How an eating disorder affects the way a person thinks

In this video, Renee Hoste, Ph.D., discusses how an eating disorder affects the way a person thinks.

The University of Michigan Comprehensive Eating Disorders Program provides individualized, compassionate, evidence-based care for patients age 8-24 with eating disorders.

We recognize that eating disorders are complicated illnesses caused by genetic, psychological and psychosocial factors, and that neither our patients nor their families are responsible for having developed an eating disorder.

Our program was designed to honor the importance of families in the recovery process, and is built on the principles of family-based treatment, also known as the Maudsley Approach, adapted for both partial hospitalization and intensive outpatient treatment settings.

We provide a safe and therapeutic environment where nutritional restoration and behavior change can occur. Our focus is to help patients, families, and others recognize their own strengths and empower them to take control of symptoms.

[skeletondaddy]

Recovery is so difficult because you want to get better and be able to live free of an ed but the thought of having normal eating habits is terrifying.

[lexislife]

Anorexia recovery for me kinda feels like killing your best friend

[theacrawford]

It’s like my eating disorder makes me feel less lonely, like there’s always someone with me when I’m hungry

[samualpalmer]

It wasn’t even about being skinny for me, I didn’t like to look at myself because I thought I looked like a skeleton and I hated how just walking up the stairs made me feel like I was going to pass but at the same time I loved it, it was like an addiction just instead of taking drugs I was not eating. Thankfully after a lot of arguments and screaming fits my mum managed to get me help and I’m not there yet but I can no longer see my bones and I am eating at least two full meals (breakfast and dinner) a day. It is possible to get better it may take some time but it’s worth the struggle

[lvejasp]

I know I need to recover. I know my eating disorder is bad. I know it’s unhealthy. But I don’t want to recover. I want to keep on restricting and never give up and no one understands

[amandamysong]

I felt like my “depressed” mental state was my true and real mental state. I felt like my eating disorder helped me cope as punishment for doing bad things and not being good enough

[adorableneurotic]

I owe Renee my life. I was her patient right around this time

[barbara-lozd]

can you actually recover? i feel like even if i kind of recovered physically, i’ll never recover mentally..

[augusta.lwells]

It’s like this feeling of everyday being a goal. The goal is to feel hungry. Be hungry. And when all of my fingers fit around my wrist I’ve won. When I look at an old photo of me and I can see a difference it’s a win. But that win is never enough. And when ppl say your skinny, it’s at first a compliment, until it stops being that way. But it doesn’t stop you from wanting that feeling of empty. And trying to take that away from you is like ripping away a security blanket. And in this case, the security blanket will break you, but that still seems to happen while you take it away. It’s like a forever scar. And it never heals quite right. The calculations through the day. And that feeling of when something isn’t going right but you don’t know why bc you don’t know what is happening to you and you just think your brain is buffering or something. And then when all of a sudden that will to live leaves the second the scale doesn’t say what you want it to, the reality sets in.

[Trashyvibes]

I went from Anorexia to bulimia and tbh bulimias much worse and harder to recover from

[joanmeena]

It's really sad and very hard to recovery from because, for example, with other drug related disorders, you gotta stop taking drugs, but you literally can't stop eating so it's just a constant battle.

[neglesaks]

Renee puts it quite well in that "the eating disorder protects itself", and it does, because together with the burden that the person carrying it around has to shoulder (which is the suffering that is the usually unseen chief cause of an eating disorder), it forms its own little "bubble" inside, which is impenetrable to our everyday logic and motivations. This is essential to understand if you wish to get the ED to go away - you cannot force it out, no matter how good your intentions are, being either a parent or friend.

[sniffles]

It was more about wanting to have control because of some stuff and it helped take my mind off stuff because i was thinking about food all the time

[daisyiskawaiic]

sometimes I wanna recover but then other times I don’t cause then I’ll feel like I literally have no one, my eating disorder is something I’ve had for the past 6 years, without it idek who I am, I feel as I am just my eating disorder

[amin]

i don’t want to get rid of it i can’t imagine life without it

[starrcommand]

A girl I Have a crush on that I have known for a long time texted me yesterday that she had an eating disorder and I was the only person she could trust she said that she had gone to councelers but it has jus gotten worse she is scared that she might die I have been watching and reading all these videos about it trying to help her

[ricebowl]

When I was 3 and 4 years into bulimia ages 16 -17, I asked my mother for help and what she told me was, "just quit"nothing else.I needed her to help me and she just ignored it and I kept going like I never brought it up to her and she didnt ask again.I also went to my highschool counselor and asked for help after he brought it up to me, that I looked thin and he directed me to a counselor outside of school, which we couldn't afford and he never brought it up again.Looking back, he had to say something cause he was a mandated reporter, but never asked me about it again and I looked up to this counselor and I felt like he let me down.It took me 7 years of bulimia to just quit one day on my own.I might have quit sooner had I had help.I also felt let down by my mother.I hope you all can get the help you need.

[maddyb]

She made so many great points I'm shocked this was made in 2012- I've suffered with anorexia for the last 3 years and it unfortunately really does become a part of you. I want to get better and be able to eat normally, but every time I try I panic because I can't fathom eating more than I do and I can't imagine who I'd be without my eating disorder. And they really do have no rationality... I have a slew of health complications because of my ED and despite them my mind still urges me not to get better. I get good grades, exercise regularly and have a lot of friends, yet I also struggle to pay attention, am in near-constant physical pain as a result of under-eating, and struggle to even enjoy my own interests.

And as a double whammy, my parents, unlike concerned parents of other children, have no concern. My mother is a dieter who displays ED behaviour and it's partially where I learned it from. I remember when I told her I didn't like my stomach when I was 7 she told me to suck it in because she didn't like hers either. And my father is a traditional over-eater (he's like a grandparent who will try to give you food even when you've eaten so much you're sick) Neither have healthy relationships with food or nutrition and therefore see nothing concerning in me.

Unfortunately, there aren't a lot to ways to prevent eating disorders. But parents, I urge you to have healthy relationships with food for your children.

[alexhart]

I've been fat and thin in my life and both times it didn't make me any happier or sadder. However when I sorted out my mental health it made a huge diffences and what's on the inside is what matters.

[i.d.c]

I just wanted to get abs and to get better in my sport but it got out of control.