I saw a doctor today due to a recent event that may destroy my recovery process. I've got to wait to get back into a therapist but i've been prescribed mirtazapine in the meantime for sleep and to help manage depression and anxiety, my dr didn't mention it increases appetite also and i understand why. Im going to give it a fair shot im just wondering if anyone else has experience using it to treat disorderly eating specifically and if it has helped at all? Im seeing mixed reviews online.

My workplace bought pizza for everyone today. My initial thought was "I should eat it as long as it's not Pizza Hut. It's free and eating it will be a good step towards correcting my restrictive eating habits."

The thing is, Pizza Hut has never agreed with me. Every time I eat it, my stomach immediately revolts against me. This happens regardless of which PH location, and I've dealt with it as long as I can remember. I still recall multiple instances of upset stomach after eating PH as a kid.

Well, the pizza in question was indeed from Pizza Hut. And instead of denying myself like I normally would, I went against my better instincts and decided to go for it. It was a different PH that I hadn't eaten from before, so I figured it might be safe.

I was wrong. My stomach started churning immediately after taking my first bite. As always, the pizza itself was terrible. The crust was too greasy and nearly soggy, the sauce was too sweet, and the toppings were as bland and visually unappealing as I remembered.

Now I'm sitting here regretting eating it, not because it was "unhealthy", but because it was actually just bad pizza. It was simply not worth eating. (I'm sure you all know the saying, "There's no such thing as bad pizza." Well, I'm here to tell you that Pizza Hut is bad pizza... At least, all the ones in my city are.)

It was a good experience, though. I learned to trust my better judgement. I learned not to accept free food just because it's free. I learned that it's okay to reject bad food and not force myself to eat it just to break bad habits.

Please excuse me while I spend the rest of the day regretfully nursing an upset stomach....

she constantly talks about how little she eats and mentions times when she fainted and injured herself because she didn't feel like eating that day. also, she opened up an app where it showed the amount of steps she walked with calories burnt and below was a photo of a belly.

i don't think she knows how triggering this is especially when I'm in recovery. i don't feel like discussing this with her as it might push her away but its really bad. she keeps making me relapse (same goes for sharm)

i don't know if she's doing this on purpose or what but I felt annoyed and sad at the same time

how do I break this?!

all I do is exercise/binge/purge/think about exercising/bingeing/purging.

I literally faked sick at work today so I could leave early so I could binge and purge. worked out…and now I am about to do it again tonight. I am in therapy but it’s not helping clearly…how do I stop this?!

Hey, first time posting here but I thought someone here might have advice for me.

I'm probably going to move in with my friend who has just recently told me about her anorexia nervosa next year. I come from a family with a lot of stigma around food, (my mom is currently on ozempic after being a binge-eater for decades and has raised me with a lot of negative thoughts on food) but consider myself someone who has narrowly avoided the pitfalls and never had a real ED. This being said, I want to be as kind and respectful towards her as possible and help her towards any direction that she thinks would help her.

At the same time, in the back of my head I can't ignore the nagging feeling that if she gets worse my own health risks deteriorating, especially since I just started a weight-loss journey the week before she told me about her diagnosis (the weight-loss is unrelated to any eating disorder and only comes from me wanting to lift enough for a test my country has in order to join the military and it's easier if I'm lighter with only a little than I am right now).

If anyone has any tips or advice at all it would be much appreciated. She is a very beautiful, kind and funny woman whom I really want the best for in anything she does, even if that means putting my weight-loss on a stop for now. Thank you for reading <3

Hi- Im 24 M and I have so many questions, idk what to do so im here. Fist of all, english is not my main language but i’ll try my best. I’ve had a bad relationship with myself my whole life and I’ve always been a person with “mental health issues “ , im a sensitive and afflicted individual lets say.
I have a few diagnoses including bipolar 2 , ocd and i’ve had my thing with addiction too, I say this to give context that my mental health has always been problematic. now I see my self esteem and food relationship has always been somehow wrong too, but this year has been really awful, its has showed me a new side of mental issues and its making clear that food related problems are taking over my life, so insidious, slowly, i almost didn’t noticed.
I was pretty overweight since 11-12 to 21 , dealt with lots of bullying etc. In house (taking in mind the other diagnoses too) there where always financial problems and also my father was never an easy going person, he unconsciously taught us to me and my brother to eat to avoid the pain, among lots of other things but im tryna not to elaborate too much. It was never an emotionally-supportive home and for me I am too emotional, too sensitive, too prone to feel affected by something, since a little boy.
The last 2 years i’ve been better in relation with Bipolar and addiction, I started “focusing on myself” too much I would say, I started going to the gym and it all started downhill there, my mind cannot take something the “nice-way”. Last 10 months I started counting calories and all that, it got to the point where it was unsustainable, every day thinking about it, planning, calculating, non stop.During all this time Ive knew this is not the self love I wanted, the “progress “ or health, but its got a hold of me I feel I cannot fight against.
Fell obsessed with the weight, the shape, the posture, the exercise, the food, it ruined my mind. Last 2 months It took a turn, now its not just about counting, its about restricting no matter what, I am afraid of being overweight, I feel very guilty when I eat “too much” and even on easy days, I know they’re easy because I haven’t broken “the rules” . What I eat determines my day, and I hate it so much, its not enjoyable.
This is not for diagnosis purposes, I know this is not the place , but lets end this with 3 questions.
1- Is it rational to stop considering my situation as a result of the other diagnoses or a bad relationship with food, and start thinking I may have an actual ED? Also its confusing, the weight thing, Im not extremely underweight , I would say I look normal actually for a man of my size, lots of people would say I take care of my shape, so when I look for information the whole weight requirement for diagnoses throw me off and make me feel invalidated, I know for a fact there’s something wrong.
2-For experienced people in this journey, does the self love, the feeling of genuine self appreciation, of not having to control or fear, does it ever comes? even tho this specific food situation is new to me, it has something in it that I feel i’ve carried all of my life, a certain pain that just never goes, since a kid.
3- How do y’all deal with not going on extremes? My patterns i’ve noticed are 1 day I eat more than I need, sometimes not that much (it feels in my mind like a whole lot) and sometimes it IS a LOT. After that, I go to the other extreme and starve myself for a whole week or 2, or maybe more. I would normally lose weight after that and feel very bad physically but mentally “calmed” somehow, it somehow improves my mood. And the cycle goes, one extreme to the other. How to minimize those extremes?

If you read all of that thx, I know I need some type of therapy but I just don’t have too much options rn, so any advice, any history or tip that may help it’s welcomed .

so i have had pica since i was two because of iron def. my mother told me that i would eat dirt and sand a lot well now my pallet has converted from sand and dirt to pencil led and a very select type of yarn that i haven't had in awhile cuz it came from a old rocking horse ;-; (tho maybe its for the best cuz that yarn hurt my mouth)

hi im 19, i had ed (specifically bulimia) when i was 15, worst at 16, first recovery at 17 and also relapsed, recovered again at 18 then relapsed. now im 19, i relapsed again just yesterday. but this relapse, i didnt cry, i didnt feel sad or fat, i just had the urge and need to relapse. it felt like a routine eventho ive stopped doing ts for almost a year now. even now, im back at twitter scrolling thru others' bodychecks. i think this ed just became a part of me that i can never get rid off. is this a canon experience in recovery journey or am i fucked up to the point of no return?

hi everyone,

i moved back home from university after completing my degree a few months ago now. since then, i have started to notice my parents and siblings eating habits, portions and just generally what they eat. both my parents and siblings are bigger then me but being around them makes me scared that i will gain weight and become fat which has caused me to reduce my food intake and start to exercise again (over exercise was a huge thing for me when i first started to struggle). i’m just scared of relapsing again, especially as my mum has just being diagnosed with cancer and i dont want her to worry about me. has anyone got any tips?

thank you<3

I am quite overweight and also personally dealt with binge eating and purging but not necessarily due to body image/weight. Other than that I am quite comfortable with my body but have some insecurities lurking due to the over the years comments I got on my weight

As for my friend, I know she always had some eating problems, but last year it started getting so, She was trying to walk around for hours a day, withdrawing socially because what if she had to eat something or what if she ruined her diet. Starved herself and barely ate anything. And if she did eat, she would purge it out. Around 4-5 months ago I remember we were out and drinking alcohol, and she just shut herself in the bathroom and threw up non stop for around an hour, involuntarily. All of these stuff were making me concerned, and I was trying to help her but lately her comments are getting even weirder when it comes to other peoples bodies.

Now she will see someone who is skinnier than her and start having a breakdown and cursing that person. Then she talks about how she is so fat and an animal and how she cannot afford to gain weight again. She is already on lustral at a high dose but hanst getting her medication checked in years, I am trying to convince her to go and get help because the ED is ruining her life. All she says is that she doesnt want to become fat and unsuccessful again, that she doesnt want to lose her progress, that she will go but never does. At this point, seeing her refuse to get help is one thing thats pissing me off, but okay. Second thing thats pissing me off is she started getting involved with drugs to deal with the shit effects ED has on her mental health. Third is the comments she makes on others bodies- I am overweight and I am quite comfortable with what I wear and eat outside (after years of insecurities and shit I went through to get to this point). But what does she even think of me if she feels accomplished over seeing fatter people, it just makes me feel unsettled.

Idk what to do in this situation. She is refusing to get help or get better, is actually trying to get worse, is aware of this but still doesnt care. Insults others because of their bodies to a point where its actually super serious. Keeps getting worse mentally and is now getting involved with drugs, oh and she also started selfharm again.

I love her but lately whenever we talk about these things its making me super frustrated and I feel like I cant help but I am about to just want to cut her off

What should I do in this situation ?

How do I reduce my exercise routine? It makes me feel sooo euphoric, but then I worry what I’m gonna eat later to maintain. What do I do with the extra time I have not doing exercising and how to I feel satisfied on less calories? I eat more than the average person due to my intense cardio, but I also volume-eat. How do I stop thinking about calories and stressing about food? I feel like this controls me. I have the desire to change because I can see that this guy is starting to like me and I’m realizing that before my ED I was so much more interesting, but now my head is just constantly food exercise eat food exercise eat and I keep failing to fix myself. I keep doing less cardio and succeeding for a day but then the next day I end up doing the extra 30 minutes and eating more and how do I maintain a healthy relationship with food?!? I’m so tired of this

hey guys, I don't usually make posts but I've been dealing with something that's been bothering me a lot lately. The past couple years, this year especially, I really struggled with eating disorder, to the point where I was underweight, but it felt like my life was ripping away from me. I felt unalive.

But a few months ago in August, I started running, it helped me start eating again, if anyone here has tried running when they're under eating they know just how physically hard it is to do it. I fell in love with running. I fell in love with how it made me feel strong and capable, but I've gained weight. I'm still a healthy weight for my height, but it's just been so hard on me mentally looking at my body. The thing is now is that I'm training for a marathon. I consistently run about 6 to 9 miles a day and I feel so confident about it. I'm so happy I can do it now and I know I'm a lot stronger than I was in the past, but it's just hard to accept what I look like now.

I'm in therapy, but I just don't know how to deal with it I guess.

its so upsetting. i want to recover but it seems like the secind i start tryimg, my friends/family all want to comment that i am so thin, or that my muscles are defined, or anything related to that. i cant remember the last time someone said i was pretty, like actually just pretty. i only get compliments about ky weight, and why would i want to ruin the one thing that people are attracted to me for? what am i even supposed to do.

So I'm in recovery (again) and never really binged before but today, I binged. After eating what I normally do, I had almost a full thing of Nutella, many brownies, chocolate mousse and lots and lots of crackers + toast. I'm worried about the fact I had so much and worried about the consequences. I feel extremely sick and bloated. I'm scared about the fact I had so much saturated f and sugar, will this affect me in any way? I feel absolutely like shit

(23M) Recently been having a lot of thoughts of not eating again, I’ve always been in and out of binge eating and not eating at all since about 2019 when I first started having those thoughts, didn’t really turn into anything until this year and last year, everyday all I really do is think about food, if I’m happy, stressed, sad, and look forward to food, it’s been worse because of my ADHD and the dopamine thrill I get from food, but at the same time, anytime I get triggered, angry, upset, I want to stop eating completely and it sucks going in between these, I want some kind of control of my life and I think that’s why the ED voice has gotten louder than usual, and I also purposely want to ruin my body.. due to my self destructive habits

Hi, never posted to this community before!

Just TW-ing in case anything here is triggering as i will be detailing my thought processes and reasoning, I’m looking for people to challenge my perspective honestly

I’m in the middle of a major relapse in my restrictive eating habits. My history with disordered eating began around 2022 and between 2023 and the first part of 2024 I was heavily restricting. It started healthy (“I wanna lose 5 pounds this month!”) and as something under my control and very quickly developed into something evil and sentient. Comments from my mom and jokes from my brother and engaging with social media fueled the fire. I lost a lot of weight, people became concerned, and I finally was honest w/myself and loved ones and chose recovery 4-28-24. I was doing pretty well and gained some weight back, never quite getting back to my original size though.

Here I plateaued for over a year and maintained a good relationship with my body and food, but what I wasn’t telling myself was that this was only easy because I liked how I looked and so did everyone else. I was still smaller than I’d started out and I was really pleased with my “recovery body”.

Things changed when I started dating my boyfriend, who I’d been friends with for years prior and makes me feel insanely safe. We were in college together and I go to school far away from home, so for an entire semester and a half my family and I didn’t see each other. From October-April/May, I completely let go of any restrictions I had and ate like a king. WE ate like kings, every day, for months. I rapidly gained a lot of weight, surpassing my original size by a significant amount. It felt like I had a break from the world - the only voice that mattered was the one telling me I was sexy every day. As I gained weight freely I started loving things I hadn’t experienced before - my boobs and my butt looked insane😭 I also hadn’t been in a healthy relationship before, so I enjoyed knowing my weight gain was also the result of something truly good for me.

It all came crashing down though when I finally flew back home in early May for my brother’s HS graduation. Here I was immediately peppered with commentary. Understandably so, right? There was a significant difference from the last time I’d seen them. Most things were neutral enough - “You gained some weight, huh?” And the like. But my mom was relentless, and she is unfortunately still the only opinion I consider gospel. Her unwavering refusal to be wrong throughout my childhood kind of conditioned my malleable brain to believe she is God in a way. What she says goes. She tells it like it is. She’s brutally honest.

The logical side of me knows most of her opinions suck, because they do. But when she tells me I don’t look healthy at all, and that something is seriously wrong, and reminds me that all my clothes look horrible on me, I do get a little fire under my ass anyway. Another layer to this is she still holds a lot of financial control over me as a creative; she finances and is involved with a lot of projects since I started pursuing it very young. It’s been continuously difficult to sever that bond, and that’s another can of worms. She also told me she would not pay for any visual work for my projects until I lost the weight. She said realistically she doesn’t want to spend her money on ads people don’t want to see/may leave rude comments on.

Yes, my weight gain was not the healthiest. It was just due to over eating and under exercising. I was busy receiving a kind of love I had gone decades without experiencing and perhaps I didn’t feel like it.

But since I graduated myself (which was also a horrible experience as I tried to lose as much weight as possible between brother’s grad and my own), I’ve undone all the rewiring and have been on a steady decline. Every few weeks my mom compliments me and reminds me of how unhealthy and big I looked in May. It only fuels me harder. She knows my history and she’s said many times she doesn’t want me to lose weight like this. She wants me to exercise.

Everyone wants me to fucking exercise. No thanks, humiliation ritual. I like to walk and that’s it. The whole sphere is too judgy and everyone wants me to be skinny there too so nothing about it makes me happy. Have panicked myself out of a gym many many times, and living at home means I’m always susceptible to getting walked in on while working out because privacy and boundaries don’t exist at my house either, and every time it happens it makes me so irrationally upset and embarrassed. I’m so far gone that I can no longer view exercise as any sort of celebration. What it is to me is punishment and everybody knows. The goal is skinny. The goal is always just skinny. Getting sweaty and out of breath , more quickly and more so than a normal in-shape person would, also turns me off. Everyone knows I’m struggling to fit into this mold and I hate it.

So, I guess this relapse is equal parts complicity and spite. I hate the world so much. I see the bias toward thinness in everything. It is everywhere. I could develop a great relationship with working out and start working toward building muscle and things like that, but if th world just values thinness and doesn’t take much consideration for the nuances , …what would the point of that exactly be. I see increasingly little point in “doing it for yourself” unless u have the time and disposable income that it doesn’t interfere with important parts of your life.

Maybe I just need someone to remind me health is more important than all this. I know logically and naturally that’s true, but especially as someone who likes to perform live and is somewhat in the public eye, what I interpret from how society behaves is that attractiveness is prioritized. Even if someone in the public eye who’s bigger asserts their body IS healthy, confirmed by doctors and everything, the loudest narrative will always be that fat = unhealthy = bad. It’s so hard to see it as anything different. It’s so disheartening.

TL,DR: Out of spite towards my mom and society I’m once again losing weight in the fastest and worst way possible, in a very “Here, damn, sorry” kind of way. Just feeling bitter this morning and truly wanting some different perspectives to think about. I’m also very sensitive like veteran HSP (if this post didn’t indicate that already) so pls pls pls be gentle😭