Inspirational comments from people in recovery.

I'm now 9 months in, and the unthinkable has happened. I no longer care what my weight is. It is the weight my body needs to be healthy and give me an awesome life. That's all I need to know.

Your ED played an important role in helping you feel safe, and for that you can lovingly and respectfully tell it thank you and good bye, and the edema is body language for sit down, eat more, let me rest, let me sleep, help me cry, help me feel, feed me, feed me, feed me.

We are so afraid to gain weight because what are we going to say to those who notice? It is so embarrassing. What excuse shall we make? No! That is so twisted! We don't have to come up with an excuse for the weight gain because there is nothing wrong with it. We should say the opposite: I was ill before. That is it. We got it all wrong because we are sick in our minds. No reasonable person supports starvation.

Every time you are unsure if you should allow yourself to eat or rest say: All food I crave is good for me now. I need this. If I crave amounts bigger than normal it is because I have not given it enough in the past. I can eat what ever and how much I want any time. I want to serve my body and it doesn't have to "deserve" food or rest by doing exercise to get what it needs. 

"I looked at my life, and I realized through obsessing over my body I was selecting the easy path. I was choosing to focus on externality, and ignoring the larger picture. I was choosing the ego path," she wrote. "Because the fact is, life is way too short to be focused on the exterior. Time spent worrying about your size is time wasted. There are far bigger fish to fry in the world than your thigh size. There are so many better uses for your brain."

When you look in the mirror just look for the positive because you are loveable just the way you are. We look at ourselves with a critical eye when we fear others look at us that way, but if someone close to us do that it is their attitude that is wrong, not our imperfections.

Holy anorexia

If I say I have been fighting against and tried to ignore my body because I don't want it to matter as much as many people think it does and I want to be seen behind the body, do anyone recognize themselves? It backfired though; To try to ignore and fight my physical body just made me more aware of it. I have been sick of my parents who can not see longer than the material aspects of things. Who never cared about me, just bodies and other things. Anorexia is like a hunger strike against the massive focus on bodies instead of souls, not sure how to live, survive in such a world so being half a ghost is preferable. Looking forward to a heavenly world where one does not have to eat, does not have to feel pain, will not be seen as a body, but where every thought and feeling is exposed like an open book. Transparency finally!

Holy anorexia is to have too high expectations. Expectations that can not be lived out at earth, just in heaven. I wanted to be selfless, serve others day and night on no food, no drink, no rest. I beat myself up all the time for not being able to fulfill those expectations. Angry that my body hindered me. Needed something all the time. Distracting me. It is hard to accept that we need to spend so much time on taking care of a physical body, a garment and tool for communication at earth only. A body well nourished is also distractingly sexual. Sexuality is also such a huge and difficult topic when one is a perfectionist who also doesn't want to let God down. 

I feel very alone with these thoughts as if I am the only one who has them. I looked up to saints who only ate communion bread. When I recently checked if they were anorexic I found that they were. Of course they were. They were not so holy the physical laws no longer applied to them as I thought. I thought I could be like them and become so holy the physical laws no longer ruled over me. They died of starvation. What a wake up call that was for me to read. Lower your expectations! God wants us to be realistic and spiritual. Spiritual, not only alone, but in the horrible world where people lie, murder and steal too. A difficult task indeed. To see the good only. To believe in the good in people no matter what they express so the good can come out. Be good to attract the good in them. 

So much easier to hunger strike against what I don't like than to be what I would like to see in the world myself. Try to focus! There is so many distractions as there is people in this world. Find your path.  God will guide you. What questions is important for you to find the answer to? What experiences is most important for you to experience?