An eating disorder isnt " a weight"

I started writing my blog as a way to help people understand mental health from a perspective of someone with eating and personality disorders. This post is about eating disorders and that is where all my mental health problems began.

A few conversations recently made me think of it. 

When people think of eating disorders though they think of someone who is visibly anorexic or think of someone bigger as "fat". But someone with anorexia has a " voice" that tells them not to eat, that they're too fat, not good enough at any weight someone will start with that voice at a normal or even overweight weight so long before they get to looking visibly anorexic. Some people fall into a category called eating disorder not otherwise specified if they have all the thinking and behaviour of an anorexic without being the low bmi. For me bulimia came in too. I had the voice telling me I couldn't eat but then I had to give into it, sometimes it was my rational self telling me I needed food to work, look after horses, horse ride, live life etc but then the eating disorder voice would make me have to compensate by being sick then restricting and not eating the next day, times I feel I have no purpose in my life are times I let the eating disorders win as I don't feel I deserve to eat and don't have any reason to fight it.

That is why I throw myself into things like sponsored swims, choir, work I try to convince myself I'm needed somewhere even though I rarely believe it. 

Even therapy with eating disorders focuses on weight, people with anorexia are made to gain weight often without headwork to deal with the voice and self doubt that drives the eating disorder and people with other eating disorders find it hard to get help and turned away classed as not sick enough for help, I had that for many years as I was bulimic when I was begging for help as it makes you feel physically and mentally rubbish.

If you are overweight people presume you must constantly binge eat but I actually binged more when I was smaller but I was being sick after most things I ate. I'm not sick as much now as physically I feel more ill when I do it now, as I'm not suicidal at the moment it scares me which is a good thing as there were times I didn't care if I died doing it, I've got things I want to do in life before I die. It was meds and water retention made me gain alot of weight and now I can't lose it which makes me hate myself but I'm trying to tell myself I need to be healthy rather than a number on the scales.