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I (21M) have always had problems eating, since I was a little kid I was so disgusted by breakfast that I vomited just by looking at food in the mornings, because of this I spent all of elementary school not eating breakfast. When I got to high school I didn't feel that way anymore and I could eat anything in the morning and I generally enjoyed food more but since then I have an addiction to junk food Now that I'm in college I don't eat anything until my hunger organs hurt and I usually only have one meal all day, sometimes I don't eat anything for a whole day. I didn't really think it was a problem until my schoolmates told me I eat really bad and my body looks very fragile. I've been trying to eat more during the day but it's kind of hard because I'm so busy that I just forget. Is there anything I can do to eat more often? I went to a nutritionist last year and he told me that if I want to gain weight I have to eat 5 times a day but I don't know how to do it because food is increasingly expensive in my country and I don't have time to cook for myself.

I’m anorexic and have been relapsing but always said if I binge just throw it up. This is my third time in two days purging. I can’t stop. I wanna cry. I didn’t even get everything up so I have to burn it off now. I’m so tired of being so obbessed with food but I can’t stop. I have a therpaist and I’m starting Wellbutrin on Sunday. I hate this feeling. I hate how I look. None of my friends would help except maybe two. I’m gonna try talking to them.

(F27yo) I have lost 55pounds in 5 months and Im hating myself.

Three years ago I relapsed into bulimia and went to a phyc for help and was put on medication for first time ever. The problem was that when I was on the medication I felt really good about myself and everything was going really well, I didn't worry about anything, I didn't even feel stressed at work, but not worrying about what I ate for more than a year made me gain 55 pounds and at the time I didn't even care about it.

Of course, I eventually started to gain conscience about how fat and unhealthy I was, so I dropped the medication, stopped seeing the psyc and tried to go on a diet but my habits were so bad that it was impossible for me back then, and I got stuck in that fat body over 2 years.

Depression hit me hard, I never wanted to leave the house, I had 0 social life because I didn't want anyone to see me like that, I cried every time I had to put on "going out" clothes because nothing looked the way I wanted, so I was basically always in my pajamas. I hated having photos of me taken, so I don't have a single photo of important moments from those years like my bestfriend's wedding, trips I made, the eras tour or my birthday or whatever.

So this year around april I started loosing weight, I'm not even going to tell you how, but I have lost 55 pounds so far and 3 weeks ago I was all over hapiness, but now I can't see myself. I know I'm skinnier and I have the same weight that I had at my best, but guys... the weight is the same but THE BODY IS DIFFERENT, it's driving me crazy, I hate it. I don't have the shape I wanted nor the shape I had before being fat, I'm just flat, and now I'm supposed to eat more and lift weights so I can build back what I have lost, but I don't have the confidence to eat and I'm terrified of being fat again, also I can't even drink protein shakes because of acne so I'm supposed to have the double amount of protein to gain muscle only by eating food???, I don't think I can.

It feels like it never ends, I'm 27 years old and I am still worrying about this like when I was 15, but now the ED is taking more of me than before, I'm loosing hair (I literally can see my scalp in some spots of my head), my face looks always tired and my skin is always dry, I'm always with headache, people say I barely have color on me. I think about food all day, I bought a scale to count calories better, I skip friends meeting's so I don't have to eat unhealthy. And to be honest, I still have some fat at my belly and my arms that I want to get rid off. And yes, in case you doubted it, I "kind of" relapsed.

I don't want to go to the psyc ever again, the medication basically blinded me, and now I'm dealing with all of this...I'm just so tired.

After all that being said, my questions for people who have been in recovery for a long time are: how did you achieve stability? What are your thoughts usually like? Do you take any medication? Do you see any professionals? Do you still have body goals? Do you still care about it?

I'm currently in recovery and not doing well with it at all. I need somewhere to go inpatient as my mental health is so bad but where I'm from (ireland) eating disorders aren't taking serious enough. I've been to my gp after increasing my food intake that caused edema she said well done you've gained. I tried to explain to her but she wasn't understanding. I feel so lost. My legs are so sore I can barely walk with the swelling. I have a young daughter and I need to be healthy again for her. Is there anywhere I can receive proper professional help?

I (F29) had bulimia from December 2013 to January 2020, i. e., for about 6 years. My skinny mother used to call me fat (even though I was not fat, just curvier than her), I had low self-esteem during all my teenage years and young adulthood, and thought I could never be considered attractive by anyone because I was 'fat' according to my mother.

I'm very impulsive, indisciplined, and find it hard to do the things the right way. Nothing is harder for me than getting good habits (I have bipolar disorder, btw). So, balanced meals and exercises (the most obvious and basic formula for losing weight) were habits I could never sustain for long, there was always, deep in my mind, the will to do "bad stuff".

Anyway, at that time, I looked for a lot of 'pro-ana' and 'pro-mia' content and groups online, it became an obsession...

Bulimia brought me a lot of stomach issues, like frequent heartburn due to hiatus hernia and I don't want to make them worse.

However, being super skinny is on fashion again and I've been feeling uncomfortable with my curvy body, just like I felt 10 years ago. I'm not a person who is easily influenced by fashion tendencies, but the fact that skinny bodies are in again triggers me in a certain way...

I have been taking Ritalin lately (not sure if I have ADHD, but my psychiatrist thinks I might have it, and she prescripts it to me because it really helps me to improve concentration on my studies and work) and the fact it lessens my appetite also triggers me. From time to time, I have thoughts like: "what if instead of having lunch, I just take coffee and Ritalin?"

These thoughts haven't been so frequent, until this week, when I caught myself thinking my thighs and butt are too big and that I should do something about it. As I said above, a balanced diet and physical activity don't work for me in a long term, I always end up giving them up.

One more time, I don't want to have bulimia again, I don't think about it anymore, but I've been feeling very tempted to skip meals and replace them with coffee and Ritalin.

I don't want any advices, my aim here was just to vent about the situation.

I kinda miss when I wouldn’t eat. I eat normal now, but I just miss my old body. I know it’s not and wasn’t healthy but I was so thin. Now I have the body of a grown woman because I am one, but always compare myself to me at 17. I also can’t stop looking at other women online wishing I resembled them. I try to tell myself that I am fine the way I am, I am healthy, and when I put myself down I kinda put down a long line of breathtaking men and women before me. I just can’t see myself as anything but hideous. Doesn’t help that I’ve been cheated on. Whatever.

Back in 2021 and 2022 I used to deal with and Ed, a restrictive one. I lost much weight due to it. Even if I was sick, I was happy. I didn't care about the exaggerated dark circles under my eyes if it meant that I was slimmer. No one ever worried. People even congratulated me of how good I looked. They ignored totally my zombie lookie face. Those comments made me want to lose even more weight. I eventually stopped, I was scared. I fell into some paranoia that I would die. That my organs would fail. I couldn't even sleep at night because of it. Regardless all of this I still felt great about it. I loved how I looked but at the same time I hated it. I relapsed for a little in 2023. In those moments in my life is where I felt human. I felt everything. I was full of emotion even if they were unpleasant. Now I can't bring myself to feel real emotions. I just pretend. It's like I follow a manual on how to be a human being. It's awkward. I don't even feel sad about it. I feel empty. Like there's a big hole inside of me nothing can fill. Neither my hobbies nor what I like nor people. I thought my ed coming back would fulfill me. I'm really thinking about relapsing.

I have been overweight my whole life. I had 3-4 years where I lost 25kg and was normal weight and felt attractive. Now I am more than 30 kilos overweight. Everyday I tell myself I am keeping a diet but fall back to my bad eating behaviors . My brain says don’t do it but it’s too comforting to eat carbs and sugar. I wish I could stop the food noise without needing glp1 medication for example. I am so desperate to stop this addiction and be a healthy weight. Please help me to conquer my daemons and tell me how you overcame your eating disorder or food addiction ?

I dont like my body at all even though everone is telling me that i look fit. I hate it. I hate looking fit and ""sexy"" this might sound funny but its because my mature looking body made me look mature when i was a literal kid and People exposed me to situations I did not want (harassment, rape) everytime i eat i feel that big regret i cant stop thinking about all the time. I am following a bit healthy diet since 5 days to get slimmer body. Thats my point and i hope to works though.

So I binged during the day. It was pretty rough and it resulted in me experiencing a lot of pain, bloating, lethargy, and nausea the moment I think about food (yet I still want to eat - I don’t know how that works). Anyways, I am underweight according to my BMI and I also have Hypothalamic Amenorrhea. Prior to being underweight, I wasn’t over weight but had gained weight due to emotional eating and stress eating which turned into binge eating. Anyways, my first question is, since I binged during the day and it’s 5:30 now and I’m still feeling this way, do I still have dinner at 8 (even if it’s going to be pasta?) and my second question is, people who have had a similar past to me, what did you do to get past this - I am so tired of suffering and thinking about all of this.

So today I've been asking my bf weird questions Examples: how many days would you be comfortable with me fasting? His answer: 1 How many days of the week can I fast? His answer: 3/4 Now I feel like asking him, what is a fast in ur opinion? No food no nothing, or under 500 cal which is what your brain needs to be brain-ing. Don't mind my weird wording. I did fast today and took 5 melatonin so I'm out of it rn

So I have had a ed for a few years (never went to the docs) but I'm 17 years old idk why but eating dinner has been so hard I'm trying to work on eating more then just once a day so I'll eat lunch maybe a snack but as soon as I sit down to eat dinner with my family I take about 4 bites and I feel like throwing it up Idk if it's bc I remember all the things I've already eating or what my mom does not know so I just choke down the food even the food I love I have never throw up my food bc I have a fear of throwing up I usually just don't eat that much but I'm trying to work on it idk maybe I should just go back to eating just dinner

I've gained quite a bit within the last year, and the only thing I changed was how often I exercise. I used to skateboard regularly, and I do still, but no where near as much. I've been struggling for half a decade trying to change my thought patterns around weight, and I maintained 130 pretty regularly until this past year. I'm turning 22. It doesn't feel good, but I'm trying to come to terms with it.

With age comes weight. With a lack of exercise comes weight, no matter how healthy I eat. I need to be okay with that. I'm beautiful and strong and smart and weight is just a number.

I'm considering getting my thyroid tested though, because issues run in both sides of my family. Just to be on the safe side.

I’ve worked at the residential, PHP, IOP, and outpatient level- if you have questions about the process, let me know!

What it looks like, why we do certain things, how to get help, common therapies used, ED screening, malnutrition questions, dietary philosophies, resources, books to read, relapse prevention, general tips, levels of care, benefits of recovery, what does recovery look like, is recovery possible, comorbidities, medical consequences of EDs, why does my ED make me do this thing, common reasons practitioners go into the field, what it’s like from our perspective, etc.

(Please no personal clinical questions as I am not on your treatment team/don’t know the details of your particular case-thanks!)

How do you tell someone you are struggling?

I think I have an eating disorder/ it may just be disordered eating, but i’m struggling. I told my 2 best friends, but not actually someone who can help. How do I tell an adult that Im struggling? I guess I don’t want my life to be different in a way? I’m scared if I tell someone that everything will become extreme or ill have to be in intense therapy (theres nothing wrong with that, it just scares me) and I don’t want my parents to be mad. It’s really hard to tell someone

I’m 27 years old, 4’11, and I usually weigh anywhere from 118-120 pounds. My weight keeps changing as it does for anyone. I suffered with body dysmorphia for as long as I can remember. But I have this feeling that I’m on the bigger side for someone my height. I keep looking far into the internet and it shows me that I’m on the overweight side for someone my height. It doesn’t help that I made the stupid mistake of weighing myself at the end of the night and the scale showed 121. Does anyone else have the same issue as me? That you feel like you’re on the overweight side for someone in your weight range?

Hi everyone, I am a 27-year-old female, 5’5 and 150 pounds. My heaviest weight was 168. I’ve been trying to lose 30 pounds for the past four years of my life growing up. My mom turned to food for emotional reasons. She raised me and my sister having a love for food and comfort for food.

Growing up, I realized that I can’t blame her for continuing to make unhealthy choices for myself. Perhaps I grew up in that environment, but I know she isn’t to blame.

I live with my boyfriend now of three years, who is a boxer, and who enjoys working out and being healthy. He’s my biggest supporter and is always trying to push me to do better, and make better choices so that I can be happy and healthy.

My issues are the following: I am constantly thinking about food and about what I’m going to eat today and tomorrow. I love junk food and eating out and if I have to eat home-cooked food, I get sour pissed off and upset. I wake up thinking about what I’m going to eat today so that I can set my mood and be happy. Late at night before I sleep, I imagine all of the food I wish I could devour. Today I gave in to those thoughts and ate 2000 cal at work. I ate junk food as a way to prove to myself that it’s not worth it. I always get to a point where I allow myself to over eat and indulge the day before starting a strict diet.

I constantly lie about how much food I eat to my boyfriend. I’ll lie about the water that I didn’t drink and the food that I didn’t eat and I’ll eat alone in my car and make sure that I get rid of the garbage like it’s evidence. When I choose to eat bad, I feel ashamed and guilty, lonely, and confused. I regret it immediately and sometimes I don’t which also scares me.

This year I have done a three day water fast four times. I have this mentality of it’s either all or nothing and I can’t find any balance in doing this. I’ve never seen a therapist or have been diagnosed. I’m hoping someone can give me advice on how to deal with my situation.

I’m not obese I don’t feel ugly, but I know that I am out of shape and it sucks to feel like I can do better, but I just don’t have the mental strength to do it. Everytime I eat in secret my self esteem sinks. Lying to my boyfriend about what I eat makes me feel like a loser.

I genuinely have no idea how i look but i do know that I'm huge and this will hunts me till the day i die is anyone having the same problem i always have the urge to ask someone to guess my weight so i can imagine how people see me but i never ask because it's fucked up

i’m 22F and currently weigh about 135 and i’m 5’9. i have been gaining weight for the last two months and i have no idea why. i was around 128 in august.

i just started a new job and my eating habits haven’t changed, but i’m stressing out over this. i’m trying to find a therapist but my last one ghosted me so it’s been hard finding someone i think i could trust.

i don’t really talk to anyone about this and if i do they just get upset with me. i’m thinking i might be ready to recover soon but it’s been hard to look at myself in the mirror.

not really sure what i’m doing making a post, i think i just need to get it out to people who don’t know me 🙂

So ill start with the other question and some context for the question about my grandma. So i dont think i have an eating disorder as my behavior changed rapidly and i think it takes years to develop an eating disorder but my eating is definitely disordered ive always been an extremely overweight kid, that along with other things have made me have some pretty bad body image and self esteem issues ive also been diagnosed with major depression and anxiety as well as borderline personality disorder, i have panic attacks quite often. About a year ago i attempted suicide and failed since i was released from the phych hospital my eating habits have taken over my life it feels like, i dropped out of high school, im unable to go out in public without someone else and even then not for long, i cant eat in front of other people it makes me feel such shame and like the most disgusting person imaginable, and when i do eat i cant make myself eat much as before, almost all of my calories come from liquids such as soda and monster because im able to do my best and ignore the numbers on the cans 😅 ive lost a considerable amount of weight in a short amount of time i dont believe its a concerning amount but my family have noticed and comment on the difference when i do try and eat more solid foods i panic and have to purge (which i HATE doing it makes me feel extremely unclean) im incredibly scared of getting ill from eating solid food 😅 so for my second question before we get to my main problem! I realize how quickly this could turn into a full blown eating disorder and that really scares me!!! ive been trying my best to hide it from my family but i wanna get help but im not sure how to go about it? Some advice would be very appreciated!!! Now onto my main problem... my grandma i love her so much and i go over there every sunday to do her laundry and visit with her for a couple days because shes disabled and unable to leave her home but when i go over there she CONSTANTLY talks about my weight and the amount of food that i eat going so far as to force me to eat what she calls a "healthy amount" and showing me old pictures of myself when i weight more ​i panic VERY VERY BAD at being forced to eat, my grandma is someone who believes that men cant have eating disorders and that mental illness is just being weak when i had my suicide attempt she told me to get over myself and that i need to grow up and stop being so selfish. I cant just stop seeing her i love her and shes important to me but if i cant figure something out im just going to have to stop seeing her entirely that whould suck because shes one of the only people i see ever so if you have any advice than that would be very very very much appreciated!!!! If you need anymore info then please just ask!!!

Tw for idk ed!!
Hi, so I'm not even sure if a person as young as me is even allowed to post here lol. I've been having issues with food since around 2022, but it suddenly got insanely bad this June. I've never reached out to adults for actual help on this, because I feel like I'm not sick enough and I kind of like the sickness and all that.. so I never got actual help. I just turned 15 today, and we had a whole party and everything and there's cake and stuff. So I ate the cake right, but that whole time I was thinking "a sick person would never." Like eating the cake made me feel not sick enough and stuff.. and this isn't the only time, since this June, I've had a lot of binge days where I would eat anything from doughnuts to pasta to brownies and stuff, like anything I could get my hands on, I ate. And there's this whole thing around 'fear foods' and how sick people have certain foods they are afraid to eat, like physically unable to bring themselves to eat, and it's always made me feel invalid because I LOVE food. If it isn't for all this, I would gladly gobble up anything you serve me. And there's people who physically shake and cry and stuff because they're so afraid of gaining weight, purging, and I'm too scared to do that. I'm not trying to say bad things about the people going through that, i genuinely hope they get better. But I just wanna get as sick as them so I can finally be diagnosed and finally get the validation I've been craving for. Ik it's an insensitive thing to say but I just want the diagnosis so I can frame it and hang it on my wall as a certificate for the shit I put myself through, so I can shove it in everybody's face, saying "I'm more sick than you!" Shit I typed so much. I'm so so sorry if my language appears offensive to anyone, my brain is a mess rn and I just want to finally talk about this with strangers on the Internet. I've tried several times to post this on here but it's always the "Why the hell would they care" Typa stuff that makes me delete the paragraph. Okok thank you so much for reading omg it feels so good to get it out.

One of my best friends recently developed an eating disorder. For context, we are teenagers. They are starving themself, then overeating and making themself throw up. They refuses to tell their parents, saying that its not important enough to worry them. I just want to know how to help them.

i have been in forced recovery for a bit less than a year but i have never been to hospital/been inpatient which i find is really holding me back in recovery because even though i have been very underweight and thinner than some people who do go to hospital, i never did myself and it makes me feel so invalid. obviously eating disorders are mental illnesses and not physical illnesses and you can struggle at any point in your journey, but i find it hard for me to accept that. i haven’t really been on reddit before so if this is bad and i’m not supposed to say this type of stuff please take it down and i’m really sorry if i have said something i shouldn’t have. my intention is not for this to be taken negatively. if you are reading this i’m so proud of you and you deserve recovery xo

Not much to say but I'm really proud I got over my issues and had a food I always considered "unsafe". It takes time but it gets better 🫂

24M/trans/ undiagnosed ED, maybe EDNOS?

I've been stuck in b/p/r cycles and ups and downs in weight for over 2 years at this point, alternating between obsessively tracking and restricting, purging, or hitting the "fck it I don't care" button and feeling ugly and distorted. I'm not sure what type of disorder I have but I know it's persistent enough and effects me enough that I know it's not fake. It's basically all I think about. Last year around this time I tried to recover but just fell back into binges and felt so shitty for it that I went back to restricting and relentlessly tracking. I've been able to hide the fact that I haven't stopped from my partner, but he might be the only one who's still mostly oblivious. I see the way our roommates look at me sometimes, they may have caught on. Though, no one has ever sat me down and told me I wasn't eating enough, no one has ever told me they were worried (except my mom, but only after I told her all the messed up stuff I did) and it seems like I just never did "look the part" despite suffering physical repercussions. I started vaping to do something with my mouth that wasn't consuming things when I needed to restrict, and now I don't know if Im gonna be able to stop. Because what's stopping me then? I feel like my self control has dwindled with my weight. I still crave sugar even though I deny it to myself, and I'm terrified of trying to stop at all again. The last time I tried, I just went to the other extreme because my hunger cues didn't work. They still kind of don't. I'm the lightest I've been since high school today, you'd think someone like me would be happy about it, but I just feel numb, and like it's still not enough.

How do people have a normal relationship with eating and feel sane about their extremities? My brain is somehow deluded that everyone who appears to pull that off is lying and that they restrict in secret ways.

I'm going back to school in the spring, I'm back on my course of HRT (yes the gender dysphoria plays a role in this, of course it does), I've been having trouble finding a job these days but Ive been working on my art skills and that's going slowly well. I'm supposed to quit nicotine tomorrow. Things should be looking up. I should be relieved. But I'm not. Everything feels empty and I wish I had bought a sleep aid at the store today because all I want to do right now is check out of my brain and sleep until it levels out.

Should I try to recover again? Should I just keep going until someone notices what's really going on? Should I call my mother and tell her again and listen to the concern and pity in her voice for the hundredth time and let it make me feel guilty for making her listen until I lock up emotionally again?

I don't know what to do I shouldn't feel this way I shouldn't feel like nothing matters or that I'm sinking into a black hole in my own head or that it was all for nothing I should not feel this way but I do anyway adln I don't know what the hell to do.

I need mental help, I know I do. I'm too scared to ask for it because I'm afraid no professional will actually believe I have an ED or treat it seriously and just act like I'm just an attention-hungry confused child. Maybe I am just a scared kid, deep inside somewhere. I don't know, I certainly feel like one now.

I'm so tired. I'm sorry, this whole post is a shitshow, I'm not doing great and not thinking clearly. It's fine if this gets deleted, I didn't exactly filter myself so I get it. Apologies for triggering anyone by venting.

Has anyone else been through this feeling? I could really use the reassurance, if anyone has, if you feel up to it and could just tell me I'm not the only one.