Why She Feels Fat

Attention. It's a word I've heard associated with eating disorders a lot. For instance, I hear people say often: she's only starving herself for attention, or, she wouldn't behave like that if nobody paid attention to her.

Here's a comment from Kendra, related to the idea of "choice" in having an eating disorder: "I don't think I decided on a lifetime of disordered eating, horrendus body image, and exercising until it hurts.I do however believe that I have decided to keep it. I have seen the best of the best for help. And we all did the best we could to help calm it down.Yet I know in my heart it is still alive and thriving. Somehow this lifestyle works for me or I wouldn't keep it up.

Cassandra posted a comment that said a couple of very poignant things. First, she asks, how do I know someone doesn't "choose to have an eating disorder." Second, she says she believes a person can "get out of an eating disorder as easily as they get themselves into one." (you can see Cassandra's full comment on the May 23 post)

A therapist friend of mine once said: Recovery guarantees you the right to feel your feelings; it doesn't guarantee you'll always like what you feel.

Grief is a part of recovery from an eating disorder.

Someone said to me today that she's always considered her eating disorder her fault.

We all know life can be complicated. No way around that fact. Complexity is one of the things that can terrify people who suffer from eating disorders.

Many times people tell me they they use their eating disorder to escape, as a way of "disappearing," "numbing out" or "not having to be there for awhile."

Many people have a tendency to think far ahead. People who have eating disorders often think WAY out ahead- so much so that they make themselves worried and anxious.

Trust is a basic necessity. It is the foundation of stable, healthy relationships- with others and within ourselves. For myriad reasons, people who develop eating disorders feel they can't trust, themselves (their bodies, their thoughts and beliefs, their emotions, their needs and desires) and others.