Woman who have had a eating disorder how did you decide it was time to go into recovery?

9 comments

1. First time I said I’d try to recover, it was sparked by realizing I had lost control. Anorexia was all about me being control for me, and I realised I couldn’t stop my brain from calculating and recalculating calories every minute of every day. I couldn’t stop, it was all consuming. So that feeling that I had lost control over it was at the root the first time, but I didn’t actually want to recover, so it didn’t work and I ended up moving on from one ED to the next.

   I actually decided to get help when I realized I was really falling off the deep end again after the passing of my grandfather, who I loved dearly. I got into therapy, and that was good but maybe not enough, my mom pushed me into a specialised clinic, it was somewhat helpful but I wasn’t considered a serious enough case to get a lot of their attention.

   In the end, I was never checked in, and there wasn’t a moment that was the start of my journey really. Things got a lot better when I moved out of my parents home and got independence, and I kinda just went from there. And over years of work on myself, the ED voice has gone quieter and quieter.

   I don’t know if it’s the feedback you’re looking for. But I hope you find the support you want

2. I wanted to start my family and I didn’t want to pass down bad habits/bad thoughts, bad anything food related to my child. I was also just sick and tired of it, I got help after way too long. It still lingers somewhere and I still don’t feel equipped to handle kids and food but I’m trying my best.

3. There was a mother’s day event at my daughter’s school, one of the activities they did beforehand was decorating a biscuit for us, she proudly gave it to me and I was scared to eat it so put it in a tissue and said I’d have it later. She found it hours later in my bag still in the tissue and asked if I didn’t like her decorations and that’s why I hadn’t eaten it.

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5. Had years of bulimia . Some things added until one day I felt offended to be in such a state and decided I had enough .

   A few things helped :

   A stinging humiliation.
   The fact that I can play with my nephews without getting tired quickly.
   The fact that people stare at my belly wondering if I’m with child or just obese .
   The fact that I have a lot of good looking female friends and that I can’t help to feel I’m less beautiful than them .
   The fact that people leave me their place in the bus believing I’m pregnant when I’m not .
   The fact that my obesity is not helping to have a child
   And many many many other things .

6. I found out I was nearly prediabetic.

   My grandma died of diabetes related complications with amputations & stuff and I didn’t want to follow her footsteps so I started therapy for my ed.

7. When I got a stomach ulcer and just downspiraled from that. Felt sick,nauseous all the time, sleeping problems which made me so unfocused, frustrated and put me in a foul mood all the time. That was like a year ago.

   I was so glad when I got off medication and I still have days where my energy is so low

8. anorexic and bulimic – once it got to the point where i started involuntarily regurgitating food at random times i realised that i was fucking my body up beyond repair and needed to get help. i’ve been in recovery for about six years and still have an awful digestive system, but i’m glad i got help when i did before it got even worse.

9. I decided several years ago that I was 100% done making myself vomit. I can’t tell you exactly what made me change but there was an exact moment of “I am never going to do this again.” And I never have. If I overeat now I just have to sit with the feeling and deal with it and guess what the discomfort goes away without having to do anything.

   For anorexia it’s been a much more dynamic process. I did try to recover many times over many years. I have also realized that I am a person who loses weight very easily, that I don’t care about food or hunger that much, and therefore I have to actually prioritize eating as a way of taking care of myself. I will say that starting around age 25 or so the physical effects of starvation became much more pronounced for me and it did get scarier.

   Recovery is a process. I continue to work on it and at least can say that these days I’m less troubled by body image that I was before. The fight is less painful, less emotional, and more just a thing I know I have to do.