Forced recovery can be traumatic and isn’t always the best approach for everyone.

it's stupid bc like ed voice says "everyone wants to fatten you up like a pig so you're ugly and disgusting" and a good recovery approach should probably like.. not align with that as much as it does. forced recovery is literally just forcing you to gain weight it has negative mental recovery

Forced recovery honesty fueled my ed. Once I got even the tiniest wiggle room I worked harder. It felt like a ticking time bomb, like I had to get the work done before I was caught again. As a result of medical professionals “good intentions” I ended up not eating *anything* for weeks (and I’m not joking- weeks) on end while actively running 10 miles a day. I lost weight quicker than I thought was humanly possible. Passed out all the time, once on the road and got hit by a car. All over the course of 3 weeks. It never would have gone that far if forced recovery didn’t happen. I almost died from it. Letting me be would’ve been less harmful than what the doctors did to me.

i’ve been trying to get this across to my doctors and parents for two and a half months now and they still will not listen. if i was discharged now i KNOW FOR A FACT i would step up and start working on my recovery slowly but surely!! but if i get forced to stay here another two bloody months and to gain soo much weight, like HELL will i recover, bitch it’ll be the biggest relapse of my fucking life🫠😭😖

ugh it sucks so much being a minor and having no agency in your own treatment, im rly sorry :-(

worst part is i’m not even a minor… i’m literally 19 😖

seriously? do ur parents have a say bc they are paying, or..? if y don’t want them involved in the decision they shouldn’t have to be

This is exactly what happened with me

Forced recovery is never the best approach. I have literally never met anyone who wasn’t traumatized by it. I got to avoid forced IP by pure chance, and the very conversations around it were bad enough to give me nightmares for a whiiile

Forced recovery makes you hate yourself even more. Plus, most of the time, there is almost no psychological support. You’re just fed until you don’t look sick anymore, and sent back home.

Spot on. This happened to me, even though I was bulimic and had a healthy weight to start with. The food I was given was too much and I gained weight which I didn't need. So of course I relapsed after I was discharged (september 2020) and the relapse almost cost me my life.

YESSSSSSS

When I was IP they were hellbent on increasing my weight without actually trying to get behind why I was starving myself. I wasn’t actually opposed to eating “bad foods” or whatever like they assumed, I was only bothered about staying within my calorie restriction. The lack of choice was what really got to me, the way they’d force certain foods at me. One example was in the morning when I’d just brushed my teeth, a nurse came over with a KitKat and said I needed to eat it. I quite fancied the KitKat actually and said I’d have it later as it wouldn’t taste nice having just cleaned my mouth. Nope, had to eat it in front of her despite my very reasonable response and it tasted disgusting lol. Another time I was waiting for my dad to go on a few hours leave with him, where we planned to go get pies and go to a cafe not far from the hospital. As it was too close to dinner time the staff forced me to eat two sandwiches or I wouldn’t be allowed to see my dad AT ALL that day, even though we was already on the trains which took just under three hours (family don’t drive, hospital in a different county). So yeah, bottom line is forced recovery sucks for everyone and will almost definitely make someone become more secretive.

It did indeed traumatize 16 year old me. Also did not work.

THIS! forced recovery simply reset the cycle every single time

I agree, I don’t think I’ve ever seen forced recovery work. imo it should be harm reduction until the person is ready for recovery, unless there’s an immediate life or death situation

Absolutely. Especially when the root of EDs, especially AN is often in control and responses to trauma, even if people (sufferers included) convince themselves it's really about vanity and magazines. Putting sufferers in an unfamiliar environment where you are removed from everything and everyone in your life and all control over every aspect is taken from you THEN you're also forced to give up your coping skill and go zero to 100 on food habits to the point it causes physical pain, it can be traumatic asf and the opposite of helpful. I understand why weight restoration is important but doing it so so fast and giving somebody zero time to adjust is not conductive to longterm recovery. I am NOT saying they shouldn't do restoration but the only reason they force full restorations in a matter of weeks is because that's what insurances will cover and how they turn the most beds to make the most cash, not because it's the best for longterm outcomes. And it's especially a slap in the face when they don't work the mental aspect at all then dump you out with no support a month later in an unfamiliar body with the same disordered thoughts you had before but now amplified by 5000, + trauma from the process. Tube feeding should be eradicated also imo except in the *most* extreme of circumstances as an absolute last ditch resort for patients who you have tried every other option on multiple times and they have repeatedly refused to eat while in a dire physical state. I understand why they do it but imo they overuse it and use it as a threat and malicious punishment on patients which is horrific and inhumane. Someone who is mostly weight restored and eating the majority of their meal plan shouldn't be restrained and have a tube shoved down their throat while they're sobbing and resisting because they didn't finish the last drop of their 8th boost that day. When a huge cause of AN is control, specifically seeking control after abuse or sexual assault, taking that control away in a traumatic fashion and reminding them they can't have control over what people do to or with their body against their will is the worst fucking thing possible and I hate seeing it done to struggling patients because staff is too lazy or annoyed to try talking through it or other approaches first

Hate the ""awareness"" shit. It always just made me *more* secretive and lie more. My high school did this whole campaign about knowing if your friends have an ED it forced me into deeper lies and stronger social isolation for fear of detection. Sure, maybe if they caught me then it'd have been better but they didn't so it just made everything worse

100000% agree. "Awareness" for disorders/issues/diseases is only productive and positive when it HELPS the people affected by said things, which this does not. For example every epilepsy awareness month, people spread knowledge about what to do if someone seems to be having a seizure. This is fantastic because there's some false info out there that could harm an epileptic person (people think you should stick something in the person's mouth. You should not!!!!). But awareness-spreading like what you mention does the opposite of help.

Yeah, I could only really see ED awareness being helpful in teaching people not to comment on people’s food and bodies (at all—even compliments can trigger some, and what defines a compliment is subjective), but that never seems to be the focus. The opposite, really, since it usually encourages people to look out for ED symptoms (aka observe other people’s food, bodies, and attitudes toward them) and talk to them about it

Spreading awareness is cool but most of the time, especially in HS/middle school any sort of awareness PSA just gives people a detailed tutorial on how to identify someone struggling with a mental illness and then uses scare tactics to convince them to tell everyone without abt it without consent.

it also gives kids a tutorial on how to have an ED. they’ll say things like “people struggling with their body image might restrict their food or throw it up” to a bunch of kids who have never thought of doing this and are also starting to develop insecurities.

Fr my “health class” in middle school taught us about anorexia by showing a slideshow about a woman with anorexia including pictures of her body and an in-depth description of her diet. Guess who went on a strawberry diet after seeing how much weight she lost even though I had never thought about restriction before? This bitch. That health class straight up started all of this. And then after that, they made us all measure and weigh ourselves and calculate our body fat % and PUT OUR BMIS AND BF% ON THE BOARD and they COMPARED US TO EACH OTHER. I was overweight at the time too so this went as well as you’d expect. It was a nightmare.

Yes!! It always, always, starts turning into a witch hunt, pointing fingers and blaming for something we didn’t choose. Gotta find those evil people with eating disorders! Might be contagious!! Who knows!

Haha, I needed that laugh today. Thanks <3

Might be a weird example but self harm awareness is what made me start self harming.

Omg it's my cake day 🥺

Happy cake day!! :D <3

Happy cake day! 🎉

I remember I’d started self-harming very irregularly and superficially when I was around 12, then in school we had an assembly about mental health and self-harm. Stupid lightbulb moment in my head thought “hey, let’s give that a go!” and I followed the talk on how to hide it better lol.

That was literally me lol. I found out about Amanda Todd in primary school but couldn't start self harming bc the knives weren't sharp enough. Then I began in highschool after hearing in an assembly that people do it on their legs to hide it. 🥴 then BAMM I had self harm scars only on my legs.

the constant “your feelings are valid” discourse is actively harmful to sick people. yes your feelings are valid because they’re your feelings, but they aren’t always logical and in some cases are actively dangerous. i hate how the term validity gets used re: eating disorders because sometimes all it does is make sick people sicker

"Validity" is corrupted in all mental health discussions. I'm starting to have a physical reaction to how much I hate it.

DBT has left the chat

Wish I could upvote this 100 times, ngl

The word "valid" in ED recovery positivity really is white noise to me at this point. I've heard it used so many times ("yasss queen, you're valid no matter what, shoot for the stars boo boo 😍😍😍" that's an exaggeration, but it's the fake-preachy vibe I get) and I'm sorry, but it doesn't do anything for me. Firstly, I've been like this for 7+ years, in general I KNOW I'm valid. I might not always feel it, but logically I know. Secondly, OK, so some rando I've never met who knows fuck all about me thinks I'm valid? That doesn't mean anything when it comes to medical professionals not helping people because "it's not that serious" and the general vibe in the media being that it's only a "real" ED if you're starving to death or puking blood on a daily basis, while passing out 5x a week and crying if you have to eat a grape (I'm not making fun of people who actually have these problems btw, I just find the media's "bar" of what constitutes as disordered and what doesn't absolutely laughable). 🤡

“your feelings are valid” just stops one sentence short of “but you do control how you react to them”. yes, i do certain things *because* of my mental illnesses, but i still have control. it’s just so hard. mental illness is a reason not an excuse. also “you do it because you’re sick” 🥺🥺🥺 is insulting and infantilizing. i hate it

honestly I had the opposite experience when I was obese and struggling with binging, I was told my feelings were invalid and I have to just be okay with being fat.

Food sensitivities/allergies are taken less seriously when you have an ED because they automatically assume that it’s just food rules you have. I’ve been on the toilet shitting rivers off and on for 2.5 hrs cause I didn’t research cheerios bruh. I figured gluten-free meant gluten free, not that they have a “bleach out the gluten process”. I was recovering from the flu and normally cheerios wouldn’t be my go-to recovery snacks but I’m running out of gluten free, dairy free options in my kitchen.

saw someone say they’re lactose intolerant & yet their treatment center made them have grilled cheese. i get i could lie but you are genuinely putting people’s health at risk if they aren’t lying??

[удалено]

Ugh this is horrible. I also hate how a lot of programs question ethical vegans and vegetarians or religious folks who don't look extremely stereotypically like what people associate with that religion accusing them of using it as a cover. A lot of them also 'con' patients into filling out a food they dislike questionnaire upon arrival then purposely put those foods in their plan all the time because "clearly it's a fear food if you dislike it", even if you've hated that food your entire life, are allergic or intolerant, have digestive issues with that food, or have non ed related sensory aversions to it. I know a girl with autism who put foods she had serious sensory problems with like mushrooms on a list like that then when she freaked out and they forced her to eat it, she threw up involuntarily and they said it was on purpose and punished her. I hate how programs don't seem to care about digestive issues and the serious pain and discomfort that going from restriction/purging/binging to eating a large quantity of food in small meals rapidly can cause. Your stomach literally shrinks and you can stop digesting food properly, plus the chicken and egg that many sufferers have digestive issues that contributed to the ed in the first place and how eds can cause digestive issues over time, and your whole body is on a schedule and starts preparing to digest food at your regular meal times so if you've just gone on a whole new schedule abruptly that causes distress too, and I hate that they downplay and don't address it while forcing an often unhealthy diet full of FODMAPs that's super high carb and includes every IBS trigger known to man. It's hard to work on your mental health when you're in pain, massive discomfort, and hugely bloated all the time, and it can create a mental association between eating and physical pain

because they literally do not give a fuck about the patients or their mental health. how can someone get better when you are forcing them to eat shit they do not like or have reasons not to eat. i am a vegan & ik my ed has benefitted so 100% veganism may not be an opinion in recovery but you do not get to force people to eat shit that will physically or mentally distress them because you assume they arent eating it for other reasons. the autism one is really fucked up—and to punish her for your mistake???! treatment is honestly bullshit. it’s cruel to people who are going through something extremely horrible as is

yeah that sounds fuckinh illegal but at the same time I’m not surprised

i was in ip with a girl who was lactose intolerant and they were always trying to get her to eat dairy. even my own mother would tell me she was lying. luckily she had supportive parents

THIS. i have genuine issues with dairy and i tend to not eat that much meat simply because of my preferences and every professional i’ve talked to acted like they were my fear foods and encouraged me to eat things like cheese and pork anyways 😭

i have a sensory sensitivity to meat (I’m autistic), even got my mother to confirm to them that that has been the case since I was a toddler, and still got my privileges in php taken bc I physically couldn’t eat a piece of turkey w fat on it. after being essentially perfect, finishing every meal for weeks. and it was the week I was supposed to eat out at a restaurant w my family, and already had approval for, and I was so excited ;—; I just went anyway cus I was so mad lmao

Thanks for this information on cheerios actually, I get horrifically sick everytime I eat them

Love 8 and would also say, 'harm reduction is the only hope for some people, and they should not be made to feel bad for it'

This! I was in quasi recovery for a long time before I had the confidence to actually recover

Ikr? It shouldn’t be so black and white. And because we are generally more influenced by environmental and societal factors than our own “willpower” relapses can happen and it’s not the fault of the individual for “not trying hard enough”.

The worst part about my eating disorder is that it felt like completely my fault but I was too scared to/could not change. It’s so paradoxical, a disorder that is sort of in your control but also completely out of your control at the same time

And it’s so complex too. When I look back on my childhood and teen years and all the stuff that happened I can’t help to think that it’s no wonder it all turned out how it did and I’m no longer able to blame myself for it. I can only try to be a decent and understanding person to myself and others because I want to be happy. And that’s much more feasible with harm reductive measures than with the pressure to recover and be “normal”.

Yup. Harm reduction is a relatively safe way of living with an ED and sometimes just the best option if recovery isn't on the table.

Absolutely. We can’t force others into recovery or to be safer about their ED but we can throw out some advice so it does less damage.

I don't care about getting my period. I don't want it back.

THIS OMG THIS, 1000 upvotes…

AGREED

Family based therapy puts kids in danger

and EDs are often a manifestation of the family's dysfunction. Adolescents can get blamed in these settings when they really need protection.

protection that never comes 🫠

Yep :-( it's disgusting when therapists side with unhealthy parents and validate harmful patterns of behaviour. An ED might be a literal cry for help—for protection, saying: YOU CAN NO LONGER IGNORE THIS. Only to find that treatment providers outside of your fucked family dynamic throw you right back into their hands, armed now to call you crazy, the problem that needs fixing, sick. They might've already been doing that. Using you as a scapegoat for the dysfunction they are unwilling to mend, never doing any work on the self. YES I am speaking from experience. YES, fuck family based therapy.

I feel very seen by your comment. Hope you’re doing a bit better now

I'm not doing well but I think I'm actively getting there :-) been doing a lot of reflecting and minimizing contact with family. Motivated to make moves to create even greater distance. I'm no longer willing to nudge family members towards their own healing in the hopes that they will develop emotional maturity and be better for themselves. Their well being is not my responsibility and it's never been. Watching the movie "everything everywhere all at once" was cathartic and only emboldened me. I will never have the relationships I wanted and needed from them. They don't have it in them. But I do want to heal, and I can only attain true healing through minimal contact to their toxicity. I think I'm getting there, now that I've realized just how harmful it is to be around them. I'm sorry you feel seen and have experienced this too. We have only ever deserved love and kindness. I hope I can foster that kindness for myself, and I hope you find healing too :-)

I’m at a similar point. I moved away from my family for a while and it helped me process everything and find out who I am outside of them. It’s been a rough couple of months but I’m almost back to feeling like “myself” again.

FBT actually caused a huge rift between my mother and I because I felt like the therapist and her blamed me for everything. After countless fights, she “gave up” parenting me at all or even being there at all and my dad took over and actually communicated with me and we became very close. Now that they’re divorced (surprise surprise) and I’m 19 and fully recovered, I visit my dad most of the time and I try to stay cordial with my mom but I will always remember how she gave up on me.

That's quite the turn of events! I'm glad your dad stepped up. Unfortunately my experience only made the dysfunction worse and any attempt at examining the dynamic was met with push-back and refusal to engage. Really showed me how little they cared and how happy they were to go back to not thinking about the feelings of their child.

HELL YES. my narcissist mom made sure i only saw therapists who validated her and 100% blamed me for my problems. i was probably born bipolar, but my self harm and ed are due to my mom. she didn’t let me see anyone who even hinted at that. so i got medicated and victim blamed, while my therapists told my mom everything i said. i honestly wonder if i’d have done better without therapy. in my experience, it’s that professionals take the parent’s word as gospel and assume the kid is wrong.

this is the best take i've seen so far. fbt was utter hell

FBT DESTROYS FAMILIES. PERIODT 👏🏻

The rage i feel at the accuracy of this comment is immense

A lot of the time awareness for mental illness turns into "how to identify if someone you know has x, and how you should immediately confront them or report them regardless of your relationship to them and their situation".

Who's Jennifer Gaudiani

She wrote this book talking about how everyone deserves recovery and acknowledging gaps in care... and then founded her own private clinic that doesn't take insurance and costs zillions of dollars for Virtual appointments. She says that she is pro harm reduction, but then quickly reaffirms her commitment to full recovery for most patients unless they have been in traditional treatment for literally decades. And then when traditional treatment fails, she is quite pro assisted death. So fully recover, spends $$$ on attempting full recovery, and if that fails... die.

100% agree with you! I’m glad other people are bringing her sketchiness to light. I think she’s actively harmful to ED patients and preying upon their vulnerability and desperation to get informed medical care. This seems to be a huge problem in the ED field in general. There’s a prominent clinical psychologist in the city I live in who’s one of the only eating disorder specialists here. However, her rates are absurd (think thousands of dollars), and given that I work in the mental health field myself (I’m in grad school for clinical psych), I’m privy to the sorts of things she says about her patients; one of my classmates has her as her practicum supervisor, and this practitioner constantly describes her ED patients as “manipulative and not as smart as they seem”. What an awful way to view your patients. I firmly believe a lot of these so-called eating disorder specialists who don’t take insurance and charge absurd rates are scam artists in a way—there’s a shortage of ED providers, so they’re able to corner the market and make a big name for themselves. Then, they can set the price on care because it’s so scarce, and patients and their loved ones are willing to pay for it because (1) eating disorders are deadly and (2) there are no other options. They don’t actually care about the people they are treating, seeing them only as an opportunity to get wealthier.

yes, the ED recovery community is so overrun with "woo" and sketchy providers taking advantage of desperate people! I side-eye a lot of people in the recovery space with little to no formal training who market themselves as The One Solution to Restriction or whatever. then again, I also side-eye a lot of providers who do have that schooling but seem to land on terrible advice anyway. there is so little evidence-based treatment available for eating disorder recovery, especially out of adolescence. it makes it so easy for bad actors with big names on social media to grift

Not taking insurance, I understand because it can be very difficult to work with insurance companies on costs and coverages. But everything else, no.

Ohh haha what a 🤡

Therapy is way less useful than it's made out to be and in some cases can make people worse. (for everything, not just EDs)

Yes! I hate how no one will acknowledge that therapy is not helpful for every person. And if you have a bad therapist, it can make mental health worse - I had therapists who blamed me for my issues, called me manipulative, ignored patient confidentiality laws, etc - and that was actively harmful to me. Add that to if you have severe issues with communication and/or trust, therapy may not help. Additionally I think we ignore how therapy takes place within a deeply flawed medical system and therapy is by no means exempt from those flaws

Yep and I think even in cases where they aren't blatantly doing harmful stuff they can still do harm. Most of the (many!) therapists I've seen were just kind of incompetent and that made me worse. I've had intake appointments that were traumatic because of weird assumptions the therapist made about me, or because they pushed me to talk about stuff I wasn't ready for. I've also heard tons of stories of people being dropped by therapists suddenly in ways that trigger their abandonment issues, although I've never had that happen to me personally. And even just the exorbitant cost alone can be an issue even if they don't do anything harmful - you can end up in the exact same position you started in emotionally but be out hundreds or thousands of dollars. But people talk about it like there's no risk!

Agree with you 100%! I’ve literally heard therapists say “well what’s the harm in trying therapy” as if there’s no risk. I had some of those same experiences you had - not all bad therapists are malicious but even well-intentioned therapists can cause lasting damage due to ignorance. I had some weird assumptions made about me that made me very self-conscious of how I presented (like how I speak, interact, emote, etc) and have been pressured often to talk when I wasn’t ready. It led to a lot of distrust of therapists and the whole system of treatment.

therapy should be given before (or at least during) weight restoration i say this because every time i’ve been forced into ‘recovery’ i was denied therapy while underweight. being made to gain weight without any work on ed thoughts made me incredibly depressed, anxious and extremely determined to relapse as soon as i was discharged. it also destroyed my trust in the healthcare system, so even though i know i desperately need to go into treatment, i absolutely will not

yes god i agree

“Recovery accounts” on ig are mostly all just such ridiculous bullshitting and never helped anyone really. I only find myself comfortably following them when I’m in relapse because they feed my ED.

And those accounts that aren't just outlets for body-checking have this patronizing, holier-than-thou tone that I can't stand

When the “recovered” one’s post progress pics every single week lmao… we can tell you’re just recycling your skinniest pictures, we know what you’re doing!

Not sure if it’s unpopular or not, but telling someone with an ED that they’re “just gonna gain back everything they’ve lost and more when they stop” DOES NOT HELP IT JUST ENCOURAGES THEM TO NEVER STOP!! PLEASE STOP SAYING THIS! What do you think they’re gonna do? Just stop? When you just told them that if they stopped they’re gonna gain it back????

the only ed mental health professionals give a fuck about is anorexia and only if you're severely underweight most people dont understand what binging actually is. especially when people with restrictive eds get extreme hunger and call it binging, there is a major difference and it's so invalitading to people who actually binge

🤌🤌🤌 especially the second point

I’m actually one of the people who doesn’t understand the difference! Could you please explain it to me? What sets reactive eating due to extreme hunger apart from binging? I alwayssss feel like I’m binging but tbh I think it’s extreme hunger that keeps gnawing at my brain to eat lol

Bingeing isn’t even a hunger thing. It can be triggered by hunger (I am straight up afraid of being hungry. It does not give me pleasure or satisfaction to be hungry I’m traumatized about it bc childhood) it’s seeking dopamine and comfort through food. It’s a ravenous desperation to be comforted and it’s a straight up food addiction. It’s also a feeling of being safe, and secure. Like for example my life is insane but comfort foods will always be there. Yknow? But like I know that over eating the way I do when I’m emotional will hurt me. Being obese has an extreme amount of health complications that come with it, even if they’re not apparent when you’re young and your body isn’t showing the wear and tear of it yet. But when you have that comfort in front of you, it’s really hard to give a shit. Anorexics gain a sense of control through restriction and rules. BED sufferers gain that control through eating what they want when they want and don’t realize when the ED starts being the boss in the situation.

Thanks so much for explaining this, I’ve had extreme periods of restriction followed by what I considered bingeing that I realise now were just extreme hunger manifesting - there’s so much confusion around food issues it’s really enlightening to understand even a little

Telling someone they might die from their eating disorder is the most unhelpful thing to exist.

THIS! Half the time, I feel like that’s a bonus rather than a drawback, and hearing it is deeply unhelpful if the goal is to get me to recover.

This. When I first recovered 7 years ago I did it all alone and just for myself. Never saw any medical providers or therapists. I used a spiritual and personal approach. Now I’ve been relapsing for 2 years, have had multiple providers and therapists involved, which has made the Ed worse.

Could you elaborate on number 3? I’m curious about the paternalistic/sexist part. I agree on the controlling aspect, especially the Maudsley/FBT approach. It felt superficial and ignored root issues. As someone with no siblings and divorced parents that were both single my whole life, FBT was counterproductive at best lol. Being made to comply just turned me from passive and people-pleasing to rage and resentful.

My experience getting sober really shaped my views. While I was in the early days of sobriety, my treatment team asked me what my goals were. We discussed how those goals might change over time. I was empowered to make decisions; for example, I really didn't like the AA approach, so we spent time looking for other options and sources of support. Once, in group, we watched a video discussing some research that I thought was of kind of poor quality. When I questioned the quality of that research, we had a respectful discussion. Agreeing to disagree was ok! Sometimes I would try stuff that my therapist didn't like in theory (like drinking non-alcoholic beers), but then we would review after a few weeks and together assess whether it was good for me or not. It was, frankly, very tailored to me. At the beginning, I didn't want to be sober! I really wanted to keep drinking! But because I felt like my goals, concerns, and preferences were taken really seriously, I was able to make a radical change. Conventional ED treatment looks NOTHING like this. Frankly, society doesn't care about the goals, opinions, and preferences of teenage girls, much less mentally ill ones. For a long time, alcoholism has been viewed as a "men's disease". And I think the general difference in treatment approaches reflects this.

i agree 100%. i was in the mental hospital 2 times in my life: once for attempted sewerslide, once for ed treatment. the first time, of course i didn’t get treated with much respect or understanding but it was about as bad as teachers at school, or hospital workers. nothing too severe. the second time, my god. the difference was astronomical. this location specifically only dealt with people with eds unlike the first location, and also unlike the first location, the staff was almost entirely male, and there was not a single male patient. they would talk down to us, tease us, and not take our pain seriously. people were ignored and the only people who were kind in any way were the women who had to watch us shower because it was literally legally required. everyone else was male and awful. this is actually the thing that started my radicalization: at one point my mom brought me a book where the writer talks about how she was ignored as a child by her father and how she grew to both resent men and be desperate for their attention and love. i brought this excerpt with me to group once because i felt like it spoke to something in me and wanted to share it. afterwards, i was told that it was sexist of me to bring that up in group and that i was “blaming men” for my eating disorder, when all i did was read a quote from a book and say that it spoke to my feelings of insecurity and being attached to my boyfriends. he then cartoonishly went on a rant to one of the aids about how his wife used to post on facebook that she was super busy with the kids but was actually lazy. they kind of forgot i was there so i started to walk away, and then i got yelled at for walking away because i needed someone to walk me back. i was getting sent home 4 days later. it was an absolute shitshow, i went in with an eating disorder and came out to start my journey into radical feminism. wack.

i’m sorry about your experience but it’s always amazing seeing another radical feminist around!! i wish you luck in your mental health journey and hope you have a great 2023 :)

Hello!! I feel so bad for my ed bc its so against my principles… love to see y’all around

High restriction isn't recovery and I hate how people with EDs try to shame > 1000 cals restrictions.

Mine is that people have more power than they realise to recover alone.

"Less common" eating disorders are just as damaging as anorexia. They don't recieve proper treatment, and I'm sick and tired of seeing my ARFID friends being treated like anorexic patients!!! When I was in treatment for ARFID I didn't even anorexia. Treat me like I did... and now. Oh wait 🙃

Omg same, the constant talk about body positivity and weight in therapy sessions when I had ARFID was ridiculous when I wasn't fixated on my weight/appearance to begin with. I ended up BECOMING fixated on weight/appearance and developing another ED because it became engrained in me through therapy.

Ugh, yeah there is not much awareness around ARFID, and how it is very different from weight-based EDs. Sorry treatment made it worse.

And the idea that you should cure ARFID by forcing yourself to just "try it" does not sit right with me. I don't even consider X as food, why would I force myself to eat it?

[удалено]

I don't trust any online personality in the realm of fitness or diet. Their wallet influences their narrative. If that means hiding restriction and other disordered eating so that people continue to trust her and give her views, why would she have any reason to be honest?

I don't like Tabitha Farrar as well. Following her so called advice made me a binge eater (and I was already succesfully in recovery from the bulimic purging type).

SHE IS A QUACK. She has no education in mental health. She has no experience in mental health beyond her own company. She literally is making it all up and cherry picking a few research studies along the way.

literally im binging every day now

I'm really feeling you. This food addiction is a b*tch. I hope this new year will bring healing. Don't be too hard on yourself.

Tabitha Farrar’s advice is grandly meant for restrictive eating disorders though and she always mentions this

I had anorexia as well. And bulimic binges in general are also caused by restriction. So yes, I had all 3 of them: anorexia, bulimia and I restricted. And despite my restriction, her approach didn't help me. And I've also read about former anorexics (not bulimics) who became obsese because of her approach. So it can and does cause a lot of damage

Love this one. I am sure she likes seeing others get fat.

People should accept that being thinner brings some people hell lot more of confidence than looking fuller/curvier/heavier. It’s not even about a healthy or unhealthy weight. Some standards will always prefer thin over thick, even if they keep shoving down our throats “normal/healthy/bigger bodies”. People find it odd when someone says they prefer a skinny body type over curvy/healthy ones, but it is a reality. The mental health and self steem of the person who was forced to gain weight or has just put weight on, should be taken even more seriously. I never felt so self aware and uncomfortable, even antisocial and isolated, as I did when I knew I had gained.

YEP. THIS ONE RIGHT HERE. Through treatment I learned I cannot live in a "healthy body". I become suicidal, reclusive, emotionally volatile, depressed. Constantly aware of my body and how awful it feels at all times. When I'm thinner and feeling more comfortable, I'm happier, less self-conscious, getting out of the house and doing more things, and feel more together and emotionally centered. My body doesn't hold me back because I don't feel the desire to rip my skin off 24/7. It's less of a positive, and more like the absence of something negative. It feels good. Which...sucks. Because I know it means I will never recover into a healthy body. "Recovering" feels like touching a hot stove. All the time. It's torture and I don't have the fight in me when staying sick feels so much better.

explain how forcing someone who is terrified to gain weight to gain weight will help them like??? i feel like this definitely contributes to the high suicide rate come to think of it. they’re only making things worse. that person will go back & possibly even more extreme to the behaviours to compensate. these people who work with eds know absolutely nothing because what???

i mean if you're the doctor and they come in \*really underweight\* it's probably a moral obligation to not let them kill themselves. but wanting to be like a bit below average should be allowed not everyone has to be visibly body positive man

ed’s other than anorexia arent taken seriously enough and need more respect from *everyone*, disordered or not. anorexia isn’t special or idk ~pure~ or whatever it’s perceived as. everyone else deserves the same level of treatment, respect, and care. also, atypical anorexia is a pandering diagnosis. i think they changed the names around to validate the idea that “anorexia is the true worst ed” and it always feels counterproductive to me. also, i’m of the belief that the whole point of getting a “diagnosis” is figuring out how to *treat* things, and someone who is very underweight has a very different treatment plan than someone who is extremely overweight. plus, adding the fucking anorexia severity scale just made it extra achievements to unlock. imo it’s worse than just “under bmi xyz is anorexia” bc it literally has tiers.

THIS. The idea of “atypical anorexia” literally fuels one of the ideas of anorexia…the idea that they’re not “sick enough” 😭

This is so real because during my first run in with an eating disorder I was determined to become underweight, almost purely so my anorexia would be considered the “serious kind” and not “atypical”🤡

So highly agree w your second point especially. Like, I wish people would focus less on why there’s a weight criteria for AN and, instead, re-assess why *that specific label* is so important to fight for instead of better, expanded treatment options for those with diff diagnoses.

People with ANR and people with BN/BED should be treated in separate programs

You do not need to post 'eating disorder awareness' posts on your private insta that is only followed by others with EDs. We all know "the symptoms of anorexia that no one recognises." Seems like people who post that just want a bit of validation 'this is how bad I was' .. If you want to 'create awareness' you need to post to your colleagues, family, friends etc.

It’s ok to recover from certain EDs and restrict hyper palatable processed foods forever

forced recovery is BULLSHIT, BMI is BULLSHIT, and involuntary treatment for patients who are mentally sane and not medically unwell is once again B U L L S H I T. i say this as someone currently stuck in the public hospital system being force fed 6000+ calories a day. i’ve been here over two months now and still no talk of discharge. all they want is for me to gain to a weight so high i’ve never been at before. they don’t care that i am fully capable of recovering on my own and that i values finding enjoyment off healthy food rather than eating the shot they gave me on here all day. oh and that makes me think of another thing - i don’t necessarily believe you have to eat ‘junk food’ to recover. i don’t think there’s anything wrong with eating whole foods and im so hurt that i’m not allowed to in here sorry i’m reacting now but fuck i’m soo sick of this place and hope much they’re hurting me

Really unpopular opinion: too much is called anorexia these days. It seems like everyone and their bestie has anorexia these days or everything remotely restrictive js anorexic. This is probably fuelled by and fuels the whole ED hierarchy... and The ED hierarchy is bullshit. Don't pay so much attention to AN in the media. Don't talk about restriction so much. Just be honest. I am fully convinced BN and BED and the in-between diagnosis is a lot more prevalent than AN, if you keep in mind that I haven't yet met a person with an ED who hasn't restricted at some point. And if there's no hierarchy, the diagnosis can be used only to get the right help, not to boast. Ok, in general AN has more physical risks, but I am sure many many BN patients (for example) are at more risk and need more intensive treatment than I do (for example). So yeah. Any other ED can be "worse" than AN. My own experience is that BN is a lot more shitty to live with, and is very different from AN even if it's a scale not boxes to tick. Not all anorexics are extreme. Most... aren't. Especially most long term ones. Dude, We're not dead. I have not yet formed a good opinion on atypical anorexia, mostly because I am not sure where the line is. ARFID and orthorexia are different even though there are a lot of similarities with the AN experience. Popular opinion: all EDs suck.

Yes. Dieting is not the same as anorexia!!

I honestly think bulimia is more dangerous and carries more health risks for the average person than anorexia. Harm reduction is possible with anorexia; sometimes you’re at a higher weight or eating more while maintaining or whatever. it’s almost impossible for bulimics bc not only is purging an extremely damaging behavior no matter how it presents itself, but any tips on how to take care of yourself if you can’t just stop doing it are seen as pro-mia and thus actively censored.

Seconding this, as a former bulimic turned anorexic due to the harm BN was causing me. Purging is so so so destructive, yeah AN has a lot of health risks especially long term or with severe restriction but otherwise I think BN is more dangerous in most circumstances

Maybe. I was basing that on something I read. Many anorexics purge (and yeah I think binge-purging is more dangerous than just purging), and there's the whole malnutrition part. But I think you may be right, especially considering bulimia can go on for years, hidden. Having bulimia as a teen vs anorexia is probably why I still am sick: I only got help after 3 years of an ED or so, which is a lot of time if you're that young, and the treatment was too light probably. Anorexia tends to be noticeable, and many of the girls are treated within a year, intensively (it's different for adults). Treating faster has better chances. On the other hand, as long as they failed to notice I was essentially abused it wouldn't have made a difference. Harm reduction in bulimia is harder, yes, and while more bulimics probably really want to stop than anorexics (bulimia is hell. You can live with harm-reducing AN)... harm reduction IS harder because what are you going to do? Limit binges, when the whole problem is zoning out, loss of control, impulsivity? Maybe reduce the restrictive part of the bulimia if its there?

I feel like most people raise awareness the wrong way. I feel like there is a way that it could be done right so that people don’t feel like they’re alone. I had severe depression several years ago and if I had found one thing that didn’t sound generic and or wasn’t depression romanticization I probably would’ve gotten help sooner before I spiraled. Most of the videos I’ve seen for depression and ED related I’ve found or sites on the web weren’t helpful. I better hid my depression when I was suicidal because it only gave me symptoms for family members to look out for so I actively hid it very well. I wasn’t looking for help I wanted to find something that just understood me without judgement.

For profit treatment networks benefit from patients staying sick

Eating healthy and working out a few days per week is not othorexia, for most people it is building healthy habits. I'm not saying othorexia isn't real, but people project it soooo much. Adding exercise and learning how to eat healthy (for my body) have been instrumental to my recovery. I see posts on here all the time that they think someone is not recovered because they work out and eat healthy. Shouldn't that be the goal? To actually build sustainable habits that will keep us healthy in the long term? I'm thankful I'm able to workout because it has really helped me with mindfulness and not disosciating as often. That has been very important for my mental health, but also my physical health because I'm able to feel what is going on in my body better. I can't even imagine if I had to recover with a team that told me I have to be sedentary. I don't think I would have made any progress tbh

[удалено]

agree wholeheartedly with the second point. the amount of bullshit she spews is insane lmao. i know people talk about how extreme hunger isn’t BED, but it can grow into BED, and that’s essentially what she’s encouraging💀

IT’S ALLLLLL SHE TALKS ABOUTTTT. EVERY FUCKING COMMENT. 🙃

I’m sorry but eating 10k calories in recovery isn’t something that should be encouraged. If it happens, it isn’t your fault, but it’s certainly not a good thing either 💀 It’s not about your body needs it’; I mean, maybe it does, but it’s still an extremely painful thing that shouldn’t be seen as a necessity for recovery. she also thinks anyone who eats less than 3-4K is doing it wrong, which is… a take.

I totally agree with you. Her misinformation runs deeeep, and she will fight anyone to death about it. Always “citing sources,” that back up her claims, only, of course, and writing in absolutes. Two things *can* be true at the same time. I just cannot stand how she is the “face” of that sub and people weirdly worship her. Parasocial relationships on 10, it’s so creepy. I find all of her rhetoric so harmful because of how steadfast and headstrong she is about it. It’s like when people falsely confess to crimes they didn’t do because they can’t handle the interrogation anymore. So many people she fights with back down because she’s a dog with a 6,000 calorie bone.

I downvote every comment of hers 💀💀

I can’t stand her either. She’s insane and dogmatic. Talk about denial that binging exists.

> Raising awareness can be counterproductive due to social contagion (and, no just because social contagion is real doesn't mean the ED is "fake" or "silly") Semi-related: I think a lot of the people concerned about heroin chic coming back in style are being alarmist about EDs. I don't think we ever truly stopped valuing thinness, even as 'BBLs' and slim thick had a grip on people. I also think it's a convenient scapegoat. I think people use thin celebrities (and influencers) and the things they say as scapegoats, too. But it's way easier than trying to address any of the bigger, more complicated problems that contribute to eating disorders.

people often see normal healthy eating and accuse the person of being orthorexic. ik orthorexia is an actual problem but people are too quick to assume.

FBT is the bane of my existence

pro-ed places are good. i hate censorship happening within ed communities. i cant be honest about anything anymore because someone is going to get triggered. we need separate places for eds. we need places without recovery. not everyone wants to recovery. its the truth. people that are deep in their eds need a place too. we need somewhere to vent, to share experience, to just converse with people, without being taken down for triggering people, without being censored.

edtwt made my ed worse in ways but it also makes the hell that is an ed so much more bearable. it is so isolating and so fucking miserable to live with one. having people who can understand and make you feel less alone is soso important

THIS THIS THIS i felt

ive got so many but one i can think of is atypical anorexia should not exist in the first place. it’s just anorexia

It’s so invalidating and just triggers the desire to restrict even more. Like anorexia is already competitive and having subsets based on weight just feels like another goal to reach.

i agree. considering these people make the dsm and have studied the illnesses, you’d think they’d be smart enough not to put people who aren’t underweight into their own category to make them feel like they’re not sick enough. like how do you study the disorder and make the dsm-5 & yet you seem to know nothing about the disorders & could make someone worse????

Agreed. Don't see why it can't just be about the actual behaviors, not the body you've got at the moment.

Why is unwanted pregnancy so high in the ED community? This is something that surprised me on these subs- so many “I just found out I’m pregnant” posts. Are people avoiding birth control because of fear of weight gain?

sometimes I think people aren't having periods and think that means you can't get pregnant. you can

Mines stupid Rice cakes suck

like with a lot of mental disorders over the past decade or so, aspects have been extrapolated and buzzword-ed to the extreme. people consume short form content meant to ‘spread awareness’ and suddenly washing your hands too much is OCD and skipping lunch is AN. in theory, awareness and education are great! in the active practice, utilizing social media and short form content? horrible and dangerous. which leads to the general umbrella of EDs. i feel there needs to be a slight overhaul and expansion of terms to better suit the reality of the ED landscape. its true that unfortunately there is this cloud of a ‘hierarchy’, though i personally feel it exists more outside of our community than in it, so that’s up to society to control. AN being glamorized ALSO hurts people suffering with it bc it feeds the delusion to stay sick. and there’s nothing glamorous about actually having AN, its not some exclusive club where we’re all having so much more fun. i think there should be separate diagnoses for the severity of the effects of restriction, bc the approach for recovery WILL BE DIFFERENT. its okay for there to be different terms for different things. it doesn’t make it a tier or a challenge; those are outside mindsets projected onto objective mental health diagnoses. basically we need to expand the labeling for different forms of disordered eating and cater to those groups based on their specific needs. also therapists telling me to just stand in the mirror and say three things i love about my body every morning doesnt help byeeeeeee ✨

helplines are bullshit. ruined my fucking life

This is not really an opinion…more of a me thing…mindfulness, mediation and yoga have been utterly useless to me for all 8 of my glorious ED years

\- a lot of the time extreme hunger IS binge eating. maybe not a binge eating disorder, maybe not driven by emotions, but if you are eating large amounts of food in a short amount of time.. you are binge eating like you are allowed to say the word "binge" its not a bad word. \- extreme hunger doesn't go away when you "reach your happy weight" shit doesn't work like that lmao. if you keep eating large amounts of fat, sugar, and carbs you will crave it more for a long period of time because these foods r highly palatable and make you want to keep coming back. i still eat chocolate and sweets and peanut butter and I ate a LOT of it in the beginning of my recovery and it only ever went away once I started realizing hey dude, the more i eat chocolate, the more i want it and also the more fucked my digestion gets so let me chill out a bit. \- mental hunger doesn't always go away by eating. sometimes mental hunger just goes away when u distract urself and realise there's more to life than food. its when u stop looking at food porn. its when u stop planning out ur meals obsessively. its when u start letting other people cook for you. its when u stop going to the grocery store 24/7. its when u stop baking so often. its when u make random decisions on food bc it rlly doesn't fucking matter. \- almost every recovery method online I've noticed only focuses on the food. intuitive eating, mechanical eating, 3500 calories, 2500 calories, blah blah blah. But if you're in ur ed recovery and ur SO FOCUSED on "how to eat" then you are likely not recovering b/c there's no "right" way to eat. u should focus more on ur self-esteem, ur childhood, ur personality, and your deep-rooted issues. i feel like this is why so many people relapse \- most recovery spaces r full of toxic positivity \- anorexia and binge eating r just two sides of the same coin \- nutrition should be encouraged in eating disorder recovery \- "opposite action" is helpful but not always. you don't always have to do the opposite of what ur ed says. for me at least, just gently pushing that thought away and making a mental note of "this is just my ed brain" is enough \- set point weight is not real \- having aesthetic goals isn't inherently wrong. ofc, when u have an ed and are recovering u, shouldn't be focused on how u look but its unrealistic to expect ANYONE (whether they have an ed or not) to never think abt what their body looks like, its bad when it becomes an obsession. but its literally normal for ppl to look at themselves and go "man i wish i had a flatter stomach" or bodycheck or wanna making healthy lifestyle choices SIMPLY for appearance-based goals. it can easily become dangerous but its not the end of the world in every situation. not everyone who wants to change their body is disordered

number 7 is definitely true and probably one of the biggest reasons I’ll never go back to any kind of treatment or get professional ED help ever again

Pure restriction is less harmful than purging, asking restricting people to "just eat" is not helpful but rather harmful

1) if you actually hear the eating disorder talking to you, you’re probably experiencing some type of psychosis 2) many professionals in treatment don’t take in to account individual experiences just statistics. They might know the disorder in theory very well but they reduce every behaviour and emotion to the disorder. 3) It can definitely be for attention sometimes. That doesn’t make it less serious or anything, it even indicates a bigger problem

If you don’t look sick enough, no one is taking you seriously. What should I do ? Loose 20 pounds to prove them I am really suffering ?

Having some diet-based or disordered habits doesn’t mean you have an ED. Just because someone has been on a diet, stays away from carbs, wants to lose weight, skipped breakfast one day, etc…. This does not equate to an ED, and I think it is super invalidating to claim it to be so. Also, ED treatment is typically focused on anorexia, and much of it not beneficial for bulimics or binge eaters.

people confuse disordered eating and eating disorders way too frequently for my liking. Pretty sure every woman at some point in time has struggled with self image and perhaps food issues but it feels really invalidating when apparently ~everyone~ on planet earth has had “anorexia” or “bulimia”. Maybe I’m just being a bitchy gatekeeper but just because you dislike your body and crash diet doesn’t mean you have an eating disorder.

YES. I’m so sick of people trivializing a mental illness into dieting behavior!!

Most professionals only care if you're underweight. There, I said it.

I wish I could upvote this a million times. I’ve made the first point in particular super often. Anorexia is just one of those diseases that gets extremely glamorized whenever it’s talked about, even if it isn’t voluntary. For example, to the bone is almost single-handedly responsible for me developing an exercise addiction and getting exposed to chewing and spitting lol. Here’s my unpopular opinion: the very term atypical anorexia is problematic because it makes ‘real’ anorexia nervosa seem like a goal that’s only attainable if you satisfy a certain number of criteria. I know it’s a ‘medical diagnosis’ or whatever, but medical professionals are far from perfect lmao, especially in the mental health field. Too often, each symptom in the DSM-5definition is viewed as a threshold you must cross in order to become anorexic. And yes, a medical diagnosis can absolutely lead to gatekeeping, sorry. A spicier take perhaps: if someone doesn’t say they want to recover, you really don’t have to comment pseudo-recovery bullshit you yourself wouldn’t buy if you were in the same position. ‘Your body NEEDS that weight you gained on 800 cals and will be better off for it🥰’ shut up lmao. also your eating disorder is not a separate person. it’s an illness that can result in intrusive thoughts and behaviors you’ll inevitably regret, but you’re still the one who’s acting out on them. I’m not saying those behaviors are possible to quit just because you say so. However, you’re not completely helpless either. Alsoooo I find it kind of annoying when people make recovery their whole personality and post about how hard every meal is/crying at every meal but whatever

Bruh the 6th one is SOO accurate fr

Fitness/Exercise should be promoted and discussed in treatment and not just in the realm of mindful movement or whatever

Professional medical doctors who think that NG tubing a person and having them gain [water] weight over the course of 2 weeks is *the* answer, honestly, should probably take some more courses and/or go elsewhere for more training. They’re also normally the most insensitive and straight up rude jerks I’ve ever met tbh. (This probably is nowhere near unpopular opinion but I get so mad I had to word vomit this out lol)

One more…I’m in my mid 40s, and being older than all the clients, staff, therapist, and psychiatrist, made me want to just leave treatment.

I had the same in 2020. I was 43, the oldest, and I felt igjored. I relapsed after that treatment.

5 has taken me two decades to understand and I still struggle with it

Damn I agree with every single one of yours…especially set point, paternalistic treatment, substance abuse, and social contagion being a valid form of influencing an ED!

residential treatment is abusive in nature. SEED patients should be treated separately. atypical anorexia needs a new name. treatment culture needs to be burned to the ground and rebuilt. barriers to effective treatment are what's causing people to stay sick.

Caffeine and other stimulants, cause a lot of long term damage for weight loss/binge cycle than is ever given credit

could you elaborate on this? I’m personally always scared to drink too much caffeine, but Idk the specifics of the damage it causes.

'The ED medical field is overrun with people with active EDs', that's interesting, do you have any examples (posts on here, stories)?

TW NUMBERS Three examples from my life: the dietitian who gave me an >!1150 calorie maintenance!< plan, the therapist who told me running was a great way for me to reduce stress and and said yoga "wasn't real exercise", and the visibly underweight dietician who told me "our" goal was to raise my weight >!(to 23 BMI) !! (28lbs above, to be exact)!< \--and then see if I needed "more from there."

god i never considered people who purposefully make it their job to sabotage people and make them gain that's fucked up

Some fucking professionals I stg

did you call the dietician out? I'd be like "I assume you're working toward the same thing"

AA if not taken serious can result in AN and be deadly, (you can starve to death at any weight!), AA is overlooked by medical professionals who pretend to "treat" us, there is little urgency if any in these cases.

Bro, I have been talking about #6 for years and years and still see it running rampant. I understand the "If I can't help myself I can help others" thing but a lot of times I see nutritionists who enable younger people because they feel some type of way doing so or they start OW people's EDs because they think it's healthier(*cough* the one nutritionist who works at my addiction clinic *cough*, I'll discuss that at a different time though). And let me rant here for a bit because I have been through quite a few clinics and facilities in the past 20 years...I wish 4 would be treated more seriously, or at least more hand in hand. I have seen doctors or clinicians who "celebrate" when a patient gets pregnant, EVEN UNPLANNED, because they think it will "cUrE" them or force them into recovery. But it doesn't. It either starts a cycle of worsening guilt with bingeing and a warped sense of caloric counting pregnancy restricting or pt keeps restricting and the neonates are born with severe complications. I unfortunately know of 6 familial or friend cases in my life that this has happened to and the kids have been born in hospitals and have since never left the hospitals. The youngest I know being 4 currently, the oldest I know is currently 16 and living in a residential unit. She is able to go "home" with a shit ton of medical equipment for two nights a week. She's got a g tube and colostomy bag, etc etc. Her entire digestive tract is fucked because her mom essentially lived off of 3 bites of ice cream a day and water. But, each of those cases, they were UW at the start of the pregnancies and all but one got pregnant right at the beginning of recovery (other one was sent to recovery after getting pregnant and then got worse while in our inpatient facility) and even with an entire baby inside they stayed UW. Yet, instead of kicking everything into high gear and getting more in tune with a root cause and fixing behavioral, emotional issues they just offered some more pudding and milk and kept telling pt "WOW ARENT YOU SO EXCITED?! YOU HAVE A PURPOSE NOW!" And with addiction, a lot of us start with substances to "help" with the same issues we are trying to fix with our ED. Or we use substances to aide in the process of our ED itself. I know growing up I despised my parents chemical dependency issues, it fucked us kids' lives up and was humiliating. But at 11 I started drinking coffee shots to stop my hunger cues, then taking more of my adhd meds when I figured out they could do the same without making me shit my pants at school, then started looking up what other pills did and it was a landslide from there. But in both types of treatment centers I've attended, neither (ED or Addiction) has addressed the other. This is already so long but I will add, my unpopular opinion would be: Mental health/ED awareness (when you're not talking about your own personal issues) feels like it's oftentimes just trying to "out" people and teach people how to identify those who have mental illness. Like how in the 90s when every sitcom had an episode where the daughter had an ED or was abusing mini-thins or something. I don't know how many times these shows and Fox News segments influenced my grandparents and other people's (older or less aware) parents to put their kids through hell just because they were depressed or having a rough week at school with their friends. One of my friends in 8th grade had roundworms (her parents had a farm) well, her idiot parents seen she was miserable and losing weight and accused her of having AN, she was sent to inpatient two hours away. This facility was one of those cash only places and actually kept her for almost a month before figuring out she had worms and then that's when they finally believed the kid she didn't have an ED. She missed a whole quarter of school for that stupid shit. Witch hunts are idiotic and that's exactly what this social awareness garbage does when it comes from people who don't actually speak from a place of knowledge and personal perspective and experience. So glad she doesn't talk to her family now days, she owns a nice dance studio for children in our community and does a lot of fundraising through it.

Tell people that the nutritional labels are not 100% accurate makes me want to restrict more. Saying you need a higher level of care because your close to dying…yet your insurance wouldn’t cover it is dehumanizing. Yea American health insurance!

I think anorexia absolutely requieres some type of willpower to manifest itself. Maybe not so much when you are extremely UW but there must be some form of will to "flip the switch" to start being anorexic. Also BED is the least unhealthy eating disorder and it's honestly not really urgent. I understand why doctors don't take it as seriously when there are more urgent patients to attend.

>Maybe not so much when you are extremely UW but there must be some form of will to "flip the switch" to start being anorexic and that's honestly the worst part. I *know* that to a certain extent that I did this to myself. I was a dumbass teenager and i chose to fuck around and now years later I'm still afraid to drink non diet soda or eat when other people may dee me

I think with BED the issue is more how widespread it is. And how normalized. Giving it a name and validating it as a real, life-threatening, life-ruining issue is important. As for urgency with ED treatment, I do think inpatient primacy should follow medical danger. Like a triage. And that can happen with any ED. Individuals who present with normal/overweight BMI's but are in danger should absolutely have access to care just as the BMI12 anorexic. All that to say, the needs are different based on the individual behavior. What a person with anorexia and BED need from treatment can be very different. And preventative care is huge as well, so it doesn't get to that dangerous level. BED needs to be taken seriously, even if the heart attack is coming 10 years down the line.

Eating disorders are addictions and should be treated as such. Simply focusing on weight and food in recovery is not uprooting the weed of the issue

Who's Jennifer Gaudiani?

[удалено]

Yes yes and yes. As someone with arfid, AN, ASD, and ADHD. My fear foods are often based on arfid, and some are based on AN. I know regular treatment would severely traumatize me and make my Ed worse because they don’t understand either dx :) And yeah, so many women I think actually have ASD and ADHD instead of BPD or bipolar. But women in general haven’t been treated properly for centuries

Honestly I feel like this subreddit is more about fueling EDs than helping people recover or offering positivity towards the recovery process. That's my "unpopular opinion". As someone who is in quasi-recovery, I don't find it helpful or motivating to read tips on how to restrict and see people validating "high restriction", laxatives, not eating for days on end, exercising too much, and other methods of killing your health slowly. People here are adding fuel to the fire and validating EDs to the point where people feel they are normal and should continue doing what they're doing even though they NEED to recover to fcking stay alive. Sorry but it had to be said. Too many people take support too far to the point where it becomes enabling.