Understanding Eating Disorders

“I just don't understand why people starve themselves.”

“Just eat.”

“Why don’t you try and lose weight in a healthy way?”

These are all comments I’ve heard regarding my eating disorder.

It’s frustrating and invalidating to be misunderstood. But simultaneously, it makes perfect sense that people ask these questions.

An eating disorder is a bizarre mental illness. There are times in my own recovery when I laugh out loud in disbelief at how ridiculous it is to cry for two hours over a bite of a cookie. I’ve raised my voice in therapy sessions, practically cursing this disease, asking, “Why me?!”

The complexity of an eating disorder is what most people cannot understand. From the outside, it looks like a person who doesn’t want to eat. The assumption is that they just really want to be skinny.

But it's not just about skinny desperation. 

It's also about wanting to see more bones, more veins, more blood in the toilet after purging, more brain fog, more blurry vision, feeling colder, bruising more easily, sleeping longer and longer.

It’s about being sick.

A Deeper Look

These markers of declining health and deterioration don't frighten a person with an eating disorder. They motivate them.

They translate to: “It’s working.” “I’m doing this right.” “Yes, yes, yes, keep going.”

We set markers in our heads that sound like: “I’ll just do this for one week and then I’ll get back on track.”

Then it turns into: “When I weigh ___ lbs, I’ll stop.”

Then: “If I go to the hospital, I’ll stop.”

Then: “When my family and friends are worried, I’ll feel like it's bad enough.”

Now, without even realizing it, you’re killing yourself and you can’t stop.

The problem with these markers is that they are only there for the eating disorder to convince you to comply. When you hit the marks, it will set new ones to take you down further. 

The goalpost is always moving.

These were just a few markers I had set for myself. But I was in the hospital. My family and friends were worried sick. I did accomplish starving for the length of time I promised myself I’d starve for. And none of it was enough.

I never felt sick enough.

I needed to use more extreme behaviors: longer walks in -25°C weather, taking garbage bags with me everywhere I went so that I could purge in my car, etc.

I complied with what the eating disorder told me to do.

 It promised me satisfaction after I completed its tasks, and then begged me for more.

Obsession and Compulsion

Eating disorders are made of obsessive thoughts and compulsions. We use bizarre behaviors, desperately trying to satisfy the itch in our brain.

The behaviors I’m talking about are not just purging, compulsively exercising, starving, bingeing, using laxatives, or abusing weight-loss medication.

For me, it was most of these things, but it was also me using a meat thermometer to check if the temperature of my bath was hot enough to burn calories.

It was obsessively purchasing food at the grocery store that I was never going to eat.

It was sitting in my bedroom with a space heater on high and two heating pads on top of me, all in an attempt to make my body burn calories by making it work hard to regulate my temperature.

It was purging → feeling like the calories were still in my body → running laps in my basement.

Up and down the hallway 4 times → up and down the stairs 4 times → over and over and over until my brain was at ease.

Imagine a pressure cooker releasing bursts of steam with each and every time we comply with the disorder.

 The release is euphoric. 

It keeps us coming back for more.

Because of this, there comes a point in someone's disorder where nothing else matters to them.

I didn't care that my heart almost failed on me.

I didn’t care that my people were terrified for my life.

I didn’t care that I hadn’t seen my friends in months.

So, when we talk about eating disorders being “all-consuming,” affecting relationships, robbing sufferers of their quality of life, and incapacitating people… This is what we are talking about.

I was willing to do absolutely whatever it took to use my behaviors and comply with my disorder.

No matter the cost.

So What Is My Point?

My point is that the person you love, the patient you’re caring for, or the friend you're supporting with an eating disorder is living through a painful, exhausting, vicious cycle inside their own head.

It’s hardly even about food at this point. It’s about control, compliance, debilitating anxiety versus extreme relief, habitual rituals, and soothing unbearable discomfort within themselves.

This is just my experience.

Eating disorders manifest in vastly different ways across different people. So, I want to acknowledge that someone else’s experience might look different, and that difference is not an indication of the severity of their illness versus mine.

If you have an eating disorder, you are hurting deeply, and you deserve medical and psychological attention. You deserve a way out of this.

If you're here, reading this out of a genuine interest in understanding eating disorders, thank you.

You being here, reading this, hearing me, and being open to understanding plays a far bigger role in early intervention, access to treatment, and breaking stigma than you may ever realize.

Sometimes, understanding is where change begins.

-Katie