Recognising Disordered Eating

[parentin5]

I am just like that as well. At times I understand what others are saying about how its not normal and at other times I understand that I have done it so long its my normal and whose to say those around me are not the abnormal ones. I know they say I have to do more. I gained 7.5 lbs over 2 weeks and lost it over a weekend. (It was only water weight, however I was convinced it was fat when it was piling on and water weight when it fell off.) I never trust the scale going down think its broken or something.

[azzywazzyjazzy]

I do that. Sometimes when we are grocery shopping and I pick up something that says it's 'diet' or 'low cal' and I look at the calories and I'm like WHAT and then I realize what's considered low cal for normal people isn't the same for me.

[Mc1423]

isnt it so annoying how back and forth our brains can be! lol i drive myself insane with back and forth stuff all day long!

This EXACTLY. I tell myself this all the time.. All this back and forth is what drives me insane, not the ED itself. ARGHGHGHGH!!

[The Hatter]

I was 8 years old when my eating habits were first brought to light in a therapy session with my mother. I'm now 25. While "normal" is subjective in any terms, my habits are concrete. When I was put into treatment the first time, I still had no idea that my eating, rituals, and relationship with food was "abnormal". Everyone in treatment ate differently, but there were many girls just like me. To me, there was no correlation with "bad" at this stage. When I was put into treatment again at 16 I realized that my habits were very different from the norm. Did this change anything in me? No. I was aware that I was different from friends, family, etc when it came to food/exercise, but I also knew every person was different. That last time in treatment forced me to face everything with my relationship with food and compulsion, but if anything it made me sink lower into my issues due to realizing that I didn't know what "normal" was.

Skip to today and I very much am aware of just how fucked up I am through my eating disorder and substance abuse, but even now it seems harder to change because I don't know where everything is supposed to even out.

[perfucktion]

Exactly. I found some "low cal" jello on sale so bought it and didn't look at the info til later. 150 cals per serving. Before you add the milk.

[Seizureshake]

This! This is exactly how I get around it. I flip back and forth constantly between thinking I have a massive problem and thinking that I'm going through a dumb phase just like I'd like to believe, but I don't think phases like this last for two years.

Greatest post...

[stories]

I have another thing to add... Why is that I feel like every time I eat something relatively normal or even eat at all, I feel like I don't have an eating disorder anymore? Is it just my mind talking? It just tells me, "You don't have an eating disorder" and makes me feel like if I starve myself then it can count as real. It goes along with this whole recognizing the behaviors thing... I am feeling this way now actually and it's quite unpleasant.