Having an eating disorder is an experience that is profoundly misunderstood. It is not all about food, body image or weight. It is so much deeper and more complex. It is a deadly mental health condition that becomes all-consuming. You feel temporarily invincible abiding by toxic behaviours that you are fed by your ED. Despite these feelings, your reality becomes completely distorted, and your existence is entrenched by, fear, lifelessness, rigidness, and obsession. MY ED nearly killed me. I was left physically emaciated and felt suffocated by it with no way out. The pain and suffering feel unbearable, so you desperately cling to coping mechanisms as an outlet, in hopes they will ameliorate your self-hatred and help save you. In hindsight, you’re eating disorder will ALWAYS do the exact opposite. It enslaves you, leaving you to feel miserable, isolated, misunderstood, and unloved. I felt as if I was trapped within a cage blindfolded, stagnant in a position of complete hopelessness with no sight of reality or normality, whilst imagining a future in which I would be healthy and happy certainly felt impossible. However, what my eating disorder has actually shown me, is the things that bring you the most comfort are actually the things that perpetuate your suffering. Every sufferer experiences their eating disorder in their own unique way yet the pain, anguish and disconnection this mental health disorder produces are felt in equal magnitude by all victims.
You are not your eating disorder, and your pain is not your fault.
As a survivor, I can vouch for recovery as being not only a possibility but something you will never regret. I had to ride the wave of so many different emotions, some positive and many negatives. There are dark days, and it will feel incredibly difficult at first but the feelings of liberation and your ability to reclaim the time lost by filling days with love, joy and reconnection to loved ones and the world around you is so worth it.
This new life is always just around the corner.
The life that is reinstated as a result of choosing recovery will override the dark times. I can say that getting help and speaking about my personal struggles was the best decision I ever made. I am forever grateful to have been able to access support and specialist service that was able to take me in on such short notice whilst I was in such a critical state and my health was rapidly deteriorating both physically and mentally.
Restoration and consequent mental recovery have allowed me to embark on a journey of true self-discovery and I have redeveloped my personal identity. I have reconnected with my childhood self-things that truly matter to me and developed deep levels of self-compassion and self-love. I have also developed so much resilience, confidence and understanding about myself as a person as well as the mental health struggles that I face. Recovery is tough and is not linear yet committing to it has allowed me to arouse from the trance my eating disorder had me under in order to address the greater struggles at hand, and develop better-coping mechanisms.
Most importantly recovery has allowed me to grow and flourish back into not only the person I once was but a more peaceful, empathetic, and cognizant version of myself. I have realigned with my morals and values and developed a new identity that truly resonates with who I am as a person and not the person my ED made me become. I now love to challenge myself, throw myself into new opportunities and can live for the things that truly matter to me and my life. Recovery is an ongoing journey of personal growth and progression, and of course, there are dark days, but they are much lighter. I have learned to take negative emotions on the chin and feel through them knowing they will pass.
Your ED will only allow you to barely survive however recovery shows you how to truly live. Health and happiness should always come first. There is hope.
20-year-old Asian Indian Female Service User
Ever since I was really little, I'd always found food to be a massive source of comfort for me in a world that, being autistic, I didn't feel like I understood or fit in with. I'd been bullied for being fat from the first day of primary school when my scarf and hat were flushed down the toilet because I 'looked weird and big'.
This continues through till today, but my bulimia started when I was 12 and had to move area and school. I found it very hard to make friends and fit in and would be off school as much as I could. Being physically sick was a type of self harm for me, with the added draw that the more damage I did to myself the night before, the less likely I was to have to go to school in the morning.
After eventually being moved to a specialist school, my life got a little better but other things, particularly my appearance and self image as well as family and friend relationships, became more pressing. by age 15 I was often purging multiple times a night, stuck in a binge purge cycle that meant I'd not eat for as long as possible, then binge, then purge but be so depleted of sugars and electrolytes that I immediately felt the need to binge again. This went on till the early hours, multiple times a week.
I was under camhs and hated going to therapy, all I wanted to do was sit at home on my own and play video games. It was really rough for a long while.
When we moved back to derby, my bulimia came with me and remained a way to manage my emotions and fears of social rejection and abandonment, as well as my anxiety. By age 20, I'd lost and regained a significant amount of weight, totally losing my sense of identity and badly damaging my health in the process. I'd paid for private therapy and again, hated every second of it. I felt I was just saying what the therapist wanted to hear so it'd be over quicker.
It was partially my restrictive eating, that eventually turned back into bulimia, that led me to have a psychotic break in 2020 (and another in 2022) where I was admitted to a mental health ward. I was diagnosed with stress induced acute transient psychotic disorder, which was partially triggered by my rigid rules and routines relating to eating and weight control. I really felt at certain points I'd be unwell forever.
My second psychosis episode had an element of food restriction as well, but this time I was just too distressed to eat at all, for a long time. I became extremely unwell very quickly and again thought I would never ger better.
After I recovered from my psychosis again, I came to the NHS eating disorders service last year, at age 24. I expected another round of therapy I didn't want to go to where I people-pleased my way through and got absolutely nothing out of it. I thought my bulimia was too set as part of my personality to ever get rid of it.
However, I've just had my final follow up appointment, and I going through this service with commitment and love for myself was the best thing I've ever done for myself. I'm 250 days without purging (the longest I've gone since I was 12 by far) and, even though I'm at my heaviest weight ever, this no longer matters to me, or changes the amount I genuinely love and value myself.
Recovery is always possible if you're willing to let the right people help. If you have even the smallest amount of hope left inside of you, it will be nurtured here. The future feels so bright and I'm so grateful I never gave up on fighting for it.
I never in a million years thought anorexia would be something that would affect me in fact I vividly remember saying as a child ‘I love food way too much that would never happen to me’ but it did, and it can happen to anyone.
My journey with anorexia starts as the first lockdown ended. I had never worried about what I looked like before and being healthy regarding exercise and eating healthy. However, when lockdown ended, I really struggled, I had this newfound anxiety over meeting people- what would they think, do they think I’m pretty and smart enough?
I have always been an overthinker, but it was on a different level. I had just finished high school and was moving on in my life, going to a brand-new college where I knew all of two people. I had told myself as I began college that I was going to become ‘that girl’ that you see on social media who went to the gym, ate only clean foods and prioritised working to be what I deemed ‘perfect’.
When I started at college, I just wasn’t myself I managed to make friends but this constant voice in my head telling me I wasn’t good enough held me back from being my true self with them. I started going to the gym more and eating less and less focussing on clean foods that I deemed healthy giving up anything sweet which I used to love. My period had stopped quite abruptly but I was in denial that anything was wrong and because I wasn’t ‘skinny’ enough to have anorexia.
To someone who has never struggled with an eating disorder, I find it best to describe it as being in a black hole, constantly fighting towards the light, but being pulled back so hard, the more you fall into it, the darker everything gets; it feels easier to just let go, and let the darkness take over.
Understanding that everyone's experience with an eating disorder is completely different, here is my account of my struggle with Anorexia.
I can't say there was a specific trigger for my eating disorder - I was a very high-achieving child growing up and thrived off the constant praise and recognition I got from my Teachers and Parents through school, I was a perfectionist, and it caused me distress when I made mistakes. This trait was heightened when we lost my baby brother Jack to illness when I was still in primary school, I remember feeling very out of control, confused and upset at what was going on; still being too young to understand fully what was happening, and frustrated there was nothing I could do but watch my parents and family fall into despair. This was by no means the start of my eating disorder, but a key turning point in my life; I became very protective over my family and possessions, and had a different outlook on things, one of someone a lot older than I was.
My eating disorder didn't display fully until secondary school, catalysed by the increased social and academic pressures. I was still in control of it and could choose to hide my behaviours from those closest to me. This was until Covid-19 hit, and before we knew it, schools were closed, most people were working from home, and I had nowhere to hide my eating disorder I had been protecting and nurturing for so long. I was scared I would be found out, my destructive friend Anorexia now evident to those confined in this lockdown with me.
When we talk about eating disorders, were often focused on the physical ramifications, however. It is a disorder of the mind, in my experience, in my experience, obsessing over my weight and food intake was my way of maintaining control. When I couldn't keep control of what was happening around me.
Things kept getting worse, with my relationship with my parents becoming increasingly fragile; arguments were a regular occurrence, which would most often end with us all in tears. The whole time I was in denial I had a problem, this was with trips to A&E becoming more and more frequent, with the doctors who had seen this before warning me of the consequences of what I was doing to my body.
The eating disorder had its grip on me, always pulling me back. I had reached a point where I honestly gave up, it had taken hold fully and every day was more painful than the last – I remember questioning how it could ever get worse, yet it seemed to be.
I was distressed, fragile, and angry from such constant tension and internal mental violence. Helpless yet so in control if I just kept following my ever-growing list of ‘rules’. Drowning everyday but not resisting, in the worst cases using the last bit of energy to fight those who were trying to rescue me. My parents would cry at the sight of me, yet I felt nothing.
The rational, smart, professional, mature person I was knew throughout this was a path with one end and knew full well the steps to change my ways. But at some point, in the evolution of the disease, the smart person loses their voice, and all of this knowledge if worthless. Thats the thing with Anorexia, it changes your brain to ignore all the rational logical signs and warnings, sometimes even using them to fuel the belief you are getting sicker – You will never be sick enough for your anorexia, even at the brink if death – it is never enough.
I had heard from people who had ‘recovered’ from their eating disorders yet had decided somewhere that I was never going to be one of those people, I had categorised myself within the proportion the statistic who would lose their life to it. Recovery just was not a possibility for me.
Except it was.
My recovery hasn't been smooth, and honestly, through a mix of brain fog, medication, and some difficult admissions I have tried to block from my memory, I cannot clearly remember all of it. What I do remember though, is having had enough, enough of fighting through every moment of every day, I do remember the realisation that I could not go on like this, my life did not feel worth living with Anorexia.
Alongside the fantastic team at Derbyshire Eating Disorder Services, and my amazing CBTe therapist Laura, I managed to begin challenging my beliefs, admittedly at points this wasn't always welcomed by myself, and there were points where I missed the comfort of my ED, as this was all I had known for so long - I had never known adult life without Anorexia. Together with CBTe we managed to uncover and challenge lots of my core and current thoughts and feelings and hope began to come back, things were slowly beginning to feel ‘better’. I had to go through the feelings of vulnerability, loss and despair to break the hold my ED had on me, but it really does get easier.
What I’ve learned through this journey isn’t about food or weight—it's about discovering my identity, the person I am without the disorder. At first, it was hard to imagine who I was beyond anorexia. It felt like the only part of me that mattered, the only part that defined me. But slowly, with each therapy session, and each moment of reflection, I began to uncover pieces of myself that had been buried for so long. I learned that I am more than my struggles, more than my eating disorder. I am someone with dreams, passions, with confidence and a worth that doesn’t depend on the number on a scale or the control I once sought through food.
Looking back, I can see how far I’ve come. My eating disorder no longer holds the power it once did. It’s no longer my identity, and it no longer defines my worth.
I live with warmth, compassion, colour, and light. I can feel again, I can give love and people value me for who I am. Recovery has taught me that I can live a life full of self-compassion, love, and possibility. And while I may never be 100% free from the whispers of the past, I am free to live my life on my own terms, and that is more than enough.
To anyone still struggling, know this: Recovery is a journey, not a destination. There is no one way to heal, and no set timeline for it. But your eating disorder does not define you. You are worthy, you are strong, and you are deserving of a life that is truly yours – it feels strange to say, but I am grateful for my eating disorder, mostly for the fact I know now I can do anything I set my mind to, it truly has given me a determination to make the most of my life, and take every day as it comes, but most of all to be kind – you never know what people may be struggling with and what impact a small act of kindness can have.
