

Hi, I’ve recently decided, after years of unsustainable dieting, to focus on the mental aspect of my relationship with food. I noticed that while I’ve had “successful” results to lose weight, they never end up working for me long term. Even though I could do the application part of eating healthy, if I am not in that mental space of focusing in genuine nourishment, then I’d revert to my old ways.

That being said, i’m wondering if any of you have any book recommendations that focus on more of the mental of building relationships with food? Hope this makes sense!

Thanks!

we’ve been together for over two years now and it’s becoming very clear the huge impact we’ve had on each other’s ED’s and subsequently recovery - although we are both very supportive and empathetic and want each other to recover, our own habits are effecting one another, even with immense effort to not let it get that way.

has anyone here had experience being in a serious relationship with someone who has an ED, while also having an ED? can it work, has it worked? especially interested in those with experiences of being in a relationship where both people are working toward help/recovery.

my partner is about to start treatment and brought up not being sure if they’ll be able to recover while being in our relationship - obviously this very much hurts, but i get it. they emphasized that they’re not sure and just wanted to be honest about the question in their head.

i’m far less along my road to recovery and my partner and i face very different barriers to care. i’m someone in a larger body with an exclusively restrictive ED, being trans, being underinsured, and quite frankly having a big lack of access to resources (financial and otherwise) and support networks. i’m trying. i go to support groups, i do the work i can on my own, i’m working on seeing if i can get financial aid for various recovery support.

i really don’t want to lose them and love them so deeply and know a lot of our relationship would be better with us both in active recovery. i don’t want to feel hopeless about all of this

Developed anorexia at 16-17 and willpowered my way out of it after a year or so. 32 now.

I've been trying to eat healthy since my mid-20s. I keep up with the research to the best of my ability. Right now I'm trying to follow the recommendations of Valter Longo (basically vegan + fish).

Over the holidays I ended up repeatedly eating butter. The emotional effects were...not great. I'm not going to go into details bc I want to keep this a safe post, but it was ugly. It occurred to me that, if I wanted to avoid butter because of its link with Alzheimer's, it certainly wouldn't be good for my brain to have this kind of distress over it.

I feel like I've had a more-or-less "low-level" orthorexia for a long time, and I've been able to manage it because it could be "camouflaged" as merely being into healthy eating. It feels like an impossible double bind because 1) there are terrible health effects from bad diets 2) it's way too easy to slip into relapse and 3) "trusting my body" is basically impossible for me, for a number of reasons.

Anyway, thank you so much for reading this :) any help you can give is appreciated

My ED is characterized by restricting in the day and binging at night. In order to eat without my mind yelling at me, I have to smoke weed which ends up in a binge. I then regret it the next day and go on to restrict again. If I could stop I wouldn’t binge but then I may not be able to eat at all. Anyone relate?

I always thought I couldn’t get help for my ED unless I was severely underweight, purging after every meal, or binging 24/7. These extremes in my mind stopped me from getting help that I needed. I always minimize my issues and think that it’s “not severe enough.” I don’t know if anyone can relate. my body image and relationship with food has always been abnormal. More recently I have been restricting for at least a year in phases during the day time and then at night binging. the restrict periods feel like I’m a hollow shell of a person while the binge periods feel so out of control and I’m disgusted with myself. this perpetuates the cycle. I finally felt like enough was enough and hit a bottom. I can’t function at work. I can’t stop thinking about food. I can’t stop thinking about my weight. And so I finally reached out for help and I’m starting an eating disorder group on Monday. It feels good to finally do what is right for me on my body and I’m ready to befriend instead of tearing it down and making it an enemy. I’m here to give encouragement to people that feel like their eating disorder isn’t legitimate because your feelings are real and if it’s ruining your life then that’s more than enough to get help!

Hello all!

I (22F), grew up with an eating disorder in my teenage years (13-18), and I was a late bloomer. I would not eat anything healthy when I did eat (candy, desserts, and chips type of things) because I was never taught the importance of healthy eating, and I was very malnourished I was anemic and had low thyroid and I am sure other issues but I never would eat healthy at all never vegetables. I did not value sleep and was very stressed . This caused me to have stunted growth, and doctors can tell you it is stunted because I have had a bone test and was growing VERY slow. I had very toxic friends and other people around me, they would bully about my height a lot (it took me till I was 15 and a half till I was 5 foot, and 16 and a half till I was 5 foot 1. I didnt finish growing till I was about 17 and a half and stopped at 5 foot 2). But the teasing was what caused my eating disorder in the first place because they would make me feel so worthless it was like I needed control of something/ I was so worried they would make fun of my weight. Its hard because my proportions are completely different from when I was younger, and it makes me look very young and I feel less attractive and it makes me so mad because I never recovered because of my friends being so mean. I originally got the eating disorder from gymnastics but I quit gymnastics to recover and that was when my friends and some boys at church started to be really mean and full on triggered it again. It really disgusts me how I lived my life and I always felt so hungry constantly and would go very long without eating some times. But because of my lack of nutrients and how long i would go without eating i would go without eating, my metabolism was very slow and i tend to gain weight from sugar very easily so i wasnt very skinny but i would also binge eat sugar. I was also on medication that causes me to gain weight a lot. It is also hard because I tell some people about the stunted growth and they dont believe me but it would not be possible, literally according to the doctor for me to not have stunted growth and i was truely very malnourished, and people were very worried about my growth. I also am sure that it stunted my body growth such as my boob growth as well as hip growth or any type of growth that would happen at that time, and people would always make fun of my boobs as well for being flat though they have grown a little bit but it just makes me so angry that they would be so hurtful to me, and I never told anyone I had an eating disorder but I feel like its just common sense to not make fun of other peoples appearance.

Thank you all!

I apologize, I am not the best with explaining situations but if theres any advices or anything how people have dealt with it.

What are actual things you do when you get the urge binge cheat that actually help you?

Hello everyone my daughter has lost weight over the last few months and seems really body conscious. She’s limiting what she’s eating and spitting out food when she’s ‘full’. She’s super into anime and manga (age appropriate - mostly magical girl stuff) - I was keen to find out if anyone knows of any YouTubers who might talk about the issues she’s experiencing in a way that she’ll engage with better than me and my wife. We’re also working with our doctor who says we should take it seriously, and have an appointment with a counsellor.

Hello. I am seeking advice about my mother, who is 60 and been dealing with eating issues and body dysmorphia her whole life. She has had multiple liposuctions/tummy tucks, and works out daily. The past year or so it’s gotten extremely bad and she eats 1 meal a day. For the past month, she barely eats anything in a day while still doing extremely cardio heavy workouts daily. I found out she is using Zepbound even though she has a low-healthy BMI and is absolutely not overweight or even close. She also has been having side effects from it.

I don’t know what to do. She is my mother and I can’t force her to go to therapy or anything. I’ve always tried talking to her about it but she immediately deflects. It’s affecting her relationships with friends and family. Please advise.

So I gained a bunch of weight this year, especially after going on holiday. I was upset, but ultimately decided that it's not a big deal and this is just how my body is.

I hadn't seen my best friend since before i went on holiday, and I didn't see her in person until a good few months after I came back because we were both busy. When I saw her for the first time I was shocked, she had lost a good bit of weight, she wasn't underweight or anything but was definitely a lot thinner than me. This instantly triggered my ED habits and the next day I immediately went back to undereating. It's been like this for a few months now, and I've lost a significant amount of weight. The next time I saw her I was around the same size as her, but I've still continued to undereat and lose weight since then.

I do feel bad, because i think if she knew that she triggered this then she would feel terrible, but I also feel guilty because it's in no way her fault. Does this kind of thing happen to anyone else?

I didn’t even eat more than usual to be honest, little bites here and there but my family was up until 2am at the earliest EVERY NIGHT and we draaaaaaank. 7 days ago I feel like my body looks different … in a disorderly good way (not but you get what I’m saying) and now I feel bloated and thick and full and heavy and idk if it’s psychological or the drinks and i know I’m about to have my routine back and no drinks and whatever but like… talk me off the ledge please because I was tip toeing into recovery and this has freaked me the fuck out and I don’t even look different — to be fair, I’ve always distributed my weight very well. No one would guess my natural weight to be what it is, but like ahhhhhh and if everyone says you bloat and gain and water retain in recovery and this was literally just alcohol I feel like I’m gonna relapse hard? Help… words of encouragement, similar experiences, anything

Hi there,

I got a new Apple Watch for Christmas, but I have an eating disorder and don’t want it to display anything regarding calories. I read something on the Internet that you could turn it to under 13 mode, but it is not an option when I go to the activities setting as it said online to do this.Has anyone successfully turned off calorie counting on an Apple Watch? Thank you!

is it just me or can anyone not even look at pictures of themselves during the time of there ED and feel guilty? or is just me???

For a few months now, I've been checking food packages before buying them to ensure they're not fatty or too sweet. If they were, I'd ditch them. The thing is, everything has fats and sugar, and I'm very hesitant about eating now because I want to take care of myself and avoid health problems. Tonight, Mom made pizza and I only ate one slice, though I would have wanted two because I was afraid they'd have raised my cholesterol levels. (I haven't eaten the second one yet, and I'm not planning to.)

I don't want to tell my family because they'll just tell me that treating myself once won't do anything bad to me, and will tell me to quit fooling around. Little do they know, I'm not seeking attention; I'm seeking some answers and soothing to this thing that has been bothering me for months now and is getting worse; lately, I've been having thoughts of eating only salads every day, to avoid issues.

I genuinely don't know who to talk to, and I don't want to go down the rabbit hole of an eating disorder I might develop unless I solve this. Any advice?

Hi all. My partner has a history of ED and a lot of guilt and shame around food sometimes.

As I’ve never experienced much with ED I never really know how to help. I want to help with the guilt but not sure what to say or do. Any advice?

I love food and eating but I’ve always struggled so badly with the smells and textures of cooked foods. I’m Caribbean so my food is usually fully flavoured with seasonings and cooked for a long time until the flavours develop.

Cooking is hard for me because it takes so long, I live alone and I run a business. Eating out is so expensive so that’s hardly an option. When I take the time I cook, I usually hold my breath to eat because I can’t handle the smell or flavour of the meat, the texture of the vegetables or I get overwhelmed with the sensation of eating halfway through and start gagging. It’s the same as when I order food. I pay lots of money for food I hardly finish. I usually throw away because it gets gross.

I’m almost always hungry and stressed about not eating. Eating is so hard and has always been hard. I’m not in a position where I can get professional help for it. My tummy hurts and my head hurts. Some weeks it’s good and I manage to cook and eat everyday, other weeks I live on tea because I can’t stomach anything.

This week is Christmas and it’s the worst. I catered food for the holiday but all I could eat was beef gravy until it gave me an awful tummy ache for a few days and now i ended up throwing away most of the food I catered because I just couldn’t handle it. The flavour was overwhelming and nauseating. I’m having a hard time and my thoughts are at the point of self harm. Because living is hard when you can’t eat to stay alive. I don’t know how else to get help. I checked google. I’m open to books or recipes.

My safe food was eggs but I can’t handle the smell anymore. I spent the past three months battling the flu and a fungal infection that was made worst by my poor diet. I really need help

I've not been really concerned about my eating, I know my eating habits aren't good but I guess I've learnt to live with it since its been over a year since it started. I just read an article on childline and now I'm a tiny bit worried.

They say that ARFID is when someone avoids or restricts how much they eat. The only difference that there is between me and the article is that I also just generally avoid eating around people. When I do have to eat around people I usually feel insanely nauseous and stressed.

For a little bit of context, I got sick at the end of summer 2023, I felt nauseous whenever I ate, regardless of how much I ate or where I was. I went to the doctors for it and everything, all tests came back saying that nothing is wrong. During that time everyone (especially my mum) would pressure me to eat and would pretty much monitor how much I ate. Before then I used to enjoy eating and I'd have a REALLY good appetite.

I'm no longer sick any more but I don't really enjoy eating anymore. Eating around people isn't a pleasant experience either. Nowadays I've also just started to lose my appetite. Although, sometimes when I'm alone I'll eat A LOT of food, like too much food. I also get bloated very easily nowadays too but I don't know if that's related or not.

I'm not really sure what to do about it because I've grown to really hate therapy as I've tried it a few times and it always makes me worse. Those 1-2-1 counsellors on mental health services also don't really help me with my feelings. I'm still doing more research into ARFID though.

I've had an eating disorder since I was 12 years old. When I was about 16 years old, my ed wasn't that bad as it was when it had started. I went on diets and stuff but I didn't starve myself as I did when I was 12-14 years old. I fell in love with this person and all the ed thoughts returned to my brain. I started telling myself they wouldn't love me if I'm not skinny enough etc. I started starving again as well, just to feel loveable, I guess. They had never told me anything about my looks or my weight but I just thought I wasn't enough to be loved. I've noticed that it happens all the time: crushes triggers my ed. It was the last time I have ever felt anything romantic towards person, I have never felt anything sexual towards anyone. So, the question is: is it possible that my brain just defends me from any kind of attraction towards anyone just not ot trigger ed? Could it be my coping mechanism?

What’s your greatest achievement in regards to your relationship with food ? With the year coming to an end what are you most proud of this year and what do you wish to accomplish in 2025?

Me personally I feel like I’ve taken a few steps back so in 2025 I hope to regain the mental strength I have lost :)

Hello, I hope all lovely people on this sub have a great day :)

I have been struggling with ana since I was 12, and have defeated (haha, funny way to phrase it) it last October. I can eat what I want now without feeling anything unhealthy, and am better than ever - physically, mentally, emotionally. I made this post because when I was deep in my mental illnesses I didn't know who to talk to, I felt so alone and isolated, didn't know who I was anymore and my whole existence seemed to revolve this part of my mental state. Also, I think the anonymity here on the world wide web might just be the thing to help other people open up and ask questions they've been too scared to ask.

I won't give away my highest / lowest weight, as that is triggering. I also reserve the right to not answer questions I don't want to answer, so please don't be offended if your question is unanswered.

Have a wonderful day, stay yourself 🍎🫒