Spotting the signs.

A friend of mine has recently admitted to having an ed, and it got me thinking about how everyone has an individual experience.

For me, the warning signs were weighing out food and becoming increasingly inflexible about deviating from my food plans. Those were behaviours that people noticed as being obsessive and abnormal. But for her. it is different. She has become very spontaneous about eating, because she gets so hungry that she eats exactly what she craves, followed by nothing for several hours (length depending on the ed voice).

So, what changed when your disorder developed?

“Aren’t you hungry?”

Simply put: OF COURSE I AM. Not eating is pretty obviously going to make you really hungry. At the moment I was asked this, I was waiting for everybody to get out of the kitchen so I could eat was planned, and I was also emotionally drained. Tired, worried and on the brink of tears, I just had no words to answer that question…. so I stared for a while and eventually said “just shh. It doesn’t even matter if I’m hungry. Now you think I’m waiting for you to leave so I can eat I feel fat anyway.”

Brilliant eh? (sarcasm) I just have no control over what I do and say when I am in that state.