#tw eating disorders

swirlofstars:

Me: *venting about weight gain in ed recovery*

My therapist: “At least you have an ass again.”

swirlofstars:

Refeeding syndrome occurs when someone experiencing long-term malnutrition/starvation suddenly begins to consume a high calorie diet. This can result in hypophosphatemia (low phosphate levels) which lead to cardiac arrhythmias, heart failure, and potentially death. It was first discovered following the liberation of concentration camps in WWII but continues to be relevant, even as a factor in the recovery of patients suffering from eating disorders. Patients recovering from starvation must have their diets monitored carefully under the supervision of dieticians in order to avoid refeeding syndrome.

I started these posts on a whim talking about lanugo hair (goodness knows why), and perhaps I’ll stop on a whim too. But there’s a chance you may learn an interesting tidbit or two and possibly a detail that may be useful in your writing. Let me know if there are any topics you might like to know about though!

restricting-demon:

sewersweet:

heavyweightheart:

an essential point to understand about eating disorders is that they are not pre-existing “illnesses” that create symptoms, they are behaviors that create illnesses. that is, it’s not a disorder that has undereating as a symptom, it’s undereating that creates the many symptoms we identify as the disorder. 

the minnesota semistarvation experiment was an unethical but vivid illustration of this. they took subjects who had no ED history whatsoever, and they underfed them (by far less than many ED sufferers are undereating!), and they lost their minds. they became obsessive and compulsive around food and anything related to food. they self-harmed and experienced major cognitive distortions. their personalities and relationships changed drastically. they couldn’t connect with loved ones who came to visit. and this was on no less than 1500 kcals/day. 

the undereating creates the eating disorder, not the other way around. food is the only cure. there’s obviously complexity here with chronic EDs, and the feedback loop that gets created (eat less, fear food more, and so on). but if we understand that it is fundamentally the symptoms of starvation that we’re dealing with, then we don’t fall into the common trap of trying to psychotherapize someone out of those symptoms. food, food, food is the way out.

ed-recovery-affirmations:

Boundaries for ED recoverers can look like this:

• “Please don’t talk to me about your diet, diet culture is not good for me.”
• “If you continue to make comments about my body, I’m going to walk away.”
• “I know you’re trying to be helpful, but hearing about your diet tips is not good for me. I am stating a boundary.”
• “I know you meant it as a compliment, but please don’t focus on my body so much. It makes me feel self-conscious.”
• “Please don’t make comments about what I eat. It makes me feel extremely self-conscious. If you continue to do this, I will not have meals with you in the future.”
• “You’re not my therapist/doctor/nutritionist, so your advice is not relevant or helpful to me.”

I might post more as they come to me. Feel free to use these freely and don’t worry about offending others. Your health is your priority!

inkskinned:

the older i get the more disgusted by diet culture i become.

there’s a reason it targets young girls. there’s a reason it hinges on making grown women look tiny and helpless and weak. there’s a reason that it is normalized to the extent that what is ostensibly not a healthy act is seen as being a “good” choice and something to be proud of. 

young people are just completely submerged in it. adults forget that kids pick up on fucking everything and they hear their parents and their teachers and everyone on this planet not eating red meat this week or on juice cleanses or denying denying denying themselves (”oh good for you! i’d never be able to be so well-behaved”). they learn really, really fast that “fat” is a funny, not-good, close-to-a-swear word - to the extent that my usually well-behaved five year olds will devolve into crazy giggles because i asked “pass me one of the fat markers please”. they don’t react like that to anything else, just “fat” which they know is bad/off-limits/terrible. 

and we pretend we’re so confused by obesity and by the skyrocketing eating disorder rate - a rate of diagnosedeating disorders, mind you, since disordered eating is now essential to many american eating traditions - and we blame millenials or GMOs or whatever won’t make us look a multi-billion dollar industry in the eye and realize. they literally teach us from a young age what is essentially a restriction/denial cycle that is very close to a binge cycle. they teach us “good” and “bad” and “safe” foods but don’t supply the money for us to obtain those foods (and god forbid you live in a food desert) while also selling us Magical Cures For Magical Transformations. 

and of course it works. you teach people to crash diet and lo and behold their metabolism becomes entirely dependent on your cycle of starvation/refeeding. the statistic that most people gain back the weight they lost isn’t because people are these terrible people have no self control (but they sell that idea to you, don’t they), it’s that their metabolism was trashed and the way they look at food cannot change in the span of a crash diet - if it takes someone with an eating disorder seven years to recover, we understand that, but if someone overweight gains back their lost weight it’s “a shame”. and the diet culture wins both sides, i want you to understand that. they make money of of you either way. they know that you’re gaining the weight back but fucking scrambling - they know you’ll try to buy their product because last time it worked to buy atkins or weight watchers, and they know that when you’re losing the weight, well, goddamn, you’re going to be an advertising board for them because we teach each other that this is coffee-break material, isn’t it. 

and we sell each other on it. we say, “oh this worked for me, you’ve gotta try it.” none of the people we speak to are nutritionists, but everyone on the internet has a degree in medicine, so don’t worry, if you step outside in a bikini and are not unhealthy levels of skinny (oh but it’s healthy if it’s the right kind of skinny), you will be reminded to lose weight. we keep our women running on such low levels of carbs/calories/fats that they’re permanently exhausted, weak, emotionally drained - and then we crow women are just crazy. meanwhile men get the opposite treatment that is unhealthy in a different way – the obsession with masculinity through food, of all things, that salad is “rabbit food” and that a real “man’s meal” is red meat and beer. 

and god forbid you say, “this shit is fucking predatory, it’s evil, it’s controlling people’s bodies” because you’ll get fifty-seven “okay, fatty” comments that miss the point completely, because the companies are really, reallysmart and they learned: if you call someone fat, you can ignore them completely. and anyone who isn’t “into dieting” is therefore fat and incapable of healthy eating. healthy eating, is of course, defined by the company - but hey! you can help that person realize they’re just a stupid/dumb/ignorant fatty. or if they’re somehow magically not fat, you can tell them, “well, one day you will be.”

and i just know. i know. this shit will continue. it always does.

mistermustachiogmc:

Don’t just tell them that happiness and love are possible, tell them it’s normal.

I’m followed by so many disgusting thinspo blogs, and each one gets a report from me and a message that says “Fuck you, thinspo bigot” for abusing fat people, harassing me, ignoring my consent, trying to use my blog to throw up to, and promoting eating disorders. I then block them. This one fucker actually made a whole new account just to respond to me calling them out.

Yeah, I hope you thinspo bigots die. Get to that tiny grave you’re always seeking and stay there 

Yet another thinspo bigot followed me and just

Excuse me, how is this NOT “pr0 4n4″? How is this NOT promoting eating disorders? Especially when you use the fucking TAGS THAT THINSPO BLOGS USE? Fuck you and fuck off. Fuck you for abusing fat people. Fuck you for following me, ignoring my consent, and trying to use my blog to throw up to. You’re disgusting and make me livid.

anyways not to be controversial on main but the people on tiktok making a meme out of the “arent i too small and weak for rugby” line when charlie canonically has an ed kind of rub me the wrong way ngl
like out of context its a rlly funny line that sounds dumb
in context as “this is said by an insecure teenager with body issues and a literal disorder” it is not as funny

anyways not to be controversial on main but the people on tiktok making a meme out of the “arent i too small and weak for rugby” line when charlie canonically has an ed kind of rub me the wrong way ngl
like out of context its a rlly funny line that sounds dumb
in context as “this is said by an insecure teenager with body issues and a literal disorder” it is not as funny