My eating disorder is still a big part of my life. I don’t think about it as often as I used to, but it’s still a major factor in multiple aspects of my life. I’m so grateful that I’m on medication that does help make things easier to manage at times, but it’s not a cure. But I do still have to do a lot of work on my own and it’s not easy. I struggle most days at least for a part of the day and there are days where I struggle the entire day. I often wish that this wasn’t how my life had to be, but it is the way it is and I can’t change it about myself. I feel very certain that I was genetically disposed to have an eating disorder and all I can do is work on managing it and trying to get into recovery.
I’m very open about having an eating disorder (possibly too open at times), but I find that being open is helpful to me. I don’t have to hide something about myself and when I try to explain things that my eating disorder affects it’s much easier than just speaking around it. One thing that is easier to explain is why I look the way I do when I workout 4 days a week.
If I didn’t have an eating disorder, I’m sure that I would look amazing. I don’t know if I’d be as thin and muscular as I’d like to be, but I would be in normal sized clothing and nobody would question me if I worked out or have other people in my workout class who don’t know me treat me like it was my first class ever and come congratulate me on starting to work on my health. I know that I’m much stronger than I look and I’m probably in better cardiovascular health than people who are naturally thin and don’t work out, I just don’t look like that.
And I’ve had people question me about if I really work out or if my workouts are worth it lately. Whenever I go to the doctor they do the intake questions which includes if I work out. I always say I do 4 days a week at Orangetheory and the person doing my intake usually looks shocked and tells me they are proud of me. I hate being talked down to like that, but it’s not worth me saying anything back. They don’t know me and I don’t need to explain myself because it will just happen again the next time.
But more recently I had someone who I know well ask me if my workouts were worth it because I look like I had gained weight (I haven’t, but maybe I look like I have?). They didn’t question if I was working out, but they questioned if I was wasting my time and money on something that they felt was not worth it for me.
I was speechless when that happened and I could only mumble that it’s hard to show progress when I still am battling my eating disorder and quickly changed the subject. I really couldn’t think of anything to say or a good comeback and just wanted to move past that discussion. I knew that if I had to hear them dismiss my workouts or effort any longer that I would probably start crying and I didn’t want to deal with it.
But the more I think about it, the more that conversation angers me. Beyond it just being rude, it’s disrespectful and if I was in a worse mental state it could be harmful to me. If I wasn’t feeling so good about my workouts, maybe hearing from someone else that I am wasting my time would make me stop working out because it isn’t making me lose weight right now. I might have a binge episode because I felt like all my work wasn’t worth it. Fortunately, I didn’t have either of those reactions and I almost used it as motivation to just keep trucking along.
I know that binge eating disorder isn’t as well understood as other eating disorders, but that doesn’t give anyone who knows I have an eating disorder an excuse to downplay the seriousness of it. Imagine if I was someone with anorexia and was trying to get into recovery but was still very thin and unhealthy looking. And if the person who talked to me said that clearly I was still sick looking so working on eating food is a waste of my time and effort. I don’t think anyone would ever say that to someone battling anorexia, but binge eating disorder isn’t taken as seriously by many people. They see it as a lack of self-control, lack of willpower, or just being lazy. And that’s not the case at all.
I think if this was all about willpower that I would probably have already gotten into recovery and this wouldn’t be anything I would need to worry about. But there are so many factors that make this so tough to get over and it’s not just eating less and eating healthier. Whenever I have a binge episode, it’s not something I want to do. And I always regret it immediately. Sometimes that regret happens in the middle of an episode so I can stop myself, but sometimes it’s not until it’s over and it’s too late to make it less severe.
I know that I can’t expect others to change how they treat me and that when people treat me and my eating disorder with this lack of respect that it has nothing to do with me and everything to do with them. But it does still hurt because I work so hard every day to get into recovery. I hate having my efforts being dismissed like this and I have to remind myself that they don’t know my life or my situation. I’m just grateful that I am surrounded by so many people who treat me the way I should be treated and they have helped me realize that I am working hard. They show me that they are proud of me and I use that when I am feeling down. I’m lucky that most of the people in my life are people who work to help me and it’s only a few people who seem to want to bring me down.
You Might Also Like
Dealing With Hormones (or Trying To Work With My Eating Disorder)
More Eating Disorder Research (or Reading About HDE)
Another Thing I’m Learning In Isolation (or Eating Disorder Issues)
What Will Be Sobriety (or A Friend Making Me Think About What I Want)
National Eating Disorder Awareness Week (or Not Talking About It Is Part Of The Problem)
Binge Eating In The Media (or More Help Might Be On The Way)
