I posted this on a different subreddit but haven't got replies, I don't know what I'm looking for but maybe here it will be different.

I have had bad body dysmorphia and anorexia in the past, I have since recovered but lately I feel like I'm falling back to the past.

I have been sexually active and have a couple FWB situations, i told them I was queer and they have shown me pictures of what porn they watch and what girls they find attractive, I asked them to stop and they did so it is not their problem but now the problem is that I can't be happy with myself. I have PMOS which causes hyperpigmentation and other visual issues, I keep comparing myself to them and how beautiful they are with their clear skin, nice curves and flat stomachs and straight teeth. I can't stand myself anymore, i don't even wanna be myself. I can't bring myself to eat without trembling because I know it'll just make me look worse. I don't know what to do anymore but I needed to tell someone else rather than them and I feel bad for bothering my friends.

Has anyone experienced periods of psychosis following being tube fed and drugged against their will? I strongly believe it is PTSD related.

I'm freaking 40. I can't shit. I can't look at, think about, talk about, or eat food in a normal way. I can't look at my face and body unobjectively. I can't even shower or take care of myself sometimes. My skin is a mess, my hair is falling out. I'm still doing things I know are unhealthy. and I STILL don't like the way my body looks. When does it end?

I’ve been trying to be back in recovery the past few months. Made huge progress but in the midst of a bit of a backslide the last few weeks. Big reason for that is this event that my boyfriend and I are currently at out of town. It’s a wedding for our mutual friend so the typical anxiety of lots of photos plus weddings are hard for me as I’m divorced and still have a lot of feelings that get to me around weddings. Plus we’re staying with a whole bunch of people I barely know.

I was struggling to eat before hand. My friend who’s getting married also has an ED history and she has gotten scary thin for the wedding. I hate how much that bothers me. Then I feel incredibly guilty for that bothering me. Long story short all these feelings hit me last night and I can’t stop crying since. He’s so sweet and chill about it but I’m scared I look crazy and it’s hard to explain “I’m sad because I’m not severely underweight and I’m sad that I wasn’t smart enough to ditch my dead beat husband sooner and I actually had to take time off work and my 40 million other distractions to be here so it’s all hitting me at once.” Literally can’t stop crying and feel like a total loser who’s going to ruin everything.

i’ve posted on here once before, but recently i’ve gotten a lot more fearful and avoidant of foods and refuse to buy anything that isn’t popcorn, corn, rice cakes or extremely lowcal veggies and fruit and energy drinks/caffeine

i’ve become so scared of oil (any type), hate/become paranoid seeing others cook for me because they’re adding “too much” of an ingredient and i can’t control or do it EXACTLY how i need it done in my head, and whatnot

i stock up on so many energy drinks and consistently drink only lowcal drinks or whatnot to satiate my hunger and a shit ton of black coffee (i keep no sugary and or dairy things) bc i just think of the calories and it’s so tiring

and on top of that i’ve never ONCE touched or thought about having a cigarette since i was a child (no superiority complex or judgement here!) except for trying one cig to now having picked up on it and having it progress from an occasional to everyday thing bc it masks the hunger or that feeling and makes me feel kind of euphoric or dazed?? i’m so ashamed of myself :/

i wasn’t like this, although i always had a skewed relationship w food and my body since middle school (binge eating or not eating at all and body issues/comparison) and now i feel that it’s swinging the opposite way and i feel a bit pathetic bc im 21 like idek i’m just clouded?

And then I shit myself.
😵‍💫

I'm 28, my dad died 12 years ago and I'm estranged from my (horrible) mother so asking my actual parents for help is out of the question.

I know I can't have this need met, but I just wish someone cared if I eat. I wish someone would make me a meal. I get so jealous of teenagers complaining about their parents forcing them to eat dinner and I know I'm wrong for that but ack I want to cry.

Sometimes this ED feels like a test to see if anyone notices me and all I get is "you're so healthy" "are you on ozempic". I know I shouldn't test people and I need to ask for help, but there's really no one to ask. I have younger siblings with fragile mental health, my wife has a recovered ED and cannot find out I'm still sick, and I don't have any mentor figures.

I'm trying to recover right now but it's such a lonely grind. I'm not even gaining weight, I'm losing it, I'm a failure.

I guess I'm just venting, but I feel like a fucking wet baby bird but I'm a full grown man. Idk what to do.

I wish that my internal perception matched the exterior. I feel like I shouldn’t be ugly and unconventionally attractive. I’m not attractive at all. My life and my existence is more than the exterior but that’s hard to accept. If I were pretty on the outside I would be a normal person with a normal life. Just had a birthday. Early thirties and things are still not going well. I want proof that I’m good enough and attractive in someone else’s eyes. If romantic love is real, I want to experience it.

Anyway, ending my day with junk food and alcohol. So stupid. I’m so stupid.

I quit drinking for almost a month bc I had no choice, now I have caved to drinking again and Idk what to do. Treatment won't help bc I've already done it and I know everything, I just don't do it.

Drinking causes me to lose weight, the initial dehydration loss is euphoric. When I'm hungry I know I can drink and it will stop.

The ed itself is already bad enough but I'm destroying my body with alcohol. I don't take it seriously bc I'm miserable and alone.

The only people I talk to are my bf, kids, and mom. Every time I drop the kids off at school I get really triggered bc there are other adults there and I think about what it would be like If I could make friends with them.

But they never notice me, I'm invisible and too scared to start a convo. In my head I feel if I just lose more weight, someone might turn around and notice me, maybe I will be good enough, maybe someone will care?

Idk how to get out of this mindset or how to see my life in a better way when I am always alone. I have a huge family too but no one talks to me and if I do talk to them they make fun of me or make me feel worse.

I relapsed with my eating disorder last year due to a lot of medical issues and things out of my control. I used to purge and abuse laxatives, som b/p issues, but this relapse i have avoided both. I recently started eating more and pushing through the physical issues that have been making this rather difficult. Now my brain is freaking out and wanting me to engage in these behaviors again. I haven’t given into them, I also recently cut down a lot on my alcohol intake because my partner is an alcoholic and is trying to get sober so if I do drink I try to keep it far from him even if he says its okay for me to have a drink in front of him. It does mean dealing more with my emotions and not pushing them down.

I’m in therapy but we don’t talk about my ED in the sessions. The holidays are always a struggle for me, and that might be a big reason that I am struggling with this come to think of it. My CPTSD has been in overdrive a lot and purging for a long long time was my way of regulating those emotions and those memories that have tormented me and pushing along my ED. I’ve done a lot of work and a lot of progress but I feel almost like I’m taking steps back here or like I’ve not taken any forwards. I haven’t purged, used lax except when necessary taking the lowest amount i could, or b/p. I don’t know if I can keep fighting the good fight much longer.

I opened up to my partner recently about my ED and he’s been supportive, he’s seen me through all walks of life including in ED, but I hesitate to bring up ED things with him. He’s been pointing out to me when I make healthier choices but not pushing me to. He just pointing out things he sees as accomplishments and it doesn’t trigger me that i am aware of, but sometimes does put it on my mind. I don’t want to add onto his plate though.

I’m scared of giving in to these behavoirs. It would be a tipping point and I know that it can get real slippery real quick. Its like an addiction to me, and I’m trying to avoid it, my progress could completely backslide. That is scary, i feel like I’m on a semi maintenance place ED wise most days, this would throw me back into the vice grip of my ED. Take all my “normal” days away from me.

I don’t know the point of this post really, i just, idk. Is it okay to be scared? Am I strong enough to fight these behaviors off? I don’t feel like I am some days. This is how i feel in control with everything else going on going in my life. (Major unrelated to ED medical issues going on that triggered the relapse) I don’t want to lose control. I did for a bit with this ED when I stopped fighting for my health with these medical issues and gave into my ED but I feel like I have gotten some of that control back and I dont want to give it up again. I dont want to be second fiddle to my ED or medical issues. I want to be the important thing to me.

Today I sort of gave into hunger at the end of the day.

I have been struggling more with AN lately. I have been loosing weight again and have tried restricting. It is just so difficult for me to see the effects that AN has on my body. I'll start restricting but think that it's 'not too bad' while actively deteriorating.

So I have been restrictive during the day, like very restrictive... Honestly it has been like this for about two months now... I just can't seem to eat more.

Until today.

I don't know what it was, but my body was... SCREAMING. Like a lot. I couldn't stop eating... I mean I did think about it every time, and it wasn't like a black out thing, but it was like my body wanted more and more.

And not the safe kinds of food. Like.. it wanted chocolate and cookies and nuts and peanut butter and just anything that was high in calories.

Each time I stopped, I would get hungry again an hour later. Like mind consumingly hungry. It was so annoying because I also had to study.

I gave into it, slightly. I still tracked it all, I still took breaks and I forced myself to stop before I wanted to.. but I ate more than I have allowed myself these past two months.

I was so overwhelmed.

I honestly wanted to stop really badly and in my head it was really like a binge, but my body just immediately wanted more after it had used all the energy in the food.

I am underweight so I would definitely need the food and also... I have had bad health issues again because of my restriction, but I just feel so awfully terrible for eating all that, even if it might actually still not be enough for maintenance/restoration.

It's so silly because I know that that's very likely (that it's still not enough), which would mean that this shouldn't feel as scary and dangerous.. but it really does. It feels really scary and really bad. Even if I know that I might need it, I just don't like it at all.

TW: discussion of sex and sex injuries

sorry for the juvenile phrasing in the title, i didn't want to put any trigger words in the title.

in 2022, after ten years of disordered eating motivated by gastroparesis and trauma, i was diagnosed with vaginal atrophy. i'd gone in to check for an infection because everything downstairs was painful and red and little cracks were forming on my labia but they didn't find an infection.... instead they found out that my vagina and vulva had been effected by a decade of low estrogen and were showing signs of significant atrophy.

the only information pamphlets they had available were for menopausal patients which really depressed me.

i'm 26 years old and my sex life is basically over. i can't even usually get a single finger in there to insert boric acid suppositories (as recommended by a doctor because my pH is naturally way too high and i was getting infections all the time because of it- i don't just stick random stuff in my vagina and you shouldn't either) let alone a penis. penetration causes pain and bleeding even with lube. there is simply not enough lube in the world to allow comfortable penetration. i am bisexual and have an easier time hooking up with other women because sapphic encounters don't usually involve penetration but i miss dick. goddamn do i miss dick. i can still enjoy clitoral stimulation to some degree but if there's too much friction the thinning skin will tear which is very painful. i have to be mindful to be gentle and patient when i'm using my vibrator.

i worry a lot about how this will effect my future relationships. sex is an important part of a relationship and i've had ones in the past where i felt forced into things i didn't want to do because it would hurt but feeling like i had to satisfy them and ended up resenting them and then conversely they would resent me for not wanting to have sex.

anybody else been there?

I flagged this as NSFW because I will be talking about an intimate body part. I won't get into any intimacy related things, I'll just talk about the body part itself.

Of course AN has a lot of side effects around the reproductive system, but what I had not really thought about is what would happen when you loose a lot of tissue.

This has been an ongoing issue since I lost a lot of weight, but each time I have my period... I simply CANNOT stay clean!!!

Essentially, the tissue in between my legs has reduced so much that each time blood comes out it straight up gushes down. There isn't anything to catch it..

Yes I wear pads... I am too scared to use tampons, but even the pads don't catch it. Panties never fit me properly because they are too big and will move to the side... So each time I get a gush of blood it drips down my leg.

It is so annoying because I have lectures to attend! Today I went to a lecture and the entire time I was just hoping it wouldn't happen. Then on my way back home it did in fact happen...

It's so annoying! I didn't have this before I developed anorexia.. Each time it happens I feel uncomfortable (duh) and so sad... Periods are annoying in general but this is just another challenge on top of it all!

I don't fill in my panties enough that the pad on my panties can sufficiently cover whatever is coming out.

"Not everybody bases their self worth on their appearance, grow up".

Like if you don't understand just say that. But you're not better than me for it.

I grew up fat. And when I lost weight everyone treated me better. My teammates, my classmates, my teachers, even my fucking parents.

I'm sure as you get older it changes and people stop caring about stuff like that so much. But the fact is for many of us, we wouldn't have began to internalize this if other people hadn't projected it on us first. And if we hadn't SEEN it. first hand.

And that includes anyone who wants to sit on a high horse and tell me to "grow up". Fuck them. Why would I bother to explain to you why I feel the way that I do when you would rather simplify the problem to me being childish?

I don’t even know what to say or do anymore. I’ve been in recovery, in treatment, in recovery again, and again, and again. I get triggered by the smallest things and I wonder if recovery is even worth it for me any more.

I’m so depressed some days I scroll on disordered platforms and pages and skip classes to compare myself to thinner women.

My current boyfriend is a really sweet guy, he’s patient and kind. I told him about my eating disorder and he supports me in recovery and goes to the gym with me and helps me make better food choices; he even makes me meal prep a few times a month. However, I feel like he’s my ex; he supports me being mentally recovered but physically sick. I love this boy so much and he’s the best thing that’s happened to me but I can’t help but read into the small things.

- When we go shopping for clothes, he chooses sizes that are smaller than my current body. I feel like those are the sizes he wants me to wear and it makes me sad i can’t and I ask if there’s a bigger size.
- If we’re going out to eat he suggests places or dishes with less calories or less carbs. At first I was into it but he started grimacing when I suggest anything that can be more caloric. That makes me so so sad since some of my favourite dishes are pasta but him and I just can’t go.
- When we’re having sex he often wraps his hands around my waist, my ex used to do that that’s why I’m scared, and tries to make his hands touch. It makes me so sad because it used to be easy for guys to do that but now it’s less easier.

I feel like I’m reading into it, I’m not sure I can tell him how I feel about his actions. He’s a good guy and I’m sure he’ll change if I tell him how I feel but I don’t want him to be awkward around me because of these. What can I tell him?

I knew when I was relapsing from the get go, I sort of feel like I chose to relapse? Like it was a decision I made of “okay i’m going to do this certain behaviour.” But then of course it grows and you do more and more behaviours.
I’m 28, and i’ve had an eating disorder since I was about 12/13.
When I was young, at that sort of 12-15 ages I purged, but I stopped because there was just so many things I hated about it. Like i couldn’t stand the feeling of my throat being all scratchy and cut up, or the taste sitting at the back of my throat.
But lately the thoughts of purging have been getting louder, and tonight I gave in to it. Giving into purging sort of scared me, I think in the back of my mind I thought like if I don’t purge I still have control of this disorder, but now that i’ve given in to it, I feel like it has control of me.
I think about telling somebody a lot, my boyfriend, or my counsellor, but I don’t because i’m afraid of what that will mean, and I’m not ready for recovery.

Is anyone ever ready for recovery?

recently my eating disorder has started to take up an insane amount of brain space. i have always been really high functioning, 26f diagnosed with OSFED and primarily struggle with overexercise but obviously also restriction, some b/p, all of it. i have never been underweight btw. i feel like all i can think about is food. all i want to do is eat, exercise, or sleep, because those are the only times my brain turns off. i have been spending so much time scrolling on my phone because that's the only thing that numbs my brain other than behaviors, if that makes sense. has anyone struggled with this? I literally feel so awful because i can get nothing done. i can barely focus on hobbies bc they dont provide "instant" dopamine like my phone does and i just feel like im wasting time i could be moving around.

i know this is mental hunger, but i don't know how to get out of this hole. yes i'm working with a dietitian, therapist, and i go to group therapy. even just sticking to a meal plan is difficult for me because im struggling with the executive function it takes to meal prep, cook, prepare the meal and eat it. i tend to just push off eating until im starving and then i have to scramble to put something together, which is when i sometimes end up binging or overeating mindlessly. i used to actually enjoy cooking so much, maybe too much because it became a part of my ed (making everything look perfect, orthorexic tendencies, etc). i think now i'm burnt out and thinking about food and eating is so tiring. it's affecting my social life, productivity at work, ability to do chores/errands, everything. :(

What is it about grief and hard moments that makes my brain go… “fuc* this, I’m out!” And then swiftly proceed to tell myself the best way to fix being overwhelmed by grief and pain is to focus on a project.

Project me !

If I can fix my body, I can fix my life. I can fix all of it. And even if I can’t, I’ll be so starved of energy (pun intended) I won’t even have time to think about all the things that make me sad now.

I really don’t want to feel all the pain anymore and at least in the midst of my worst ED moments, I’ve never one thought about anything other than:

- what did I eat
- how much did I eat
- how much less can I eat without falling over
- will I earn a good day on the scale tomorrow

That’s as deep as my thoughts ever got. I never once thought about the greater purpose of my life, if I am living up to my potential, or why bad things happen to seemingly good people. It’s always just so much simpler.

I’ve was crying while texting my mom about how sad everything is making me and was told to “not think so negative”. Ahhh yes, that’s my problem. If I just think positive thoughts all those bad things will unhappen.

Also, who are we talking to in real life about our EDs ? Because no one understands and I am just dying to have honest and open conversation about it and why I sometimes feel like I need my ED but no one understands and everyone is too healthy and has their shit together.

I’m 24. I’ve been having eating issues for 5 years I’d say. But I had been using eating/not eating as a coping mechanism even a little before that. I almost regained everything I had lost. I wasn’t even totally recovery minded when I stopped restricting. I just felt like “it won’t hurt to eat what i want” and then depression piled up and so did me using delivery apps and bingeing. Well. Now I’m broke-ish? Due to all my medical/therapy visits and not keeping track of my spending and leaving work early/calling out. Now that I’m out of the storm I question if I’m even that depressed. I know my last post here got deleted but I started back getting into actively disordered stuff. I never really stopped purging. It just wasn’t bad as it used to be when I first started. It’s more of an occasional thing. I deleted tiktok and other stuff because it was weighing on my mental health too bad. Now all I have is reddit and twitter.. well.. ofc I’m on edtwt cause I can’t be fucking normal. While I do have a community on there it doesn’t help obviously. I always questioned if I was truly disordered and at the beginning it fueled me. But now with bills and a full time job.. I’m starting to get back into my honeymoon phase but I can’t afford to. I’m in my mid 20s brah. It’s so silly but I think I’m trying to relapse or I am relapsing. I’m really engaging in the shit I used to go in the beginning! Is this constant cycle normal? I’ve tried to get help for my ED but I can’t find anybody that ACTUALLY is trained in it. Along with my ed, I just want to stop getting help for my other medical issues. It feels like I’m a hag trying to relive her youth and I won’t be taken seriously until something happens and then I’ll be looked at as stupid. But I just needed to vent to adults that may actually experience what I’m going through. Nobody really in my real life knows that I even struggled with this or the full extent of it.

i’m 18 and i’ve struggled with an eating disorder since i was 12. i ended up recovering-ish and gained basically 80 pounds. i honestly did not care what my body looked like for the longest time, i liked being thick and having big tits i’m also bisexual and very into plus size women

jump forward, i’ve been dating a man for 3 years. i told him from the beginning (before we were even dating) that i will not be with a man who watches pornography. he told me he used to watch it but that he doesn’t anymore. i would occasionally ask him if he was just based on a gut feeling but he told me no so i accepted it. and then i end up finding out after a year of us being together, losing my virginity to him, etc. that he was watching it the whole time. so obviously i talk about breaking up with him but ultimately i don’t and we kind of move on. but things haven’t been the same since.

i ended up finding out i had a brain tumor and a month later i got surgery for it. so it’s just been a shit couple of years. then a little bit later i find out he’s still looking at women online, not necessarily porn but in that ballpark.

mind you i have never told this man no to having sex and i do stuff for him all the time. so it’s not that his needs weren’t being met, im just not attractive enough to be all that he wants.

okay so now, i find out he watched porn AGAIN. and i find out the specific woman that it was. skinny girl with boob job and a bbl, tattoos, piercings, black hair, whatever. we’re both “goth” i’m just 100 pounds heavier than her.

anyways since i found out my eating disorder has came back and it’s been really hard. i can’t talk to him about it bc he just shuts me out but im trying to go to therapy for everything i don’t know if i want to bring up my eating disorder just because it is working. i’ve lost 12ish pounds since i found out and i want to keep going until i look like the girl he really wants. when im hungry i look at her account and if i do eat i just purge while looking at her account. i look at her account so many times a day and it keeps me from being hungry. i feel disgusting all the time and i hate having sex now because i just feel so used and wonder if it would be better for him if i was her.

i also think im using this as a way to torture myself into losing weight bc im too lazy to actually work out. this is just what im used to

I'm semi-recovered from AN right now, but I recently lost 10 lbs recently and the thoughts are getting super bad just because people don't know how to shut their mouths.

I am a (lesbian) restaurant manager, and a few months ago, I was in the office making the schedule when my female, heterosexual kitchen manager started hitting on me. Finally she said, "okay I'll stop, because I don't want your partner to jump me." I said, "it's fine, I wasn't paying attention anyways," because I wasn't. Apparently that was the wrong thing to say, because she said "I'll make you pay attention" and GRABBED UNDER MY CHIN AND JIGGLED IT. And said, "I bet you got that from eating good." I am an average BMI btw, not that it matters.

And then, I'm taking a human sexuality class, and we were talking about amenorrhea, and my professor, who is a practicing therapist, said, "Does anyone notice there aren't any anorexics anymore? What happened to all the good anorexics???" Ma'am, all the good anorexics are dead.

Anyways, I've been trying to impress on my therapist that I've been having a bad time for quite a while, and they haven't seemed to get it until I wrote an essay about my ED thoughts for therapy homework. Now I'm getting all sorts of quizzes and assessments to make sure I don't have OCD or something. My therapist is fantastic and I know they'll help, I'm just tired and I feel more broken now than I have since my last relapse.

I don’t even know how this happened. Maybe 10 weeks ago I started having reduced appetite, most likely due to stress. I started noticing I was getting at least half my daily calories from alcohol. So I went to the doctor and withdrew from alcohol with assistance. I’ve been completely successful in that and not drinking at all. But somewhere in there I’ve started only eating proteins (whey, meats, fish, tofu), veggies, nuts. I used to eat a varied diet with carbs with meals and baked stuff, ice cream treats etc. Now I have no interest in those foods and only eat foods that are acceptable to me. Then thing is, I’m not even using restraint as such. I don’t want the other things. And I’m more comfortable being hungry than eating something outside of what I want to eat. I am losing weight steadily coming from being overweight and now just about in the healthy weight range. No intention of stopping but also just very confused as to how this happened. Background of unresolved grief, vicarious trauma and stress at work, work full time and am a parent and have a lot of sorting out in my life which I’m avoidant of due to the grief stuff. Not even sure that this is an ED. I’ve always been pretty healthy but had become overweight with lack of exercise and poor lifestyle during dealing with all mentioned above. Had brief periods of probable ED in my 20s but never got too bad, only just underweight. Now in my 40s and didn’t see it coming.

Vent, I think?

I still have pics from when I was deep in an ED one year ago. I've been absolutely hating my body recently and slipping back into old habits, very slowly but surely.

I can't get rid of those photos. I was just looking at them and, while I was never severely underweight, I'm still shocked. I can't believe how small I was, and how even back then I still thought it wasn't enough. I could only see the parts that were still "too big." Now, I'd do anything to have that body back. Life is a funny thing.

I also just feel so goddamn ashamed. I let my old self down. I let my body go. I hate it here.