misconceptions about eating disorders.

cmonskinnylovee

1. Girls with eating disorders do it to be skinny- If we (I am recovered, I'm saying we to make a point) only did it to be skinny, it would stop a lot sooner than it does for most of us. We wouldn't risk our lives, starve ourselves, put ourselves through ridiculous amounts of pain just to look a certain way. It is about so much more than being thin. A lot of us have serious problems that we simply cannot control, and we restrict, binge and purge in an effort to feel balanced again. So we can finally take control of our lives. Or at least, we think we are.

2. Anorexic and bulimic girls are selfish and vain- Most of us hide our ED's because we are ashamed that we even have to do it in the first place. We don't call attention to our habits because we do not want people to notice our (probably nonexistent) flaws any more than we already do. As for being vain, refer to point one.

3. Girls with eating disorders are weak- Physically, yes. Most of us have little to no body strength, and could probably be snapped in half regardless of our weight. But do you know how much will power it takes to starve yourself? Do you know the reason why eating disorders are one of the hardest mental disorders to recover from? Because in our sick little twisted way, we are the strongest girls (or boys) you will ever meet. This is not me saying it is okay, this is me telling you not to underestimate us.

4. All girls with ED's are skinny, and if you're not underweight you are not anorexic/bulimic- NO. If I ever hear any one of you say "Well she's not skinny enough to have an eating disorder" I will go off on you instantly. Do you think these kinds of comments are helpful? Do you think this will make these girls feel any better? What are we supposed to think when we see a supposedly "healthy" person call us out for not being skinny enough for our own disease?

5. Eating disorders are in the mind- Yes, ED's start out that way. But an eating disorder is an addiction in every sense of the word. You get sick at the sight of food- whether it be a hungry longing type of sick, or a disgusted kind of sick- your body reacts. Your heart races, your body aches, your entire being is involved in this disorder. There is not a single part of you that will not be affected in this disease.

And lastly, my favorite:

6. EATING DISORDERS ARE NOT A DISEASE-

Disease- A disorder of structure or function in a human, animal, or plant, esp. one that produces specific signs or symptoms or that affects an animal or a plant, ect.
A particular quality, habit, or disposition regarded as adversely affecting a person or group of people.

Really? So you're telling me that the one thing that eats me alive, the thing that has torn me apart since I was 13, the thing that almost killed me isn't a "disorder of structure or function in a human" ? Or that anorexia isn't a "quality, habit or disposition regarded as adversely affecting a person?"

Think again.

/end rant.

I'm just sick of the ignorance, so I thought I'd enlighten you

juliesummers

Amen!

sarah307

THANK YOU FOR POSTING THIS!!!!

dreambig_gohome

"4. All girls with ED's are skinny, and if you're not underweight you are not anorexic/bulimic- NO. If I ever hear any one of you say "Well she's not skinny enough to have an eating disorder" I will go off on you instantly. Do you think these kinds of comments are helpful? Do you think this will make these girls feel any better? What are we supposed to think when we see a supposedly "healthy" person call us out for not being skinny enough for our own disease?"

Thank you for this entire post, but most importantly this point. I suffered silently and alone and ended up a step away from the hospital because no one saw it. At my worst....24 to 36 hours between eating anything.....I only weighed 143 pounds and a size 11 pant size. MOST people 5'5" would say this was their ideal, but because of the bone and body structure I will hate until I die....It was beyond sick. I could count every rib bone and my collar bones and hip bones were in sharp relief. You don't have to be 96 pounds to be so sick you go to the hospital for anorexia.

I am fighting my disease every single day. I am on MFP to give myself some accountability. I am a training dancer and snowboarder and willing to risk everything to build a healthier lifestyle for myself.

cmonskinnylovee

"4. All girls with ED's are skinny, and if you're not underweight you are not anorexic/bulimic- NO. If I ever hear any one of you say "Well she's not skinny enough to have an eating disorder" I will go off on you instantly. Do you think these kinds of comments are helpful? Do you think this will make these girls feel any better? What are we supposed to think when we see a supposedly "healthy" person call us out for not being skinny enough for our own disease?"

Thank you for this entire post, but most importantly this point. I suffered silently and alone and ended up a step away from the hospital because no one saw it. At my worst....24 to 36 hours between eating anything.....I only weighed 143 pounds and a size 11 pant size. MOST people 5'5" would say this was their ideal, but because of the bone and body structure I will hate until I die....It was beyond sick. I could count every rib bone and my collar bones and hip bones were in sharp relief. You don't have to be 96 pounds to be so sick you go to the hospital for anorexia.

I am fighting my disease every single day. I am on MFP to give myself some accountability. I am a training dancer and snowboarder and willing to risk everything to build a healthier lifestyle for myself.

At my worst I was 5"6 and 135 lbs, which is also ideal for some people. I was hiding food, skipping meals, purging and using laxatives like it was my job.

Yet nobody suspected anything because I was "healthy", and when I tried to tell my boyfriend of the time, he completely blew me off and said that "well you're at a healthy weight so obviously it's not that bad."

People don't understand that saying "you're at a healthy weight" can do just as much damage as saying "you're fat" to a girl with an eating disorder.

And this was after I went into recovery, and still haven't been properly treated for the second bout. I am recovering on my own because no one will listen that I need help.
You should add me! I will keep you accountable, haha.

Schwiggs

- All people with EDs are "girls/women".
- All people with ED's are thin.

gpjuicy69

Thank you thank you
I want to print out this post.

cheshirequeen

thank you for your rant. as a former anorexic, i am perfectly happy, healthy, and energetic and I am 146-149 and 5 ft 5. At my worst I wore girl clothing, not womens, and weighed 95 pounds. Thankfully, for some reason, my mom said if I don't eat she will get me registered on the 5th floor, and that clicked, because the people with eating disorders are put with the "crazy" people, with mental disorders, and I didn't want to be seen as crazy. My epilepsy was brought out and made worse because of this. I started having seizures when I got down that low and basically screwed up my brain. I hope at least one person gets something out of this. I still struggle every once in awhile, but thankfully with this site, it helps.

dreambig_gohome

"4. All girls with ED's are skinny, and if you're not underweight you are not anorexic/bulimic- NO. If I ever hear any one of you say "Well she's not skinny enough to have an eating disorder" I will go off on you instantly. Do you think these kinds of comments are helpful? Do you think this will make these girls feel any better? What are we supposed to think when we see a supposedly "healthy" person call us out for not being skinny enough for our own disease?"

Thank you for this entire post, but most importantly this point. I suffered silently and alone and ended up a step away from the hospital because no one saw it. At my worst....24 to 36 hours between eating anything.....I only weighed 143 pounds and a size 11 pant size. MOST people 5'5" would say this was their ideal, but because of the bone and body structure I will hate until I die....It was beyond sick. I could count every rib bone and my collar bones and hip bones were in sharp relief. You don't have to be 96 pounds to be so sick you go to the hospital for anorexia.

I am fighting my disease every single day. I am on MFP to give myself some accountability. I am a training dancer and snowboarder and willing to risk everything to build a healthier lifestyle for myself.

At my worst I was 5"6 and 135 lbs, which is also ideal for some people. I was hiding food, skipping meals, purging and using laxatives like it was my job.

Yet nobody suspected anything because I was "healthy", and when I tried to tell my boyfriend of the time, he completely blew me off and said that "well you're at a healthy weight so obviously it's not that bad."

People don't understand that saying "you're at a healthy weight" can do just as much damage as saying "you're fat" to a girl with an eating disorder.

And this was after I went into recovery, and still haven't been properly treated for the second bout. I am recovering on my own because no one will listen that I need help.
You should add me! I will keep you accountable, haha.

Yes, I WILL DO. We will hold each other accountable. I know I'm not alone in the sea, but I still feel like I'm swimming by myself a lot. SO many people in my life could not believe it, yet I've cried over a hard-boiled egg. Food has te ability to make or break my day. Right now I'm kind of obsessing about every calorie going in and out of my body, but I DO eat and so I'm winning half the battle....most days. I'm more at risk of becoming an exer-exic right now, though....I've been netting so low after huge 700-900 calorie burns, when that's all I've eating in a day. I'm trying to make it all balance out without the extreme guilt. I haven't been able to figure that one out yet, but mostly I just want my body to be strong enough to do what I want of it when I ask it to do so....I'm trying to keep that in sight and also learn to accept the fact that my body never will be able to be 125. I HATE that about it, and will til the day I die....but I hope somewhere down the road theres acceptance at least.

cookc04

So how do we help people we find here who obviously have an eating disorder?

scarletleavy

So how do we help people we find here who obviously have an eating disorder?

It's hard to help someone with an eating disorder, unless they actually are willing to change and get help. I struggled for years, my family and friends tried to help, tried every possible way from interventions, threats, being nice, etc but there's only so much they can do if you don't want to change. It wasn't until I realized that I was horribly unhappy, unhealthy and wanted to change that things actually started to change. Sad but true.

The hard thing for people to understand is that being "recovered" doesn't mean a whole lot, it's something I struggle with most days, but your own personal voice of reason has to be louder than the voice of your ED demons. Sometimes I feel like internally I'm screaming at myself and these days I generally win the fight.

One of the things that helped me the most was getting into strength training. I feel like once I saw what my body was capable of, my perspective started to change. I love lifting heavy weights and I really think that it keeps me sane and keeps my demons in check. I never want to be a skinny bony weakling again, I want to be strong and muscular. I love that I can do more pull ups than a lot of guys I know.

Oishii

Thank you so much for this.

I HATE when someone looks at someone's stats (rather than their food diary) and says 'You must be anorexic'. I know anorexia's a disease, not a weight, but as it hasn't affected me personally, I feel out of place saying it. Thank you for speaking out.

claire_xox

Eating disorders can also involve over eating.....

cmonskinnylovee

Eating disorders can also involve over eating.....

Seeing as I have never specifically dealt with binge eating disorder I felt it was not my place to speak out about it.

cmonskinnylovee

So how do we help people we find here who obviously have an eating disorder?

You really can't help them. The best thing you can do is to be as supportive as possible (not for their habits, but for whatever they may be going through) and let them know that you care.

cmonskinnylovee

So how do we help people we find here who obviously have an eating disorder?

It's hard to help someone with an eating disorder, unless they actually are willing to change and get help. I struggled for years, my family and friends tried to help, tried every possible way from interventions, threats, being nice, etc but there's only so much they can do if you don't want to change. It wasn't until I realized that I was horribly unhappy, unhealthy and wanted to change that things actually started to change. Sad but true.

The hard thing for people to understand is that being "recovered" doesn't mean a whole lot, it's something I struggle with most days, but your own personal voice of reason has to be louder than the voice of your ED demons. Sometimes I feel like internally I'm screaming at myself and these days I generally win the fight.

One of the things that helped me the most was getting into strength training. I feel like once I saw what my body was capable of, my perspective started to change. I love lifting heavy weights and I really think that it keeps me sane and keeps my demons in check. I never want to be a skinny bony weakling again, I want to be strong and muscular. I love that I can do more pull ups than a lot of guys I know.

Sometimes I feel like "recovery" is harder than the actual disorder :P

juliesummers

So how do we help people we find here who obviously have an eating disorder?

Support them and don't.try and fix them.
As someone who struggled with EDs for 6+ years, I can tell you that there is nothing more upsetting than a stranger with no reality on eating disorders saying something ignorant like "just eat a cheeseburger" or "that's not healthy", or offering some sort of quick fix advice. Eating disorders are all encompassing, and those struggling with them know that they should eat and that it's not healthy. They don't need to be lectured by strangers who don't know them.

Chelij

Eating disorders can also involve over eating.....

Seeing as I have never specifically dealt with binge eating disorder I felt it was not my place to speak out about it.

This was my ED. It was still considered bulimia (even though I didn't purge) but I binged and took diet pills. I ended up 60 lbs overweight because of it. I would say that most who are morbidly obese also have EDs. Completely 100% correct that not all ppl with EDs are skinny.

Jackie_Snape80

Yes, yes, and yes again... I'm saving these points in a document(among other rants/articles/comments about EDs) if that's alright.

I don't see how this is something that people actually TRY to practice...all the girls out there trying to be anorexic, proud of it. They have no idea. I guess no one can really know what an eating disorder is and what it can do unless you've actually had one. No one asks for this. It has nothing to do with numbers, weight, food...well, everything and nothing at the same time. It's like a drug; a way to numb oneself. I agree, to an extent, that it's very much like alcoholism or a drug addiction except for the fact that food is a part of of everyday life(a very important part) This just makes it all the more difficult to stay away from or to recover from...it's everywhere. I guess I'm not sure where I'm going with this...hmm. Thank you' though

j4zzy

Thank you!