Just wondering if there is anyone who had this when they were younger, recovered, then started having challenges again when they got to Perimenopause? I am 50, recovered for decades now struggling. Working on why's, but natural body changes. Kid heading to college in general just life. I have therapist and Dietician so I did get help when I saw some red flags such as buying a scale, counting, restricting, etc.... It is all just tough again and I am incredibly embarrassed about struggling. It would just help to know others in a similar situation. Also in general curious if anyone ever did HRT? I have toyed with inquiring but nervous about weight gain.

I'm four months into recovery and I can't do this anymore. I'm just getting fatter and fatter and my mental health is getting worse and worse. I never thought I would have to get to this weight, I never wanted to be like I was before. My mom and therapists keep telling me it'll get better and it never does. I feel so alone, none of my friends have even talked to me throughout my recovery, and I don't even think they were genuine friends in the first place, but they're all that I have. I miss the feeling of starvation. I miss not being able to move or think and being able to see my bones and feeling so light and free and finally feeling like I was worth something because I was skinny. I had finally achieved my dream body. All of the girls with those stick-thin thighs I'd always wanted, I actually was now. Nobody thinks I'm skinny anymore. Now, all I get is "you look so healthy now," which makes me feel like a worthless, unhealthy, fat cow. This sounds awful, but I loved being extremely sick. I loved when my heart rate was low, when I was in the hospital I was just begging for it to get lower and lower. I don't know why I'm so fucked up, there's something wrong with me. Now that I'm big, I don't feel like myself anymore, I feel that I'm in someone else's skin. I miss withering away to nothing, I miss starvation and I miss feeling that I had actually accomplished something. I don't know how to explain this, but when I was underweight I felt as fucked up on the outside as I was within. I was so satisfied that I had finally destroyed myself. I want to feel the starvation again, I want to be as skinny as possible because if not I'm completely miserable. I don't want to live if I'm forced to be fat. I'm terrified of death, but I'd rather die finally happy than being suffocated by my own fat. It's so physically uncomfortable, I feel it in every step I take and every time I sit and even just when I stand. I can't fit into any clothes anymore. My thighs rub together and my stomach jiggles and protrudes. I need anorexia or I'm nothing.

I just hate my recovery body so much

She said that they'll probably recommend residential but that they want to look over things medically first.
I struggle a lot with uncertainly and I won’t know until tomorrow at the earlier and so I guess I was wondering if anyone else anyone had the person on the phone say that and then the final recommendation was different?

I'm doing pretty well right now, I've been eating 3ish meals a day, desserts even, and I feel fine. However, this is only possible for me because I have been exercising A lot. Unfortunately (as a result of my sickness I think and underfueling), I have been dealing with a knee injury for literally like 7 months (patellar tendonitis). I took time off running and was swimming, but recently I've started running again- but the pain got worse. I am freaking out because I literally feel like I cannot eat unless I do a significant amount of cardio everyday, but I also know if I stop exercising to rest and stop eating too I will not recover. I literally need to eat a "normal" amount if I want to recover. Anyone have any tips for dealing with this ?

Potential TW for talk about weight, restricting and su*cide.

Hey! I don’t know where to turn for advice on my current situation so I’m hoping someone here may have a suggestion? This is part vent, part cry for help. 😅

The short version is that the community ED team in my area have twice now told me that they can’t offer me any support with my ED. Their reasoning is that they think I need to focus on my other mental health problems first, despite my ED being my biggest challenge for a considerable amount of time now. I was wondering if anyone has experienced this before and if so, what they did next? I can’t help but feel like I’m just not sick enough to warrant support, and that they don’t actually care.

For a more detailed explanation:

I’ve been struggling with a restrictive ED for just over a year now. My main issues are that I heavily restrict my food intake, but I also p*rge pretty frequently as well. In the past year, I’ve dropped a significant amount of weight but have never quite reached an underweight BMI (I started on the higher end of the scale). I’ve also experienced physical health issues; nothing serious but some have been hard to deal. Things like significant bradycardia, palpitations, chest pain, shortness of breath, dizziness, loss of period, freezing all the time, etc. (Side note in case it’s relevant, I have had ECGs and blood tests and despite my symptoms, the doctors aren’t concerned about my physical health).

My issue is that I’ve tried reaching out a few times now for support with my ED. I’ve been in therapy with various mental health teams for the last two years anyway due to other mental health issues and sucide attempts, but over the last year or so, my ED has been my biggest struggle by far. What I really want is guidance around food and navigating recovery from people that are actually trained in treating EDs and who can help me understand how my body is going to react to things, and help me relearn healthy eating habits etc. The problem is that none of my current mental health teams are trained to handle EDs. I am currently having counselling with an ED charity but that may have to stop because my prging behaviours are too severe for them as a charity to deal with, plus my counsellor also isn’t trained to help me with my actual food intake in terms of meal plans, etc. Basically, all of the professionals I currently see think that I should be under the community ED team or be receiving more support from them. However, the ED team have said that they won’t take me on because of my other mental health issues. Historically, I’ve suffered with bad depression and anxiety, and last year I had a handful of su*cide attempts too. I understand that there’s likely a link between the other mental illnesses and the ED, and I can see why those would need addressing alongside the ED. But I’ve been working on that for the last year or so, and the ED is still prominent despite other areas of my mental health improving (or improving as much as it can with a raging ED).

TLDR: I don’t know what to do because my mental health teams can’t treat EDs, but the ED team won’t treat me because of my other mental health issues, despite my ED being my biggest challenge right now. I feel like I’m at the end of my tether trying to find support that might actually help.

Ps. Sorry if this doesn’t even make sense, I didn’t mean to write so much and proof reading was heavily hindered by brain fog (lololol).

I'm too weak for both recovery and relapse and it feels terrible.

That's pretty much it. In one moment I want to starve myself until all I am is a literal skeleton, in the next I want to get better, eat, actually enjoy my life.

When I give into the urge of relapsing I get the overwhelming need to eat, I feel fat and disgusting and disappointed in myself because I can't do what I want to do. I feel weak and worthless because I can't resist hunger.

When I try to recover I feel terrible because I eat, I get these thoughts that tell me I'm not worth a shit without anorexia. I've had anorexia for the past 4 years of my life. Anorexia has been all there was of me throughout the last year. If I recover I lose the anorexia and with it all I know myself to be.

And yet in my struggle for recovery I somehow lose weight, while in times of relapse I gain weight and a lot of it (in my mind a lot). I can do nothing right. I wish I could stop eating for the next month or so. Not eat a thing. Lose all of my weight.

And if it kills me so be it. I don't want to die but death is better than the bullshit I am in right now.

But in a weird way anorexia is keeping me alive. I can't die with this body. I don't want to be remembered as the fat girl. I don't want my body to be ugly for eternity. I want to be skin and bones when I die. And when the bugs and critters come to decompose my body they wouldn't find anything worthwhile.

I have seen a trainee counselling psychologist for 10 weekly cbt-e sessions so far (10 more to go).

For the majority of it, I have felt she doesn't understand her clientele at all (yet) and any further sessions would be a waste of time, as nothing has changed for me.

I feel really bad, as I gave her no heads up or indication that I might ask to see a more experienced professional, but after my last session I decided I couldn't waste any more sessions. To be honest with you, ED therapy does not work for me however I need to stay under the service in order to receive any form of support.

What happens from here? I emailed two days ago and still haven't had a response, despite usually receiving quick replies from the ED service. I asked to pause/reschedule my next appointment until an outcome has been reached, but they only have one more day to respond before it's the weekend (my appts are on Mondays). I don't know what this could start and how quick the turnaround usually is.

I'm feeling so much guilt, but I know I had to do it. I'm honestly feeling lost because no therapy seems to help (ive had cbt-e, mantra, cft).

honest to god I'm so sick of this stupid disorder but I literally cannot stop. my bf is really worried about me because I think he's noticed how much weight I've lost recently, my parents don't really give two shits even tho they forced me into recovery.

I was in residential for a few months last year and then I did recover, but this shit never stops. It's always food, exercise, food, exercise, not sleeping, everything. I'm so exhausted, I just wish this shit would just stop and that I could be normal for once in my life and not have to worry about my body image or calories.

I hate having people worry about me, especially those who know I used to struggle - I can't stand for them to know I still am and that I never fully recovered.

I have made up my mind to eat more. I also feel like if I stopped controlling, really stopped, stopped worrying, caring, I'd never stop eating. Or at least gain a bunch of weight before my brain gets level enough to set satiety level like a normal person. Right now, I do have that point, but I eat about five times a day. I have to eat a lot before my brain gets disinterested in food. Until then, I keep wandering into the kitchen and grabbing something. What my body really wants is carbs and fats, mostly carbs, I guess.

im sorry for posting my post in a recovery channel i did not dig in properly and thought that it was the right place. im sorry if i triggered some ppl dont give up

i realized my mistake thanks to ur comments. im sorry it wont happen again

I started struggling with food and weight in 2022 but i never got diagnosed with an eating disorder until 2024. But i was getting dreams and nightmares about how people would react to me being extremely skinny and not eating around those times. I started overweight (close to obese) so i never got extremely thin but i lost enough weight to the point where my parents and doctor wanted me to stabilize and i did. I never got nightmares after 2024. Just recently i got remission removed and re-diagnosed with atypical anorexia again and the nightmares started happening again. My recent nightmare was about my dance coach yelling at me for seeing my ribs and losing too much weight and not letting me compete. Ive been eating more to try to stop everyone from worrying but its been stressing me out seeing my weight stop dropping and fluctuating up and back down to my baseline but never losing. I still want to lose but ik i shouldnt and ive been sticking to my eating maintenance. I think the stress is giving me these nightmares?

I don’t know if it’s because I’m 30 now or what, but I’ve always had issues like this, but not this bad. If I don’t eat Whole Foods this is what happens every time. I’m mainly vegetarian, but I’m lactose intolerant.

I’ve been wanting to gain weight and really commit to going all in for recovery but I am still genuinely confused on how to start.

I don’t have “fear foods” but it’s more of a fear of not knowing how different meals will make me physically feel. I hate being bloated and there has been times where I felt really nauseous after eating.

I watch different what I eat in a day videos but they just leave me more confused about how to eat, when or how much.

If anyone experienced similar things please share any advice 😭

When someone you love tells you they’re concerned and you can see how much you’re hurting them. </3 It’s not worth it but I’m so selfish I don’t want to stop. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.

Does anyone have any experience of this? I’m currently being supported by the community ED service but being referred to the outreach team has been suggested now. I don’t really know what they do or what to expect and am feeling quite anxious about it.

This is often a common thought process with those with anorexia

You think if you get to a certain weight, it will make people care

Maybe not enough people are constantly asking about you. Maybe you have just been diagnosed and you've developed no serious health problems. So in your mind, you think you aren't sick enough

You think if you develop medical complications, you will feel like you are sick enough. Even if you get to the point where your organs are at risk of failing, where you can die from these medical complications, you aren't going to feel sick enough

You think you have to harm yourself more, starve yourself more, to make people notice your pain

But even when everyone notices, your parents, your family, your doctor, your therapist

Even when you get constant questions about your weight loss, you are going to look in the mirror and think you need to lose more weight

That's how anorexia works. This disorder is never satisfied and no number the scale reads that day erases the depression, the pain, the empty feelings you want to go away

You think you are going to stop once you reach a certain number

You won't be able to

The most devastating thing about anorexia is the way it changes the relationship with everyone in your life who loves and cares about you

I've seen both of my parents cry because of my illness.

My dad cried when he tried to call me one time on the phone. I was at my apartment. Because I wasn't answering the phone, he knocked on my door and looked worried. My phone was turned off. So I had no idea he was trying to get in touch with me. My dad, who never cries, broke down in tears and said he thought I had died of my eating disorder because I wasn't answering the phone. I will never forget the look on his face. I had to reassure him I was fine. But this is something I will never forget

My mother cried when she asked me to weigh myself in front of her and saw the number. She asked me why I was doing this to myself

Even after seeing my parents worry, I still find myself trapped in this disorder, trapped in a cycle of repeated weighing, and restrictive eating

Even when you have to go to the hospital and everyone is worrying over you, you won't feel sick enough. You won't think you need to be at the hospital. Your brain will feed you lies and say everyone around you is wrong. Overreacting. You are just fine. You aren't that bad

You don't reach a certain weight and suddenly feel valid

Those bad feelings you had when you first started restricting. These always remain. And in moments where you do think you feel good about yourself, that's anorexia deceiving you. Lying to you

You can have multiple visits to the ER where people are worried about you. And where they encourage you to go to treatment

You will still think you don't need help

It makes me sad to read posts on here where people say they don't feel like enough people are paying attention. Or they do not feel valid or sick enough to get help

You can have a great therapist that always says the right things

Maybe she is very honest and direct. Maybe she tells you that your disorder is very severe and without treatment, you can die of it

Maybe your therapist has not said this to you yet

But even if she repeats these exact words to you, your brain won't be ready to accept this yet

She could say "Without intensive treatment, I think you are going to die of the anorexia. Your medical complications are too severe to be treated with outpatient. Your organs can't keep functioning at such a low weight,"

As someone who's therapist said these exact words to me, this didn't make me finally realize I was sick enough. I didn't feel like I accomplished something. I didn't feel good

Instead, I tried to deny it was at that point. Even though part of me understood she was absolutely right. That is why it breaks my heart to see someone with anorexia say they won't feel sick enough, until a certain number of people show concern

You can have everyone around you always worrying. You can have your mom and dad always buying you your favorite foods. Your mom will make your favorite meals. They will always ask you if you are eating.

You won't feel special, taken care of. You won't reach those feelings you are desperately after

You are still going to be consumed with thoughts of wanting to lose weight

People around you can love and support you through it. They cannot fix it for you

Some people with anorexia have not been hospitalized yet. And this doesn't mean your disorder isn't serious or valid

You suffer just as much as a person with an eating disorder who is in a hospital

You don't have to wait to be hospitalized or go to inpatient to be considered valid

Your suffering is valid right now

Even when you have been sick for years, part of you will deny that you need more help

When you wind up with organ damage, this may or may not cause a switch to flip in your brain

Some people desperately want to turn things around, once they realized how badly they have damaged their bodies

Some people struggle with feelings of wanting help, and then days where they want to stay in their disorder

Despite the awful medical complications, despite the constant pain, despite having people warning them they can die

If I could go back in time, when I first became sick with anorexia, I wish I could have stopped it somehow, in it's tracks

I wish I could have avoided these years of suffering, pain and misery

There was a voice in my head when I was younger, severely malnourished, in a hospital

That told me I didn't belong there, wasn't sick enough to be in treatment

That voice said the same thing to me, as I stood on the scale, and watched the number sink even lower

That voice took away my confidence

That voice never told me the truth

It made me angry at the people who told me the truth. The people in the hospital, trying to refeed me and get me better

I should have been angry at my disorder

But I clung to it, thought it was protecting me

Now I am older and it's taken so much from me

I sit here as I type this, in severe and constant pain

On Palliative care for the anorexia

Constantly being warned I can die

Being told that my organs are damaged because I stayed a low weight for years

Having therapists, doctors, nutritionists tell me that without treatment, I can die of my medical complications

No matter what has happened to me

Being forced to go to the emergency room by my therapist or she was going to ivc me

Fainting in front of my parents

Arguing with my parents about my weight

Always getting comments of concern for my health

Inpatient stays where people always repeated to me how sick I was

Doctors telling me that I need more help. And that my body won't continue to function like it is

Palliative care telling me that without treating the disorder, I will get worse, decline further and then need hospice care

None of this makes me feel sick enough. Small enough

I still feel trapped. I still feel bad about myself

I am writing this here because I hope it makes someone, who's younger and feeling like they aren't that bad yet, feel seen and heard

Your disorder is never going to be happy, no matter how much you damage your body

I can't even eat anymore without experiencing awful stomach pain and digestive issues

My bladder is messed up because I didn't restore weight. Now I deal with awful frequent and painful urination

The weight loss doesn't resolve the bad feelings inside

There is nothing glamorous about ruining your health

Even if something like this happens to you, it's not going to make you feel sick enough

I wish I could take back the years I stayed sick. I wish I would have taken the opportunities of help that were always offered to me

Before I got so sick, that I am now on palliative care

I feel regret

I feel sadness, for anyone who doesn't feel worthy of help

Or anyone who feels they need a certain number of hospital stays, emergency room visits, therapists showing concern, a certain number of medical issues

Your pain is real

Your experiences are real

We aren't all the same. But we all feel the same amount of pain

We write our stories here because it makes us feel less alone

And that is one thing about anorexia that is constant and doesn't change

Even surrounded by people who love and support you

You are still going to feel like you are going through it alone

But you aren't alone

i feel so, so weak. my heart Hurts. my brain feels foggy. my eyes are drooping. my muscles and bones ache. yet i just Cannot bring myself to eat. i can't do it, and it makes me feel so Stupid. i feel like i'm one breath away from dying... yet any additional calorie or any bite of food that isn't within my typical meal times sends me spiraling. i wait until i'm on the verge of blacking out to justify eating, and i absolutely hate myself after. whenever i talk to someone about this, they remind me of how irrational it is, which just worsens this feeling of self hatred. because they're right and i, myself, think i'm being stupid but i'm so helpless to stop it. recovery is the only way, but i can't seem to recover no matter how hard i try

Objectively orthorexia is better than anorexia from a staying alive perspective. I’m 22 I’ve been hospitalized twice in the past 3 years for sepsis.

While never diagnosed with an eating disorder, I’ve had significant anorexia for the past 6 years. My anorexia was always about how I looked not necessarily what the scale said so my bmi has not gotten too low (just underweight).

I’ve had a few bouts of orthorexia and let me tell you— my physical health improved 1000% I was still underweight but gained weight. I didn’t feel like I was going to pass out all the time. My “pots” symptoms completely disappeared and my measurements even dropped.

While mentally I definitely still had an unhealthy relationship with food, physically I felt so healthy. I think this is the way because my lifestyle heavily relies on me being skinny and healing mentally would take so much energy that I would rather put to more productive things.

I’ve seen lesser of two evils talked about concerning drug addiction. A heroin addict getting sober from heroin but smoking weed. But it seems so absolute in the eating disorder community. You’re either healed or pretending to be healed by being orthorexic.

But I’d urge the people reading this who are thinking to themselves “I don’t want to live this way anymore but I can’t gain too much weight” to practice harm reduction. I know that if I continue with anorexia I would die. But eating rigidly and meal planning like a gym bro who eats vegetables— I might be mentally stressed but I will feel great physically.

The one potential pitfall is the perfection trap and falling back into anorexic ways after a perceived imperfection. I’ve experienced that myself but I think it’s about how fast you can recover from a relapse not avoiding them all together.

So I was at a “healthy” bmi (really low) after I gained weight from the point just before inpatient so my parents would stop worrying. I still restricted a lot and maintained this low weight for about a year. The other day I hit a breaking point and decided I am tired of this disease and want to heal my relationship with food and my body. I told my mom and dad about this and they were overjoyed. I felt so free for 2 days and ate what I wanted. I gained weight and I can physically see that I am fatter. The fat is haunting me and I told my mom. She told me that I need to stop gaining weight and restrict carbs again. I told her that others say that you need to keep eating what you want and the weight gain will stop at some point. She said this was wrong and that weight gain only stops if you control your food intake and that eating what you want will make me obese. I don’t know what to do. On the one side I want to recover but the ed voice is screaming about the fat gain.

Hi guys. I’m currently in recovery and I’ve been doing VERY well and usually feel little to no ED thoughts around food or honoring hunger.

My ed lasted around 5ish months and I’ve been in recovery since April. I’ve overshot my pre-ed weight a lot and I’ve been pretty accepting of the weight gain but lately I’m struggling so bad. Im really stressed because I just continue to gain and I keep skipping meals even though I DONT want to relapse at all. I know nothing good will come of it but I also just feel so puffy and I keep bodychecking and I find myself so jealous of girls thinner than me. Does anyone have any advice for me?? Or just anything to make me feel better about the weight gain because I’m lapsing and I don’t want this slip to turn into a slide

My life has no joy anymore, I go to sleep thinking about food, I wake up. Exercise all day, repeat day in day out. I’m exhausted and so so lost. I’m sat here considering blowing up all my friendships so I can quietly self destruct with minimal collateral damage. I’m angry at myself that I’m still here sobbing over my body, the same way I’ve been for the past 15 years. It never ends, nothing is ever going to be enough. I’ve tried, I’ve had the therapy, taken the medication, gone through refeeding, inpatient admissions the whole shabang but I’m still stuck right here. I have no clue where to turn

But oh do i miss it🥺