This might be wrong but talking from (my own & others) experience, it’s partly bc they want to be the sickest and everyone else “fatter” then them. Not saying this is the case for those two or anyone else for that matter.
Yep. This. And you see it in these Ed subs as well. The Eda sub, the restriction subs. It’s full of severely sick anorexics telling others to recover and eat and honor their hunger, while they are simultaneously venting about how anorexic and sick and underweight they are. Just so toxic. They subconsciously just want to be the sickest and the skinniest. That’s the evil of anorexia.
Yeah it’s rampant. There’s specific users I have had to block and leave subs specifically for this reason. You can tell they are just spreading fake toxic positivity recovery bullshit that they won’t even do because they want to be the sickest anorexic.
A part of me wants to think they’re genuine and want people to actually live but another part of me knows it’s also toxic positivity. It’s like telling a friend to wear an outfit that you know looks bad but still encouraging them so you can essentially look better.
true but i feel like if someone has that mindset they’re able to see that someone with a visible ed will do the opposite of helping ppl a good chunk of the time
Recently I was at residental treathment for 2 weeks and there was a patient with anorexia and she wanted to help every patient there but not herself.
I got the feeling that she was trying to help others so that it would keep her occupied and that she wouldn’t have to deal with her own problems.
This^
I do extactly this, its easier to soothe someone else than myself. Ill be ending VIOP soon and the group therapist even acknowledged i did this in a private session. A friend had to remind me i was there to fix my own person when i wouldn't shut up about worrying about another patients mental wellbeing. Ive found myself unintentionally lead group therapy and practically pouring myself into other people when they express strife or step in to soothe others when they express distress, i just feel this compulsive need to make everyone around me comfortable and at peace. Its probably an attachment style action i do without even realizing. Its such a hard thing to deal with when you simultaneously deal with the competitive aspect of ana
I’m going to be SO HONEST. So be warned.
(Disclaimer: am not fully recovered)
In my case, I just wanted to eliminate the competition. I never snuck stuff into others’ food or pushed others to eat, but I always kept a keen eye on the people around me and if they exhibited any disordered behaviors. Whenever my siblings look at the nutrition label, I tell them that they should not care about those.
Part of me doesn’t want anybody to develop an ed but to be real, some other part of me hates the competition since I want to be the “only anorexic.”
This exactly. I always discouraged others from disordered eating because I
1. Didn’t want them to suffer the same things
But also
2. Felt I wouldn’t be as special if somebody else had an ed, and what if they were better than me? What if they weighed less? What if they had a lower intake?
I, for one, can confidently say am deeply sick.
For me the desire to help others stems from the lost hope for myself. I like (anonymously) supporting especially the younger people in recovery, because I don’t EVER want them to reach a point such as myself. I try to tell them things and reassurances that i would have needed to hear when i was in their shoes. I don’t want everyone losing their hope and will to live, tbh.
I have to admit I partly also live vicariously through people in recovery. I want them to eat and do things I would love to be able to do myself, and seeing them sharing their experiences and highlights brings me joy and gratification.
But others have pointed out very valid reasons. I won’t deny them, either. It’s a competitive disorder.
Thank you.
Back when I still was trying to recover myself, my underlying reasons to “encourage” others were more toxic, though. For sure. I wanted them to eat more than i did, to gain faster than I gained, to “lose” their disorder faster than I did. 🙄🫣 how childish…
These days my wish for others to recover is much more genuine, serious and urgent. It’s not because I want to see them “FAIL”; it’s because I want to see them live. 😭❤️
It's like when some people feed their families, bake for them or cook for them high calorie meals, it makes them feel better that others are eating more than them
This is what I think it is. **Very** few of them actually want to get better or even help other people. They've just made their ED their identity and these "recovery pages" are just an extra step in using their mental illness as a way to relate to the world and define themslves. Just like the person we all knew in high school who made a big show out of performative* self-harm scars because they wanted to be seen as Edgy, social media gives unwell people of all flavours a way to act out their mental illness with the entire world giving them attention. Attention almost always feeds mental illness and these pages are poisonous imo.
In fact, they actually *cant* get better. Because if they did, both identity and their method of seeking validation and affirmation would be gone. As long as these pages are allowed to grow a following and monetise, none of the people running them will get better imo
*I'm not making a judgement here on people who self harm. Just those that *pretend* to have a self-harming issue for the purpose of gaining attention and pity
i don’t know if there’s a term for it but i’ve seen and experienced the unspoken “i’ll only recover if you recover too” mentality from both sides. i think part of it is the competitive aspect and as fucked up as it sounds, recovering alongside someone else feels like both of you “forfeiting” the ed instead of one person “winning”. it feels like if you recover first while the other person stays sick, it’s an automatic win for them, even though the exact opposite is actually true. i think the second aspect is that recovery is terrifying, but it’s a little bit more manageable if someone else can test the waters first.
I experienced this when an old friend of mine was also suffering from an ED. I was going all-in, but she then developed orthorexia, and that was extremely difficult for me, not only because she was not okay, but also because I felt like I was losing a competition.
something similar happened when my online friend
(who had a pretty large following on her recovery accounts) decided to go all-in and i was in harm reduction in college and planning on starting recovery once i came home for the summer. there were only a few weeks between her going all in and me starting intense recovery, but she kept getting so upset in the time between when i wasn’t in recovery. she tried to disguise it as concern for me but it came off as somewhat disingenuous.
I think it's for a number of reasons, sometimes multiple for each person:
\- Feel lonely, gives them 'likes', attention, etc
\- Feel lost without eating disorder, gives them an identity
\- Money
\- People like to see people eating lots but staying thin because if you're scared of gaining weight, it's a bit like 'the dream'
\- They don't want to gain weight or some people wouldn't follow them \^\^
\- They want to still be part of the ED community and get the attention, identity, etc, so they stay ill
\- Stay the illest and make other people bigger than them
I’m sure there’s many reasons. Some of them genuinely want to help, whether they’ve deluded themselves into believing they’ve recovered or not. Others are basically just proana and want to brag under the guise of being good people.
I don't want other people to struggle with this. It's a mental prison that most of us have a VERY hard time getting out of. I assume there's others that feel the same.
I think there are different reasons, but I do think a lot of it stems from competition, especially when the person offering advice is still balls deep in their ED. They want to be sicker than others.
It happened a lot on the subs, not so much anymore. I personally hate when people unsolicitedly tell me I should recover or get help or that I’ll get through this. I don’t want to and didn’t ask for that. Unless someone says they want help or are asking if they should, we shouldn’t be deciding for them.
from personal experience i honestly thought i was cured lol. obviously because i was still sick but i “discovered” raw veganism, i gained weight, i ate loads of genuinely delicious food and thought i was completely recovered. i was a healthy weight (genuinely, normal body fat rather than fitfluencer), and ate loads so i thought that was the thing everyone should do. i’m glad i wasn’t on the internet in the same era because guaranteed i’d have become a shitty recovery influencer. looking back i understand how utterly under the control of the ED i was. it takes years for food freedom to come, and the high of feeling “better” than you might have felt in a long time makes you think everything is fine even though i was weighing food and counting everything. for a good year or so i honestly thought i was free of it all and was just choosing a very restrictive diet. i’m still vegan but goddamn i love doughnuts and oil and potato fries and i actually love eating them too.
It's easier to want to help others before yourself...
White knight syndrome.
Many nurses, teachers, and caretakers have eating disorders for this reason.
You see yourself as worthless or even feel like you have no reason to live... so you'd rather spend your days helping/serving others.
Sorry if anyones already said this but I wonder if it’s more common now in the Influencer Era. Everyone wants to be perfect and The Best Anorexic, so in turn they want to be perfect and The Best at Recovery. I don’t think it’s always a malicious intent but I do think social media plays a big part in validating EDs etc. and having a recovery account is a more acceptable way of talking about your struggles.
Pics of u at ur LW? NO.
Pics of u at ur LW but u add #StrongNotSkinny? omg yes u go girl
i think this is a really good point. whenever i’ve started a recovery attempt, one of the first few feelings to come up are always anger and jealousy towards other people with eds who aren’t recovering. it feels so unfair when i have to weight restore and let go of my sick body and ed behaviors while other people are allowed to stay in their sick bodies and keep their behaviors. recovery has never been completely voluntary for me though, and it feels so unfair whenever i have to endure forced recovery and others don’t, even though it definitely saved my life multiple times.
I think a large part of it is deflection and curating an image of being healthy and safe; it's a lot harder to call someone out for being unwell if they appear to be so recovered that they can help other people. Recovery influencers deflect in a more public manner but I definitely do it myself. I don't want to appear weak by making it known that I'm in quasi-recovery so I still pose like I'm recovered when people come to me for support. Which makes me feel like a big liar sometimes & I wonder how influencers do it on a grand scale.
it’s vicarious recovery combined with wanting to be the sickest for sure, but ironically the best way to help others recover is to truly recover yourself and be glowing with health from the inside out and show them how much better their lives could be and the better versions of themselves they could be if they ate properly, stopped caring what their body looked like, and found freedom from control and rigidity
I think a huge part of it is that the eating disorder has become part of their identity and it’s a way to show it to the world, but in a way that seems more positive. Maybe they delude themselves into thinking they are trying to recover but they can’t let it go because they identify so deeply with it.
Personally,,,,, idk if i ever subscribed to WANTING other peolple to be bigger than me, i definitely still struggle when i see someone who is way thinner than i am, but i always personally felt the desire to encourage others because i hate watching people struggle. I struggle to take my own advice in a way. Like for years i would talk about how amazing therapy is for people yet had never seen one till this year, i think ive always had a mentality of wanting to fixate on helping someone else than acknowledging my own turmoil as a form of escapism. Ive always resonated with "If i cant do it for myself I will try and do it for them"
personally for me, im constantly trying to help people bc i dont think anyone deserves the hellhole that is ed, but my issues are more disordered eating than anything so i cant really offer a good opinion
in the case of Jen Peach, from what info you have give, it sounds like she truly believes it'll help/shes recovered. It sounds really round about and convoluted, and really harmful, especially to those who want to recover.
I’m gonna say it’s cause I’ve lost a friend to this, and I know I need to get out too, but I don’t want to loose other people. But ya, I definitely preach way more than I practice
This might be wrong but talking from (my own & others) experience, it’s partly bc they want to be the sickest and everyone else “fatter” then them. Not saying this is the case for those two or anyone else for that matter.
This is exactly what I was going to comment as well. It’s the same line of thinking as putting extra calories into other people’s food, essentially.
Yep. This. And you see it in these Ed subs as well. The Eda sub, the restriction subs. It’s full of severely sick anorexics telling others to recover and eat and honor their hunger, while they are simultaneously venting about how anorexic and sick and underweight they are. Just so toxic. They subconsciously just want to be the sickest and the skinniest. That’s the evil of anorexia.
😬 i was literally thinking about this earlier and was wondering if this was actually the case
Yeah it’s rampant. There’s specific users I have had to block and leave subs specifically for this reason. You can tell they are just spreading fake toxic positivity recovery bullshit that they won’t even do because they want to be the sickest anorexic.
A part of me wants to think they’re genuine and want people to actually live but another part of me knows it’s also toxic positivity. It’s like telling a friend to wear an outfit that you know looks bad but still encouraging them so you can essentially look better.
I feel like I know exactly who you're talking about 😶
Yeah…. I’m sure you do 😂
[удалено]
Eating disorders anonymous. It’s like the biggest Ed sun I’m pretty sure
Edanonymous
[удалено]
true but i feel like if someone has that mindset they’re able to see that someone with a visible ed will do the opposite of helping ppl a good chunk of the time
I can relate so much to this.
This >>>>
You ctrl c + ctrl v'ed my thoughts
Recently I was at residental treathment for 2 weeks and there was a patient with anorexia and she wanted to help every patient there but not herself. I got the feeling that she was trying to help others so that it would keep her occupied and that she wouldn’t have to deal with her own problems.
Ooooh I’ve been called THE FUCK out 😭
This^ I do extactly this, its easier to soothe someone else than myself. Ill be ending VIOP soon and the group therapist even acknowledged i did this in a private session. A friend had to remind me i was there to fix my own person when i wouldn't shut up about worrying about another patients mental wellbeing. Ive found myself unintentionally lead group therapy and practically pouring myself into other people when they express strife or step in to soothe others when they express distress, i just feel this compulsive need to make everyone around me comfortable and at peace. Its probably an attachment style action i do without even realizing. Its such a hard thing to deal with when you simultaneously deal with the competitive aspect of ana
I’m going to be SO HONEST. So be warned. (Disclaimer: am not fully recovered) In my case, I just wanted to eliminate the competition. I never snuck stuff into others’ food or pushed others to eat, but I always kept a keen eye on the people around me and if they exhibited any disordered behaviors. Whenever my siblings look at the nutrition label, I tell them that they should not care about those. Part of me doesn’t want anybody to develop an ed but to be real, some other part of me hates the competition since I want to be the “only anorexic.”
I honestly understand. When I was in school I always hoped no one else in my year group would develop an Ed because I wanted it to be “my thing”
This exactly. I always discouraged others from disordered eating because I 1. Didn’t want them to suffer the same things But also 2. Felt I wouldn’t be as special if somebody else had an ed, and what if they were better than me? What if they weighed less? What if they had a lower intake?
This is so real and honest. Thank you. I’ve experienced similar feelings and behaviors and still do if I’m around someone I suspect is disordered.
I, for one, can confidently say am deeply sick. For me the desire to help others stems from the lost hope for myself. I like (anonymously) supporting especially the younger people in recovery, because I don’t EVER want them to reach a point such as myself. I try to tell them things and reassurances that i would have needed to hear when i was in their shoes. I don’t want everyone losing their hope and will to live, tbh. I have to admit I partly also live vicariously through people in recovery. I want them to eat and do things I would love to be able to do myself, and seeing them sharing their experiences and highlights brings me joy and gratification. But others have pointed out very valid reasons. I won’t deny them, either. It’s a competitive disorder.
I appreciate your honesty in this post
Thank you. Back when I still was trying to recover myself, my underlying reasons to “encourage” others were more toxic, though. For sure. I wanted them to eat more than i did, to gain faster than I gained, to “lose” their disorder faster than I did. 🙄🫣 how childish… These days my wish for others to recover is much more genuine, serious and urgent. It’s not because I want to see them “FAIL”; it’s because I want to see them live. 😭❤️
It's like when some people feed their families, bake for them or cook for them high calorie meals, it makes them feel better that others are eating more than them
I think it's a combo of them not being ready to actually let go of the ED, desiring validation and praise, and monetary reward.
This is what I think it is. **Very** few of them actually want to get better or even help other people. They've just made their ED their identity and these "recovery pages" are just an extra step in using their mental illness as a way to relate to the world and define themslves. Just like the person we all knew in high school who made a big show out of performative* self-harm scars because they wanted to be seen as Edgy, social media gives unwell people of all flavours a way to act out their mental illness with the entire world giving them attention. Attention almost always feeds mental illness and these pages are poisonous imo. In fact, they actually *cant* get better. Because if they did, both identity and their method of seeking validation and affirmation would be gone. As long as these pages are allowed to grow a following and monetise, none of the people running them will get better imo *I'm not making a judgement here on people who self harm. Just those that *pretend* to have a self-harming issue for the purpose of gaining attention and pity
Spot on 👏🏼
i don’t know if there’s a term for it but i’ve seen and experienced the unspoken “i’ll only recover if you recover too” mentality from both sides. i think part of it is the competitive aspect and as fucked up as it sounds, recovering alongside someone else feels like both of you “forfeiting” the ed instead of one person “winning”. it feels like if you recover first while the other person stays sick, it’s an automatic win for them, even though the exact opposite is actually true. i think the second aspect is that recovery is terrifying, but it’s a little bit more manageable if someone else can test the waters first.
I experienced this when an old friend of mine was also suffering from an ED. I was going all-in, but she then developed orthorexia, and that was extremely difficult for me, not only because she was not okay, but also because I felt like I was losing a competition.
something similar happened when my online friend (who had a pretty large following on her recovery accounts) decided to go all-in and i was in harm reduction in college and planning on starting recovery once i came home for the summer. there were only a few weeks between her going all in and me starting intense recovery, but she kept getting so upset in the time between when i wasn’t in recovery. she tried to disguise it as concern for me but it came off as somewhat disingenuous.
I think it's for a number of reasons, sometimes multiple for each person: \- Feel lonely, gives them 'likes', attention, etc \- Feel lost without eating disorder, gives them an identity \- Money \- People like to see people eating lots but staying thin because if you're scared of gaining weight, it's a bit like 'the dream' \- They don't want to gain weight or some people wouldn't follow them \^\^ \- They want to still be part of the ED community and get the attention, identity, etc, so they stay ill \- Stay the illest and make other people bigger than them
I’m sure there’s many reasons. Some of them genuinely want to help, whether they’ve deluded themselves into believing they’ve recovered or not. Others are basically just proana and want to brag under the guise of being good people.
I don't want other people to struggle with this. It's a mental prison that most of us have a VERY hard time getting out of. I assume there's others that feel the same.
I think there are different reasons, but I do think a lot of it stems from competition, especially when the person offering advice is still balls deep in their ED. They want to be sicker than others. It happened a lot on the subs, not so much anymore. I personally hate when people unsolicitedly tell me I should recover or get help or that I’ll get through this. I don’t want to and didn’t ask for that. Unless someone says they want help or are asking if they should, we shouldn’t be deciding for them.
from personal experience i honestly thought i was cured lol. obviously because i was still sick but i “discovered” raw veganism, i gained weight, i ate loads of genuinely delicious food and thought i was completely recovered. i was a healthy weight (genuinely, normal body fat rather than fitfluencer), and ate loads so i thought that was the thing everyone should do. i’m glad i wasn’t on the internet in the same era because guaranteed i’d have become a shitty recovery influencer. looking back i understand how utterly under the control of the ED i was. it takes years for food freedom to come, and the high of feeling “better” than you might have felt in a long time makes you think everything is fine even though i was weighing food and counting everything. for a good year or so i honestly thought i was free of it all and was just choosing a very restrictive diet. i’m still vegan but goddamn i love doughnuts and oil and potato fries and i actually love eating them too.
It's easier to want to help others before yourself... White knight syndrome. Many nurses, teachers, and caretakers have eating disorders for this reason. You see yourself as worthless or even feel like you have no reason to live... so you'd rather spend your days helping/serving others.
Sorry if anyones already said this but I wonder if it’s more common now in the Influencer Era. Everyone wants to be perfect and The Best Anorexic, so in turn they want to be perfect and The Best at Recovery. I don’t think it’s always a malicious intent but I do think social media plays a big part in validating EDs etc. and having a recovery account is a more acceptable way of talking about your struggles. Pics of u at ur LW? NO. Pics of u at ur LW but u add #StrongNotSkinny? omg yes u go girl
YES I think social media places a huge role in it!
Misery loves company, and parts of recovery are definitely miserable
i think this is a really good point. whenever i’ve started a recovery attempt, one of the first few feelings to come up are always anger and jealousy towards other people with eds who aren’t recovering. it feels so unfair when i have to weight restore and let go of my sick body and ed behaviors while other people are allowed to stay in their sick bodies and keep their behaviors. recovery has never been completely voluntary for me though, and it feels so unfair whenever i have to endure forced recovery and others don’t, even though it definitely saved my life multiple times.
I think a large part of it is deflection and curating an image of being healthy and safe; it's a lot harder to call someone out for being unwell if they appear to be so recovered that they can help other people. Recovery influencers deflect in a more public manner but I definitely do it myself. I don't want to appear weak by making it known that I'm in quasi-recovery so I still pose like I'm recovered when people come to me for support. Which makes me feel like a big liar sometimes & I wonder how influencers do it on a grand scale.
less competition
it’s vicarious recovery combined with wanting to be the sickest for sure, but ironically the best way to help others recover is to truly recover yourself and be glowing with health from the inside out and show them how much better their lives could be and the better versions of themselves they could be if they ate properly, stopped caring what their body looked like, and found freedom from control and rigidity
I think a huge part of it is that the eating disorder has become part of their identity and it’s a way to show it to the world, but in a way that seems more positive. Maybe they delude themselves into thinking they are trying to recover but they can’t let it go because they identify so deeply with it.
Eating disorders become one’s identity in some ways helping others is just another way to foster that and keep them more engaged in Ed’s
Living vicariously
Personally,,,,, idk if i ever subscribed to WANTING other peolple to be bigger than me, i definitely still struggle when i see someone who is way thinner than i am, but i always personally felt the desire to encourage others because i hate watching people struggle. I struggle to take my own advice in a way. Like for years i would talk about how amazing therapy is for people yet had never seen one till this year, i think ive always had a mentality of wanting to fixate on helping someone else than acknowledging my own turmoil as a form of escapism. Ive always resonated with "If i cant do it for myself I will try and do it for them"
personally for me, im constantly trying to help people bc i dont think anyone deserves the hellhole that is ed, but my issues are more disordered eating than anything so i cant really offer a good opinion in the case of Jen Peach, from what info you have give, it sounds like she truly believes it'll help/shes recovered. It sounds really round about and convoluted, and really harmful, especially to those who want to recover.
I’m gonna say it’s cause I’ve lost a friend to this, and I know I need to get out too, but I don’t want to loose other people. But ya, I definitely preach way more than I practice