I saw this interesting article today: What you say, what the anorexic hears.

While I think that this post is a great idea… I didn’t find these thoughts to be true to my experience. In my case, things were more like this:

WHAT YOU SAY: “You look so thin!”
WHAT THE ANOREXIC HEARS: “You have an eating disorder and I can tell.”

WHAT YOU SAY: “I’m glad to see you’ve put on a little weight — you were getting way too thin!”
WHAT THE ANOREXIC HEARS: “I’m so glad to see that you are okay now!” (as if gaining a couple of pounds makes you OK…)

WHAT YOU SAY: “Eat something — you make me worried when you sit there and just drink water.”
WHAT THE ANOREXIC HEARS: “I’m really frustrated with you — you are making this meal uncomfortable and I can’t sit here and pretend this is normal.”

WHAT YOU SAY: “You’re so selfish. Can’t you just snap out of this? Eating disorders are all in your mind.”
WHAT THE ANOREXIC HEARS: “You’re so selfish. You are too much for me to handle. You are making life difficult for everyone for no reason. You are FINE and I’m tired of all the treatment bullshit. Everyone has problems, and it’s time for you to suck it up and get over yours. Your life has not been harder than anyone else’s. You are only doing this for attention. You’re making it all up.”

I never felt good about being told that I was too thin… it’s not that I didn’t want to be that thin, it’s just that I didn’t want anyone to comment. I didn’t want people to think that I was sick… I didn’t want them to think anything. I wanted to be the only one conscious of the eating disorder. Being told that I was too thin was drawing too much attention to it… and to some degree, I was NOT proud of the eating disorder… I didn’t want to be the topic of conversation and I really just wanted everyone to mind their own business. I didn’t want anyone looking at my body and judging my weight.

I’ve always had a big issue with equating health and weight gain with being FINE… because obviously you wouldn’t gain a couple of pounds if you were emotionally/mentally better. To me, recovery felt like I was saying “It’s okay. Everything that happened in the past — it’s okay. I’m okay with it.” And, I’m not okay with it… I’m just not starving myself right now. There’s also the whole “I only matter when I’m sick” mentality… because when you’re sick, suddenly you get this attention, care, and concern. You worry about gaining a couple of pounds, because then it’s like you don’t merit concern anymore. You are not enough to be cared for normally… you need the illness if you want people to care.

So… not that my negative thoughts are any better than those in the other article… just different.

Tags: eating disorder, anorexic, cognitive distortion, what the anorexic hears, breaking the mirror, eating disordered thoughts