#but also adhd makes it really fucking hard to stick to a detailed enough food dairy for very long

[felidaefatigue]

as much as i dont really care to stick to a food diary or restrictions long enough to understand how to help my ibs issues i also would love it if i stopped feeling like i had my period 24/7

[goosegoblin]

should i let my university know about my history of anorexia before i relapse for good, or is that 'oversharing'? i also don't want it to seem like i'm lying about it for scholarship $ or sth, which some professionals have accused me of (common for woc, ime). & how do i avoid relapsing when i'm far away from my safety group (not much $ for therapy)? what's the difference between healthy hunger + restrictive eating? thank you so much in advance 💕 (2/2)

Hi, love! I’m going to pop my answers below a read more because I wrote a lot, haha. Unfortunately I did not get 1/2 of this, so please do re-send if you think I’m missing important details.

i also don't want it to seem like i'm lying about it for scholarship $ or sth, which some professionals have accused me of (common for woc, ime). 

 I am.... genuinely fucking outraged that anybody would dare imply that about you. What the sweet jesus hella fuck? That’s gotta be an example of privilege if I’ve ever seen one, because I’m a lily-white ex-anorexic and I never had anyone say anything remotely that shitty to me. God fucking damn. Thank you for bringing that to my attention so I can spread the word and help people fight against it. God, is there even an anorexia scholarship/ money associated with it? That doesn’t even sound right. Christ.

should i let my university know about my history of anorexia before i relapse for good, or is that 'oversharing'?

You should definitely let your university know. Most universities are now aware enough about mental health to have systems in place to support students, but they can only do that if you tell them you’re struggling.

 Does your uni have a disabilities/ special needs department? Often they also work with mental health issues, which people aren’t normally aware of. You could also see if you have a counselling department, or even talk to your head of course or a tutor or a lecturer you trust. I promise you: you won’t be the first, or the last, or the only. If your uni is half-decent, there should be procedures in place.

The big question, I suppose, is what would you like out of the university support? It’s okay if you don’t know. Some things I’ve been offered/ had include deadline extensions, mitigating circumstances (basically a note next to a grade that says ‘was struggling with external issues at this time; please take this into consideration when marking’), time off of university to focus on recovery, counselling with the university counselling service, referrals through the university medical centre to eating disorder clinics, physical monitoring at the university medical centre, 1:1s with tutors/ course heads to check I was doing okay...

)& how do i avoid relapsing when i'm far away from my safety group (not much $ for therapy)?

That’s really tough. I’ll suggest/ mention a few things, and I’m sorry if some are out of reach or inappropriate- hopefully one or two will be able to help.

contact eating disorder support helplines for advice and support

join online support forums or groups- make sure you find one that focuses on recovery and, ideally, is tightly moderated

stay in contact with people from your old life. Phone them, skype them, write to them, meet them if possible.

consider asking a friend to help hold you accountable. This can be tricky, because you don’t want to end up in a codependent situation, but sometimes getting someone to ask ‘did you eat lunch today?’ can help you stay on track

if you’re weighing yourself, please try and get rid of your scales. if you’re calorie counting, please try and stop. do not enable these destructive behaviours. ‘i’ll just weigh myself once a week’ quickly escalates. i’ve met a lot of people who claimed they were counting calories to ‘ensure they ate enough’, but i’ve met very few who truly used it for that purpose.

if you are on MFP or a similar calorie counting site, delete it. even if you aren’t ready to drop calorie counting, drop the website. please.

try and find hobbies or interests that aren’t linked to eating or exercise. taking up writing and fandom helped me find a sense of self i had completely lost in my ED, and gave me something to build back up on. you are a person outside of your ED: what type of person are you? what do you like? what do you want? i really can’t stress this one enough.

make a list of reasons why you want to recover. re-read it regularly.

read accounts from people who have fully recovered. see how happy they are. see how much better life is. use this to motivate you.

throw out any old ‘thin’ clothes. buy larger ones if necessary. if you have a dress hanging around that you know you won’t fit if you gain a few pounds, donate that dress. it isn’t helping you.

develop a routine and stick to it. in the long term, flexibility around food and eating is a vital part of recovery, but in the acute phase routine and regularity is incredibly helpful. 

look up sliding scale therapy, free/cheap online therapy and eating disorder support groups in your area. the latter are normally free to attend.

differentiate between a lapse and a relapse. a lapse is a temporary blip that you move past. a relapse is a full-blown retreat/fall back into anorexia, often at least partly intentional. you have the power to not let a lapse become a relapse. 

 what's the difference between healthy hunger + restrictive eating? thank you so much in advance 💕

Oh boy, that’s a tough one! So different people will have different stance on this, basically. Mine personally is that some degree of hunger might be expected on a weight-loss diet, but on a maintenance plan and especially for someone with a history of restrictive eating, hunger shouldn’t really be... A Thing. You should be hungry before meals and then you should eat the meal and not be hungry any more. If you’re finding that you’re hungry a lot of the time, you aren’t eating enough. 

If you’re concerned about overeating, or you struggling to differentiate between physical hunger and food obsession (been there, done that, got the t-shirt)? There are a few tips that can help. My standard was that if I wanted a snack when I knew I’d eaten enough (that is a hard thing to know! this is late-game advice!), I would drink some water, do something else and wait ten or fifteen minutes. If I still wanted it, I was hungry. If I didn’t, I’d just been bored. That’s very relevant to me as a person with ADHD and who had food obsession issues- it might not be as relevant to you.

Think of it this way: if you need to pee, you probably use the toilet, right? If you’re thirsty, you probably drink some water. Treat your hunger like you treat these urges. You’re basically a slightly more complicated Sim.

I hope this helped. Feel free to ask any follow-up questions you might have, either on anon or not. I’m really really proud of you for reaching out for advice- hang in there, my love.

xxxxx

[cosmicsignificance]

“Fat” is not an antonym of “anorexic.” You can absolutely be fat and anorexic at the same time. Everyone needs to acknowledge that, especially your doctor. Anorexia (or any other eating disorder, for that matter) is no less dangerous or unhealthy for a person who is deemed medically “overweight” or “obese.” Your body needs nourishment no matter what size it is. If your doctor ever suggests otherwise, you need to run the other way, ideally toward another doctor who understands the complex realities of human health and is legitimately committed to their patients’ best interests. 

CW under the cut for eating disorders, extreme fat shaming abuse by medical professionals (related to fat shaming), drug misuse mention, details of my personal experiences with all of them. Pretty triggering stuff, so please take caution when reading!! Also, this is okay to reblog. 

So, I've been reflecting on some of the experiences I've had with doctors in the past, and I've realized that a lot of them were...really fucked up. While I intend to write a blog post about these experiences to make a point about how normalized medical abuse toward fat people is, I want to share one anecdote here, because I want to be open about my own struggles and I want others to understand that this happens, all the time. 

Anyway, I'm fat. I have always been fat. Considering that my weight is related to chronic illness and other metabolic problems, chances are that I will always be fat. I know this. My family knows this. All of my doctors know this. None of us need your input on it. I am lucky to have found some good doctors who understand the realities of my mind and my body and are committed to keeping me as healthy as possible under the circumstances. However, it has not always been this way.

Recently, I have been coming to terms with the fact that I, at one point, met the criteria for an eating disorder, one that involved an obsession with limiting the amount of calories I was consuming daily. Undereating, not overeating. Yes, that's possible even when you're fat. I have also been coming to terms with the fact that I shared information with medical professionals that should have hinted at this, and that they ignored and even encouraged my ED BECAUSE I was fat. Either because they didn't believe what I told them, or because they thought I could stand to lose a few pounds, even if the price for that weight loss was dangerous malnutrition. I don't know which one for sure, but it doesn't matter, because the impact is the same.

Specifically, I told my doctor (or, my doctor at the time; I stopped going to him a while ago, thank God, and he's retired now) that I had been using diet apps to limit myself to no more than 1000 calories per day, and moreover, that I was using the Adderall I had been prescribed for ADHD to help me drastically limit my caloric intake. He also knew that, during this time, I was running long-distance and was just more physically active every day than most people are. In case you're unaware, 1000 calories is not nearly enough for anybody to consume per day. Let alone someone in the situation I was in at the time: a relatively large person (by which I mean my build, not necessarily my weight) who was pushing their body to physical extremes regularly while also on Adderall, a medication which is known to burn additional calories. In fact, many doctors recommend that patients on Adderall should try to eat a little bit more (or try to eat more nutritional food, at least) than they would otherwise to make up for the effects Adderall has on the body.

In other words, this information should have set off some major red flags for my doctor. At the very least, he should have told me that the patterns I had developed were problematic and unhealthy and that I should try to discontinue them, if not take steps to help me do so. Instead, I shit you not, he commended me for my demonstration of self control and actually suggested that I try to cut my calorie intake down to 800 per day until I started seeing the results I wanted to. Even at the time, this seemed wrong to me. I brought it up to some people around me, but nobody seemed particularly concerned, because after all, I was still fat. No one seemed to believe that I could be both fat and malnourished, even though I was showing some signs of serious undernourishment, such as hair falling out in clumps, grey-ish skin, some weird discoloration in the whites of my eyes etc. Scary stuff, really.

As I type this now, I cannot even believe that it happened to me, but I know that it did, and I need everyone else to know this too. I suspect that my experience is way more common than any of us would like to believe, and I want others to know it constitutes medical abuse and it is extremely dangerous. It's been hard for me, even harder than I thought it would be, to open up about this. I'm hesitating even now to post it. But I will. Because I've made a vow to myself to be open about my experiences in hopes to raise awareness and to benefit others with similar experiences.

If you've read this whole thing or even part of it, I want to thank you for sticking with me. And if you ever experience something like this yourself, or if you already have, I want you to know that you are not alone, that it is/was NOT okay at all for a medical professional to act this way, and that you are not at fault for the abusive practices of medical professionals, Finally, and very importantly, your experiences and the feelings you have about them are entirely valid, and my inbox if open if you ever find yourself wanting someone to reach out to.

Also, to anybody who reads this and may be concerned about me, I want you to know that this is in the past now, so there's no need to worry. Thank you all, and please take care of yourselves. <3

Since I already know I’m gonna get trolls in my inbox over this, I want to make clear that I’m just going to delete any hateful asks I receive without even reading past the first line. I know I’ll get these kind of asks anyway, but...I thought y’all should know you’re just wasting your time.