The mental filter & things people don’t understand

Whether you’re suffering from Binge Eating Disorder, Anorexia, or anything that falls in between, you will know how confusing it is to have so many feelings about your body. 

Eating Disorders come with a mental filter that twists everything on the outside world. The goal is to look “ill enough” to satisfy that voice, but that is literally impossible. The voice wants to kill you. That’s the only thing that would be enough for you to be allowed to stop. 

The problem with ED’s is the secrecy. You become a master at hiding behaviours and emotions from others and in a sense hiding from facing them yourself. Emma Woolf (author of an apple a day) describes her experience as functional anorexia. Before recovering she was in a good relationship, holding down a good job, maintaining friendships, all while being internally out of control.  Her life definitely holds true for my own in many ways.

Now let’s go onto body image. You know what people with ED’s think about their bodies? Awful, horrible, hurtful things. Occasionally you notice your weight loss, or perhaps look not as large as you thought, but those moments never last. They are quickly filtered out by the mind as being a lie. If the goal is to be ill enough, then you begin to like negative parts of your disorder. I like seeing my skin look a yellowish colour, or my nails breaking easily, not having periods normally. These are signs that I am succeeding; these are signs (unlike body comments from others) that I can trust. 

I hate the words fit or hot or anything that implies I am not ill. People who don’t have these struggles fail to realise that many models and “fit” celebrities are not a healthy weight. If you think that’s attractive then you don’t know what an average, healthy sized person looks like. If you think I’m skinny and my eating disorder is doing its job, then tell me that. But please, don’t screw with my mind by telling me I look good. To me that equates to failure.