Hi everyone! First of all, this is my first post, so I'm not really sure how to put this. I was diagnosed with anorexia this year, and have suffered similar episodes in the past. This relapse was by far the worst, and I am now trying to recover.
As soon as I started to increase my meal plan with my dietitians recommendations, I started experiencing extreme hunger. I try to honor the hunger and eat more, but when I do this, a voice in my head tells me that because I am "giving in" to extreme hunger, I can't really have an ED, and that the diagnosis must be false. I am not sure if this makes sense...
Does anyone else feel this way? Of course, I KNOW that starting recovery doesn't mean I was never sick, but I feel like I'm "giving in" to this hunger too easily. I'm just looking for support or anyone else who has experienced similar feelings...
I was there about 9 months ago. I was forced into recovery in a way, but there was no one holding me accountable. Despite that I ate a lot of food during extreme hunger with little compensation, so I gained all the weight back and then some. I felt like and still do sometimes, “maybe I wasn’t really anorexic, I was just exaggerating” because I wasn’t thin enough, I binged and purged during my anorexia instead of restriction and exercise. And I had people tell me I was definitely dealing with an eating disorder, but I never got a professional diagnosis, so I continued to doubt myself. Af the end of the day, I know you have heard it 1000 times before, the severity has nothing to do with anything physical, if it causes you stress or pain or whatever, it deserves to be healed. I spent months trying to go back to the original behaviors, but I never could maintain it, and I hated myself because if it was so effortless to eat again, then I never was sick. Over time, this feeling has faded for me, mostly because it’s just useless to keep ruminating and it stresses me out. The best things I can recommend is literally just validating yourself. I would’ve thought that is SO STUPID, but you hear something enough like “you are sick enough and you deserve help” you eventually start to listen. Now, 8 months later, I’m starting to return to a normal life with regular eating and normal people things like college and jobs. So I guess it does get better :)
Thank you for your wonderfully kind response :) it makes me feel a lot better knowing that someone else has gone through something similar and that it does get better... I really appreciate your reply and resonate with what you've said. thank you :)