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Eating disorders
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
Don't you think it's weird some people don't want to eat? And then when you try to rationalise with them they get angry... so they must be irrational = senseless = idiotic, more or less? I just wish I knew why some people did it because it's so 
to see someone you care about do it you know?
to see someone you care about do it you know? 0
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it's only just dawning on me that that feeling which most people recognise as hunger means my body needs energy, not that i have achieved something.
it's like self-harm- hard to understand unless you've gone through it.
I don't wanna see anyone get hurt - or worse! not even some people who annoy me
because it is ridiculous.
i can look at myself in photos, and i can look at my own clothes and think, yeah, i'm pretty thin. but if i look down at my body, or if i look in a mirror, i see fat.
even though i'm not. i know i'm not. it doesn't make sense, i know. but that's how my mind works.
After talking to someone for hours and reading up on it all, you're still only so far from understanding it all.
It's just painful to see someone try and destroy themselves when there is no need to do it and when you see they have so much potential and have no need to change the way they look. To know they're ill because they haven't eaten for a few days, and they know it too, and on one side they hate it but on the other they love it. To know the reason they sound down when you speak to them is because they've eaten a piece of bread and the only thing they can do to make themselves feel better is to be sick is horrible...but it's even worse for that person.
i know
Logically I know I'm thin. I have doctors trying to hospitalise me, I have years of my life wasted being unable to walk up a flight of stairs but I can't even begin to explain the fear of any kind of 'recovery.'
'Knowing' all the logic behind the disorder doesn't make it any easier to apply it to yourself. I could write a textbook about the friggin thing but I can't make myself better. I can appreciate the utter inability for others to grasp what it's all about.
People with eating disorders aren't idiots. We're not all pampered middle class white girls who invent our own problems to our daddies will pay us attention. Some are, granted, but not all of us.
One thing I will say is the simple biological fact that your mind process cannot be considered..competent, if you like a very low weights. There's no disguising that. Often the hardest part of the recovery process is actually starting it. Where the only thing you can do is eat - you can't even begin to try and do any of the inner bullshit wahwahnoonelovesme until you're medically stable.
Add to the fact that the NHS is woeful with eating disorders. You literally have to be at deaths door in the majority of cases and even then resources are scarce, especially when you're over 18. The fact that the longer you have an eating disorder the harder it can be to recover, you have a lot of fucked up people in the system for years. It's a shit situation.
can only speak for myself, but there is nothing anyone said, did, or could have done to stop me.
when they asked me to eat, i didn't. i just told them i would and started lying more about it.
i had to come out of it by myself, because i had to want to get better. and the only person who could make me do that was me.
Yeah...
My friend she says she wants help - she wants to see someone - and we want to help get the ball rolling, but would it be better if she phoned places rather than us all helping? I think it's just the fear of changing things and thus the possibility of eating normally again that is preventing her now.
It's so hard. We've all said what we can a million times over and still it doesn't seem to fully register. I just wish her parents would be more involved. Her Dad can obviously see the marks on her arms and the way she refuses to eat but he still talks to her as if she's some kind of stupid, hopeless reject which makes her feel even worse.
Shyboy I can only second what kaffrin said - there's nothing you can say. Anyone who tried with me promptly got lied to, brushed off or ranted at. All you can do is be a friend. Body image wise - don't go there. You cannot/will not say the right thing so don't even bother. You can only help yourself and those who are seen to be 'gettting at' (irrational? unreasonable? moi?) you are usually avoided - I lost a lot of friends from my own doing. Just be as normal as you can - do normal things that friends do, it's all you can do.
Elysium, I think it's something she needs to do for herself - few people one day wake up, decide to get better and never ever change their mind at some point. Feeling like someone else is making the moves for you can be terrifying and out of your control. She needs to take responsibility for herself sure, help and support or encourage her to see her gp, practise nurse, college counsellor etc. but you can't do it for her. It may well backfire
yeah, i think that's true.
you don't ever really get over it. even when you've been a healthy weight for however many years, and you know in your head that you would rather eat and stay alive than starve, even when you've got to the point where i am now, when you actually enjoy eating sometimes, it never goes away.
you just learn to live with it.
same here, i feel better and proud of myself when i make myself sick, or when i skip meals. i like doing this because i feel better and i feel like i have achieved something.
Yes, I'm sure you'd love it if someone called you fat. :rolleyes:
Maybe that is the truth, if everyone says you're not fat then maybe you're not. How tall are you and how much do you weigh? (even tho muscle/fat ratio comes into it...)
I dont fully agree that not commenting on body image is the best idea, i still think the odd compliment now and again is good if its not OTT or sounds forced? Maybe a wow your hair looks nice today or you look really good in that skirt/top/jacket?
I'm not sure though as I haven't had any sort of serious eating disorder myself or one which I'd count as serious.
I can only speak for myself, but I was talking more the "You're looking well" type stuff - mainly interpreted as "you've gained weight" type thing. But then compliments in general make me want run away and hide.
And no, I've never known anyone who hadn't 'been there' who could even begin to understand. ASide from psychiatrists & whatnot on some levels. *shrug* Everyone is different - there are many eating disordered people I've met in hospitals etc. who plain ol' did my head in - I didn't realte to them at all. Different strokes for different folks and all that. You know your friends, all you can do is your best.