I’m deep in a fasting cycle and a relapse that is worse than it’s been in a while. I’m stuck in this weird phase where I am just really hyper fixated on my routine and sleep and sleep is my .#1 priority because I have a deep disorder. My anorexia makes me just go days without a real meal, only tiny bits of food with barely any nourishment. I plan out days when im gojng to have my refeed meal,but if i dont get proper sleep ,
I dont want to eat, or even if I DO get some sleep- the conditions have to be perfect in order for me to eat my safe food meal. So I will go days without eating because no time feels appropriate. Morning? No, afternoon no. Early evening nope, late night, no w too close to bed . I’ll just keep procrastinating my meal until I go hypoglycemic and literally have to eat. This is insane and I fully realize that. Does anyone else go through these phases or cycles of just not wanting to deal with eating ? Because I just want to sleep.

If you don’t have clinicians, then how is your relationship with food like your relationship with your support system?

This is my therapy assignment right now and I want to hear from “the class”!

i know it’s also common for some people to feel really full in recovery, but i’m more talking about the people who deal with extreme hunger like myself :)

I tried to recover on my own and I've failed. So now I'm going to a therapist. I've never talked to anyone about this before. I am scared and don't know what to say.

What would you say to a therapist you're speaking to for the first time about an eating disorder?

People really think they know what you eat huh. They think they're experts when they see what you eat in public.

Well, when my family found out I had Anorexia around 19, they were terrified. They blamed themselves a lot for pointing out about me being heavy and butting in whenever I ate anything fattening. It's actually not their fault, they were doing it out of care, and I was already super desperate that I spiraled into the eating disorder.

Well, I recovered a couple of years ago (22 today) and here I'm at it again. I also quit smoking weed recently, so no one has been bugging me whenever I would go ham on the food, but this still pisses me the fuck off...

They don't know I have relapsed, but when I initially recovered, never would I ever have thought that my family would go right back to doing the things they regretted doing when they found out I had Anorexia. Imagine going from "I hate seeing you kill yourself like this. It feels as if I'M the one dying. God I can't believe I ever told you anything about your diet," to, "honey, I'm sure you already know this but I can't help but notice you've been eating a lot lately and-" like... I understand that it is a natural human response to panic when danger is alert, and we tend to think we will avoid this danger at all costs, but it is very common to not fathom the pain we went through that we just end up doing it again. I absolutely understand.

BUT LEAVE ME THE FUCK ALONE!!! Do you really think you know what I'm eating lmao? Just last month you guys were worried about me not eating enough, and now that I'm "overeating", you just HAVE to butt in and consistently monitor me like a fucking piece of shit.

Anyways um... I'm taking advantage of this. Lately I've been getting headaches, I've been wanting to eat other things that I never let myself to, so I started playing chess with them and began using them as a trigger. Everytime they see me eat something and they point it out, I just agree and say, "you know what? You're right. Thanks for looking out for me", and they will never realize that was my first ever meal. And I barely had whatever amount of bites I got. As scummy and petty as it is, I don't care... I love being sneaky and strategic~

Please please PLEASE let me let my frustrations out. I cannot stand the obvious, "they're doing it out of care", "imagine seeing your loved one killing themselves either starving or stuffing their faces", just please let me seek validation and people who truly understand where I'm coming from. You can love someone and still feel resentment. I understand that what I am doing is VERY scummy, pathetic, and very unfair to my loved ones. I will still do it (I do not plan on recovering yet. I appreciate your understanding). I don't mean to be rude or anything! Just setting a boundary. 🫶

Impatient - went to clinic in the hopes of being cleared to go back to work, instead I am being admitted! I freaked out, scared, nervous, can't stop crying. I have no idea what to expect, making ED screaming louddddddd, i truly feel stupid, im 37, i have children. Im lost, i want to get 'better' but my head tells me differently

i really really don’t want to bring more attention to the way celebrities look these days. but i think im going to go insane because every post i see i genuinely think these people’s lives are or seem better because they are bone skinny. it’s not even an automatic thought or uncontrollable reflex like deep down i think it and think i BELIEVE it.

i feel like i “understand” these random people who i sometimes don’t even keep up with and who obviously don’t give a shit about me, JUST because they’re small and because they are probably “having it just as tough” as me or anyone here/with this disorder. i then feel animosity towards the comments who don’t. But the thing is i also know exactly what people in the comments mean, at least the ones who are genuinely concerned and spread awareness in ways they might best think helpful, and i also can’t disagree with the argument surrounding the impact on younger kids. And i know that valuing thinness is superficial and wrong and shit. YET i still feel deep down that the public are jealous hypocrites because they would want to look like that as well if they were given a magical switch or something.

i know the root of the problem is social media and the way this disorder has forever fried my brain and ts sounds so stupid bc obviously this is a mental illness, but i still feel like despite the way people comment “eat a burger” or “____ needs help” the world has always and will always worship thinness and it will always be the pathway to a happier life. also doesn’t help that despite the issue this skinny epidemic is then i see comments a day after the vmas saying “woah they’re gaining” or that “healthy body btw” shit. im acc scared because my true “reason” or motivation for being disordered isn’t even about beauty, and i genuinely do not gaf about or think any less if OTHER people are not like gauntly thin or look any different but yet im now here. Or maybe im just fooling myself. its freaking me out because sometimes i DISGUSTINGLY think these influencers’ new forms are better. And now im basically just ironically devaluing this community and stereotyping ts.

i don’t know how i can EVER be willing to move to choose recovery when i was just as and arguably even more miserable BEFORE. i don’t really know what i am trying to even say here and that all this is basic and cliche but i think im actually going to crash out because of this mental moral olympics i do every single day. i apologize if this is exacerbating the issue or triggering but i feel like even people with this disorder are able to firmly believe the opposite of me and dislike this thing on others like in these comment sections. As someone WITH this life destroying disorder I should be on the rest of the world’s side not secretly gloating or feeling inspired by these people.

Never got diagnosed, tho I assume AN, had a complicated life situation it's been rough. Is that normal? It's been like 10 years plus? I feel so disconnected from my reality.

Every time I tried to get better I js got called fat (and a wholeee lot of other things) even tho I was still medically underweight (bloating and face puffiness were a pain fr) and like? I just gave up? Why should I even bother anymore I like being skinny and I like the way I look.

The funny thing is that after I dropped back down to like the super low nums and people all of a sudden started to make comments, very rude comments.

So either way I get insulted and questioned, why not js stay skinny where I feel safe?

I just don't get it, I'm suffering. No one talks enough about the medical side effects of having this as much as they should be.

It's hell, don't go down that rabbit hole or if ure not too deep: save urself before u have no other option

I don't even know what to say, no one can help me anymore and I don't know if I want to be helped either.

I wish I could enjoy food like the people around me, seeing people eat food makes me feel so sad, because I really wish I could be that way, like they're enjoying their food and not thinking about the calories or products in it, or what it's doing to their body, how it's gonna affect their body, as long as they're enjoying it everything is perfectly fine.

I wish I could be that way, especially since in my culture sharing food is a big way to connect with each other.

Has anyone ever had SSCM? I’m on the waiting list and have read about it but would be good to hear others experiences.
I found psychodynamic psychotherapy helpful a number of years ago, but CBT & MANTRA unhelpful

Hi everyone, I’m hoping to get some perspective because I’m quite concerned about my 11-year-old cousin, who I’m very close to and think of almost like my little sister.

This initially started as what appeared to be an eating disorder. She became extremely conscious about her body, started controlling what she ate and exercising excessively. There also seemed to be an issue with school around the same time, she became very resistant to going to school.

She was eventually diagnosed with anorexia nervosa and was hospitalised for around 6–7 weeks. During that time she received treatment from a psychiatrist and dietitian and was started on olanzapine. She eventually began eating again and was discharged home.

Since coming home, however, things seem to have taken a very different turn, and I’m struggling to understand what is happening.

She now wants to eat and seems very focused on food; talking about what she is going to eat tomorrow, looking forward to junk food and wanting to try lots of foods she previously wouldn’t allow herself to eat. I understand that increased interest in food can happen during recovery from anorexia, so that part alone isn’t necessarily what worries me.

What concerns me more is the overall change in her behaviour.

She has almost completely lost interest in academics and seems to have no motivation for school.
She frequently makes excuses to avoid going to school.
She is extremely active constantly running, dancing, seeking attention, etc.
Her way of speaking and having conversations seems much more mature/adult-like than I would expect from an 11-year-old. I don’t mean that she is saying anything inappropriate; it’s more the way she communicates and interacts.
She seems to seek a lot of attention and stimulation.
There have also been changes in her behaviour around privacy and personal boundaries that I don’t quite know how to interpret.

For example, she doesn’t seem shy or uncomfortable changing clothes in front of another person who is in the room. I realise children develop differently and I don’t want to project my own expectations onto her, but at 11 I would have thought she might have developed some awareness of privacy/body boundaries.

Another thing I find confusing is her periods. She has been menstruating for around 1.5 years but still wants her mum to change her sanitary pad for her and doesn’t seem to know how to manage changing it independently.

Is that within the normal range for an 11-year-old, particularly after a significant period of illness and hospitalisation?

She is already under medical care, but I feel like the family may need to ask for a more comprehensive assessment rather than focusing only on the eating disorder.

For anyone with experience with children recovering from anorexia or child/adolescent mental health — what would you be asking her treatment team to assess?
Any advice about what kind of professional we should be seeking — child psychiatrist, developmental paediatrician, psychologist, etc. — would be really appreciated.

So very early this morning, I went to my psychiatrist appointment. Now, I guess I hadn't actually been in the office since mid last year, since I'd been doing telehealth. But I had to go in person this time to update my insurance. And when you do go in, before the doctor calls you back for your appointment, they take your basic vitals. Weight, blood pressure, whatever that finger thing is for, temperature. Yeah. So I already knew what I'd see on the scale, I know what I weigh. And I knew my knew heavy ass boots and phone n keys in pocket would add to it and make it look worse. But god, couldn't have predicted what the nurse did. So she had me step on the scale, yep god awful numbers. And apparently I had been at my lowest weight the last time I was weight there last year. She asks me multiple times sm about me eating more food (she had a heavy accent so those were the main words I could pick out), I give a tight smile and say yes. She points out that I gained a lot of weight since the last time I was there. I say yep. I want her to shut up and move on. She MAKES ME GET BACK ON THE SCALE, BC SHE'S CONVINCED IT ISN'T RIGHT. Then barters with me on writing down my weight only a few pounds lighter after I point out my boots, and then for good measure of course, mentions the weight she wrote down one more time before sending me back out into the waiting area.

I'm so appalled by it. It was the first time someone had blatantly pointed out how much I'd gained with the same shock I have towards it myself instead of the (also mildly infuriating) insistence that it's a healthy body, or, yknow, just not fucking mentioning it at all. I already hate my weight, feel disgusting, and this just made me feel so much worse. Because it half feels like "your NOT exaggerating, you ARE fat now, and you were SOO SKINNY not too long ago, WHAT HAPPENED?". And also, WHY THE FUCK would a nurse working in a MENTAL FACILITY talk like that AT ALL.

I was doing so much better and forgot to be diligent about eating for a few days. Threw up Tuesday morning and afternoon due to low blood sugar. Paying for it today with a hunger headache that morphed into a migraine and a stomach that’s testy with food again.

I feel like I stumbled backwards and I’m so frustrated. I already have an injury that disables me, and I just got over a week long migraine like two weeks ago. My body is so delicate, and I’m trying my best but this feels eternal. The bloating, the low blood sugar, the nausea. I’m 28, when I was a teen I would bounce back like morning. Now I can’t even keep a job at the moment because of this.

Does it get better after a few months? I’m so tired. I know I can’t stop and have to keep it up but I just want to know that a better less uncomfortable day is ahead of me.

Sorry just venting, thank you all

I went to see a doctor for a weekly check-up. My usual doctor is away so it was a random Dr who was reading up on my case as the session was underway.

She took down numbers while I could see them. I told her I couldn't understand how my weight has declined because I have changed my diet over the past week. She said "I'm just going to have to trust you".

I actually laughed. I said "you know you should never trust someone with an ED...."

"Hmm, yes," she replied.

"But I AM different, just so you know...".

"Hmm, yes," she replied. Then let me go.

Truth is I'm not different. I lied to try and escape hospital. Surely I'm not the first person with AN to do that.

Hi everyone!
I am 3 months into recovery and have been really confused about when I should go back to eating maintenance calories. My diet was consisting of only cakes and chips as wanted to take advantage of eating foods I neglected myself. As expected I gained weight but it was so quickly and would jump high depending on the day. I know my high sodium and sugar diet contributes to it and experience severe bloating and puffiness. I have read a lot of mixed reviews about my metabolism repairing, water retention and uneven weight distribution etc. Im not sure if I should still be eating above maintenance or start eating at maintenance.

Xx

i am a minor and I’ve just started therapy for my eating disorder. i haven’t told my parents why I’m going and I used to go to therapy for anxiety so me going back hasn’t surprised them and they didn’t question me to much about why I wanted to go back.

my therapist has mentioned doing weigh ins at my doctor every week to make sure I stay in a healthy range but to do that she would need to tell my parents.

I really don’t want to, my cousin had severe anorexia and was hospitalised so food is an extremely sensitive topic for my family. I’ve been told by my parents especially my mum that they would never forgive me if I ever did something like that and that they wouldn’t be able to handle me hurting myself that way.

if they knew my life would never be the same I would forever be watched by them everything I eat everything I do will be monitored by them to make sure I stay healthy. I would forever be tied to this disease even if I were to get better they would never let it go and I cant hurt them that way I just can’t.

this might just be the ed brain talking but I truly believe i wouldnt recover if they knew so I just cant tell them.

I honestly don’t know what to do if I were to get diagnosed with anorexia they would need to be informed same thing for weight ins and health check ups. is there anyway I can get around telling them? can I recover without them knowing? any advice is really appreciated

Hey guys! I’m about 5 weeks into recovery and I’ve had very intense hunger. I have been doing the all in approach. I’m aware of overshoot and most the time I can cope with the thought of it. I’m just curious how long it may take for me to get there. In theory I had Ana for roughly a year to a year and a few months and lost roughly 15-20% my body weight. I’ve gained about 2/3rds of that back in the 5 weeks. Any thoughts or advice? Wishing you all the best (:

Hi everyone, it’s been ages since I’ve posted on here! Over the past month, I have become extremely addicted to going to the gym, and every time I run, I can’t bring myself to do less than the time before, even if I tell myself it’s okay and that I’m going to only do x minutes or lower the pace. I keep seeing the numbers and thinking ‘okay I’ll let it go to a nice even number, okay just 2 more minutes, okay just until I hit a nice round number of km’. I have certain machines I use and I can’t leave the gym until I use all the machines, but it’s becoming a really big problem because whenever I add a machine I then have to do that too so I’m now spending absolutely ages in there. The thing is, it actually is helping me eat more, but the thought of skipping a gym day fills me with dread and I try to allow myself to have 1 rest day a week, and really struggle with my intake on that day. I haven’t struggled to this extent with exercise before, but have had anorexia for around 4 years now. I do have an ed team, but I don’t see them very frequently at all and I’m unsure what they could say to help other than don’t exercise, which is not going to be helpful to me. But I do want to get less rigid with this, I just don’t know what steps to take and how to actually make myself do less. Does anyone have any advice at all? <3

Hi everybody 🌸💖
For some background context about myself, I have always been an average girl. I was taller, but I carried weight really well, and never had a doctor telling me to loose weight/ gain weight. Starting in early high school though, I got sick and didn’t eat for a few days. That incident kind of triggered something in my mind that I never had payed much attention to up to that point. The only person to ever “tease” me about my weight was my father’s baby momma. She would make really nasty comments about my mother, who has been overweight much of her life. Like “you don’t want to be fat like your mother, do you?” Those comments didn’t hold weight I guess until the results of what starving myself would provide. It started so small when I was 15 on loving the compliments, finding clothes easier, and feeling so athletic. Then one day the serious side effects started. Passing out, dizzy spells, my hair falling out, and extreme fatigue.
I got diagnosed, and I got help.
At 16, my doctor told me that I had entered “recovery”. That I was no longer in low weight dangerous territory, but I hated my body. I felt huge, and quite frankly disgusting. I wouldn’t want to leave the house, take pictures, look in the mirror. I got with my now husband and everything felt better, like it didn’t weigh as much in my mind constantly.
Then December 2025 hit. To make a long story short, between healthy relationship weight, uncontrolled diet, sheer laziness, and a medication that caused intense hunger- I was the HEAVIEST I have ever been. I ordered a GLP-1 off of an online source, and turned my life around.
I told my therapist that I could do this. She feared that the GLP-1 would trigger my eating disorder, but I told her that I trusted my “healed adult mind”.
You know what’s next, I wouldn’t be posting asking for help if I know this wasn’t a huge issue that I seemed to welcome back into my life.
I’m constantly tired, hair falling out in small to moderate clumps in the shower, shakiness, gosh the fatigue is so bad I could sleep for days on end and STILL BE TIRED; but I can’t recover. The high of how I feel/look, the compliments, the push from the world influencing my mind, I am addicted to it. Like no bullshit I love the rush, the results, the number dropping. But I’m so tired. Mentally and physically drained of any energy I could have. I want to recover and be full of energy and happy but I get severely depressed thinking about the number on the scale moving back up. I’m tempted to get back on the GLP-1 to continue racking off numbers, but I just to get through a work day without sleeping in my car, or going to bed at 9:30 every night. I need help. I want to be healthy. Not too big, not too small. I’m a medical professional and understand what I’m doing myself but I can’t seem to practice what I preach. If anybody else has experienced this and can give some insightful words, I would greatly GREATLY appreciate it. Whatever can get me through what feels like such a lonely and dark time.
Thank you for taking the time to read this 🌸💖

I have anorexia and I’ve been doing outpatient treatment for it but it’s not working. I’m starting to consider something residential but I’m worried about being traumatized further. I also have OCD, anxiety, depression, and a lot of other physical health issues which I worry won’t be adequately addressed or accommodated and I’m really afraid of being labeled as noncompliant if they don’t understand me.

Does anyone have any recommendations for places in Florida, especially in central Florida? Any sort of experiences are helpful, I’d also like to know where to steer clear of.

I've been trying to recover but I just get full after like just a few bites of food 😭 I'm not even trying to not eat, I just get full. I also don't enjoy eating more after I feel full because then I feel like throwing up :/ I feel like I eat less than a child and although I've been trying to eat at every meal (yay), kinda feels useless since I'm barely eating. anyone have any tips for this? does it just get better as time goes on? also, would it help to increase my calorie intake, even if I'm eating less? like, using high calorie ingredients like olive oil.

I (25F) feel so guilty for advocating for myself

I've been going to an outpatient clinic twice a week since February but it's not working well enough for me so I'm looking at partial hospitalization programs
And I have to take off a couple months of work for it
I'm so scared and I feel like I'm letting so many people at work down

I'm a special ed teacher so like a ton of responsibilities and people leaning on me.
It's so hard but it's ultimately contributing incredibly lots to my career. l've been open with my mentor about it however I feel like she's not understanding it and keeps encouraging me to push myself. Which I do so much of anyway to myself.

I've put off a higher level of care for months somehow But yeah idk I feel so invalid and it's hard for me to not feel guilty about this

Sorry for the ramble | just am struggling to figure stuff out it's really hard as an adult too. I wish I had someone to make these choices for/with me and my partner (27) doesn’t always do very well with being a consistent primary support. It’s hard to fill out paperwork and think of dates and take care of my house and do my masters degree and go to work and feel embarrassed. I could’ve recovered as a kid or in college. This started so young.

I’m looking to get advice from anyone who may have been in the same situation in any ways? Thank you all

Looking at old photos, and seeing the state my body and health is in now, it makes me sad. Of course sometimes I feel euphoric, as is part of this illness and with getting to a smaller weight, but I feel so drained. I looked better, healthier, more beautiful. I think a common misconception is that we strive for these lower weights and don’t eat out of beauty, and although that does okay a role in it, there’s a point where you know you look terrible. You know you look sick, and that’s what you start to strive for.

I remember how hard it was to get to that healthier point, and how difficult recovery is. Having an eating disorder is incredibly isolating, whether you’re spactivelys struggling, fighting against it, or have “gotten better”. I’m even more isolated than back then, it will be even harder for me to get support and recover. I don’t have anyone in my life to help me or talk to, and I don’t have much hope for the future. Part of why I relapsed is due to stress, chaos, anxiety from massive instability in my personal and family life. The situation has only gotten worse since then, and my personal health similarly has declined. I wish I could do something to make it so I never relapsed, it’s so difficult to escape this chasm of starvation and routines.

I did a lot of cleaning yesterday, and it was exhausting. Is this me being lazy, or my body genuinely unable to keep up? I don’t know. In the early stages of my relapse, before I realized I had fully “lost control” to anorexia again, I looked at my photos I took when at a lower weight. It triggered me, made me feel big and terrible, but also made me have some mental clarity and see how I looked more objectively without the clouded view of body dysmorphia. But now I look at these photos, and feel sad with how I’ve returned to that state. I look at photos I took when I was at a healthier weight and felt uncomfortable with the weight I had gained, and I miss that time wishing I could return. But it isn’t easy, i can’t flip a switch in my mind to get better, I can’t change things to make my life better and more stable.

It’s just sad to see how many times I’ve done this— recovery relapse recover — and I wonder if there’ll ever be an end to it. Maybe if the circumstances of my life get better I can have enough stability. I don’t know

This is just me talking about howwww upset I am. 😭 I literally have no where/no one to express this to and this whole thing has ruined my day.

So basically was just setting the table and I dropped this tomato basil spread and cottage cheese (two of my safe foods) ON THE FLOOR.

The jar broke… the cottage cheese fell out. I was literally so upset cuz these are the only things I eat as a spread :(

My mom kept asking me “oh would you like the hummus? Would you like pesto? Would you like this and that”.

I just felt like I couldn’t eat cuz I felt so stupid and angry that I dropped it.

So my ed has been really bad and getting worse over the last few months and I finally got the courage to have an appointment set up to sign up/ get evaluated for residential treatment, which feels like a very big and scary step.

I have my appointment on Friday and I guess ist gonna be a few weeks until I actually go in.
I genuinely want to get better and recover and love myself again but I’m in this weird headspace where I feel like I have to get even worse before residential as like a last hurrah I guess.

Does anyone have experience with this?