Risking it all for an Eating Disorder

How do people like me who have been diagnosed with an Eating Disorder begin to explain the desperation and extreme lengths that will be taken to achieve the result of thin and beautiful? It is such an easy question but an answer with much complexity. And when I say complexity I mean that each and every individual who is diagnosed with an Eating Disorder experiences their diagnoses differently and will go to different lengths to achieve their ‘desired’ outcome.

I used to think that an Eating Disorder was one specific behaviour, but it’s not, it can be anything in between. I remember when I was very first diagnosed with my Eating Disorder and testing the waters to see how much my body could take by acting with specific behaviours. You fall deeper and deeper each day but the reality of it is the Eating Disorder has made me fight against my body along with the values and beliefs that I hold within myself.

Eating Disorders can be like addictions, where you look at yourself in the mirror every day and you become addicted to what is happening, so you keep going. You risk it all for an Eating Disorder that makes you believe all wrong. It’s so hard to listen to those who surround you with positivity that “You are Beautiful” and give you advice on what you are doing to your body and how the impacts can be dangerous, but what would you say if I said that when you are so far deep in your behaviours and addicted to the false feelings that an Eating Disorder gives you, would you respond to us differently? Maybe not, because you can see it and we are addicted to what the Eating behaviours give us not the concerns that are held for us. We crave for the outcome of thin and Beautiful and we will do anything to get it.

Eating Disorders consume our every thought, it isn’t about food or weight, it becomes so much more than that, where our minds are black and white and are constantly fixated on how we look and feel. It becomes more about what’s going on, on the inside than what you see on the outside.

5 Things we want you to know:

1. Eating Disorders are not just about food and weight.

2. We want to answer honestly when you ask how we are doing, but it is hard.

3. As much as you may want to fix it for us, you can’t.

4. We need you even when we don’t know how to ask for support.

5. When we talk about our Eating Disorders it’s not for attention.