I almost died from it as well. But I almost died after I started eating normally again after starving myself for months . I had swelling in my brain and became very mentally ill and it took a while for doctors to realize it was “refeeding syndrome”
It’s without a doubt the most deadly mental health disorder. It has a mortality rate of 10%. 1 in 10 people with anorexia nervosa will die of it. It’s an insane mortality rate.
This is also me. Weight restoration meant DOUBLING my body weight. The size I am and the number on the scales would have sent my shadow self spiralling, but I’m happy and my relationships with food and my body is pretty good.
Same. My eating disorder almost killed me at 17. I was in denial until I started experiencing severe heart palpitations and getting dizzy. Spent 3 months in an inpatient program at the hospital. My care team kept reiterating that I could have had a heart attack at any moment. I worry what long term health problems I may have in the future. I find my bones still ache, all these years later.
I have sinus tachycardia and suspect that it’s related to having an ED for so long, plus stimulant usage and crazy amounts of black coffee in my early teens. I still remember my shoulders hurting when I was really starving though.
That's not nobody. Also, have you never heard of Thinspiration? It was a huge thing on Tumblr not that long ago, maybe still is, I'm not there anymore but I can guarantee it's still a thing outside Tumblr.
And its far worse cousin, Bonespo. When thinspo is no longer enough, you graduate to bonespo. I rediscovered some bonespo and thinspo I had saved when I struggled with an eating disorder, and holy shit I did not realise it was that bad.
Jeezy Chreezy. I don't even know what to say. That's so sad. Like I'm still going through my own stuff. I didn't know or predict it could get worse. I guess I'm not surprised but yikes.
The last time I relapsed, I wasn't even eating every day, so losing weight frighteningly fast. As I was tipping into underweight, I started getting CONSTANT compliments on my weight loss. From people who knew me too, so knew what I looked like healthy.
Same here. I was around 14. According to the doctors my kidneys could've failed if I'd gone on much longer without treatment, I'd never noticed any pain in them or anything weird going on.
Same here! I hope you are doing great nowadays! I almost lost my teeth (turned completely black due to bacterial overgrowth even with proper care) and now i have longlasting gastrointestinal damage due to it. It really sucks.
Same, at age 14. Don’t think I’ve ever felt worse in my life. It was a hell of a thing to nearly starve to death barely in my teens… It was incredibly traumatizing to me to be that sick.
Twins!
Congratulations on cracking that 25% mortality rate. I hope you’re well, recovered and happy - because fuck we deserve this after battling that very specific (and never fully defeated) demon
same. i once went six days without a bite of food at the height of my eating disorder, and i could literally feel myself starting to die. my heart wasn't beating normally and i could barely move because i was so weak.
may i ask what was the food you finally ate was? I'm always morbidly curious what the food is that people suffering anorexia finally break down for. Especially when you are that severe
i didn't "break down" for anything as such, because hunger/craving goes away after a while. i tried to eat some baby carrots but accidentally gave myself refeeding syndrome and threw them back up 🥲 this was about 15 years ago and i'm doing much better now, have been eating normally for many years.
Like the other commenter mentioned, it is not "breaking down" due to hunger as it goes away, it's more "fuck I'm going to pass out just standing up and I need to do things and nobody can know I'm this pathetic".
So you either go for the smallest "high-cal" (i.e. 100-300 cal) snack or smoothie as a booster (because you physically cannot eat much anymore), or you snack on the lowest cal thing you can find to breadcrumb your body into not shutting down (like tomatoes, 9 cal each, eat a wedge or two per hour).
Recovery is an every day thing. It's not a diet that ends and goes back to normal, that breaks on a pint of ice cream and doesn't return.
A lot of people also think anorexics don't eat at all. Everyone has it different, but a lot of anorexics do eat. I could make it look like I was eating a lot. I could have what looked like a normal day of eating and my parents would think "oh, she's eating well", but it's calorie control, and I would still rapidly be losing weight. There's also a compulsive exercise component in some. On ED units, they often stop patients from even standing up, because it burns more calories than sitting down.
People with anorexia can also binge sometimes, so even if that supposed 'control' is lost to biological hunger in extreme times, it is not the same as ending a diet. Our lives revolve around food. We are always thinking about food. We often love food, obsess about it. But we are just obsessed with losing weight too, we can't stop, we can't see it, we just want to get lower and lower. It is a severe psychiatric disorder with a high mortality rate. At its worse points it has psychotic features with delusions. It is awful.
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u/frogs_on_drugs 12h ago
Almost died from anorexia at 19. I was extremely sick, both mentally and physically.