#tw purging

[thelunarsystemwrites]

usually I'm not anonymous, but have you been okay lately lunar? You've helped others but are you helping yourself, I just wanted to check in I might be getting some old post but it's always nice to make your your okay

You don't have to share your feelings, only if you want to and if you do my DMs are always open, it won't burden me if you do so, I hope your okay.

Mentally, emotionally, and physically

Honestly? ^^ (TW: ED mention!)

Mentally and emotionally don't matter, those aren't physically and I can pretty much ignore them, or supress!

Physically? I threw up (maybe?) Blood eariler from purging, but I'm pretty okay besides thar and the exhaustion and pains! /gen

You're very very VERY thoughtful!! Just. Don't worry too much? I'll either be okay enough or die

[bunny-celeste668]

guys i’m so bad at purging tell me why i taste blood & still barely anything comes back up 😖😖😖

[tartagliatum]

Also… If you’re up to it, I’d love to know your thoughts on Cyntham 🥰 theyre such a funny pairing and have incredibly tummy potential 🤗

I LOVE CYNTHAM SO MUCH!!!! no hate to cynari but it's literally soooo much better sorry ‼️

i feel like they both probably hide any illnesses they have - cyno out of stubbornness and the fear of appearing weak and alhaitham just bc he knows he can get through it on his own, so why would he burden him? but they always find out sooner or later and scold each other for not letting them know (double standards hehe)

- alhaitham isn't big on physical contact in the first place, so when he's feeling under the weather he despises it

- cyno is the only one he allows near him, rubbing his back as he gets sick and petting his hair. after a while alhaitham is like..... wait being cared for when you're sick is pretty nice actually and becomes clingy when he's sick or tired or generally not feeling great

- he rests his head on cyno's as he hugs him from behind, gently holds onto his clothing and follows one step behind, hangs out in his office a little too long and holds his hand a little too tight. if they're at home he curls up on his lap, big and awkward and trying to get as close as possible, falling asleep as cyno rubs his stomach better

- cyno hates being ill because being seen as weak or vulnerable is a dangerous game for him, even in the akademiya where he needs to prove himself bc of his desert heritage. it takes a long time to let alhaitham in - the scribe is always pestering him for letting himself go hungry or trying to work through his sickness

- he's a great caretaker towards cyno despite his own self-neglect and disdain towards others' weaknesses. he makes cyno stay home (much to cyno's annoyance) and takes the day off work himself to look after him bc he knows he won't do it himself

- over time, cyno builds up trust and stops holding back and downplaying his symptoms, even voicing them when he needs help. he lets alhaitham into the bathroom and lets him hold back his long hair and rest a hand on his stomach when he throws up, lets him rub his tummy for hours and bring him soup and tea and medicine and read out whatever books he's reading or transcribing to him

- because he doesn't eat very much, he struggles to get sick. he dry heaves or sits by the toilet with unbearable nausea for hours, eventually forcing himself to puke no matter how unpleasant it is

- alhaitham hates this, and berates him when walks in and finds him doing this. cyno instead tries to hide it but somehow gets caught each time, and eventually gives up the bad habit when alhaitham turns to listening out every medical reasons it's terrible for both your body and your mind as he gently rubs his tender stomach, boring him to tears

- cyno's undereating is beacuse he often works through meals and doesn't have much of an appetite/hunger cues, so alhaitham also pesters him with facts about why this is unhealthy

- he brings him food during breaktimes and makes him breakfast, knowing he'll probably skip both if given the opportunity

- alhaitham is a big guy and probably eats a lot - especially with his exercise regime - so makes cyno's portions a bit too big. cyno doesn't want to disappoint him and finishes it all, often finding himself much too full and letting alahitham take his office chair so he can sit on his lap for belly rubs to soothe the ache before getting back to work - only after making sure the door is locked. he doesn't need his men to see him in such a pathetic predicament. he sometimes slips on a shirt or steals alhaitham's cloak to wrap around him, self-conscious of his full stomach

- at home, he stretches out across alhaitham's lap and pushes the book out of his way, looking for attention to his quietly grumbling tummy after a big dinner. he nuzzles into haitham's stomach, practically purring as he moves to hold his book with one hand and rubs deep side to side motions over his stomach with his other one, his hand warm and comforting and big enough to almost completely obscure his small stomach

- while cyno's tum is quiet, i hc alhaitham's stomach as v loud and rumbly:3 which cyno probably teases him about a lot. i think he also often overeats and gets sleepy after his meals, struggling to stay focused, but the noisy grumbles of digestion keep him awake

- he's a big lover of belly rubs, melting into his bf's touch and closing his eyes in bliss the minute he slips a hand over his stomach. he particularly enjoys post meal rubs, and cyno frequently finds himself rubbing deep circles into his stomach after eating, fingers pressing into tender spots to coax up gurgles and hiccups and make space in his tum, only aiding in him falling asleep even faster

- when cyno has a risky question to ask he hugs alhaitham from behind and runs his hands over his stomach as he leads up to the question, buttering him up for the answer he wants. the day alhaitham realises what he's doing (only after agreeing to cyno hosting a two month long late night tcg campaign in their home every weekend), guilty expression on cyno's face, he can't even be mad at his manipulation tactic; extra attention to his tummy is never unappreciated, no matter the price he must pay

- his sensitive stomach is no issue, as it's one of cyno's favourite parts of him. he snakes an arm around alhaitham's waist to rest his hand on his stomach, gently brushing his thumb over it when they're out. places a hand over the soft pale skin when they kiss, leans over his chair to nuzzle into his silver hair and gently rubs his stomach as he quietly tells him he's been working too late, sticks his hands up his shirt during the colder months to warm them on his middle (much to alhaitham's bemusement)

- while sensitive to touch, his stomach is very sensitive to foods too !! alhaitham sometimes finds himself in uncomfortable predicaments of foods not agreeing with his stomach, and has to hold his poor upset stomach under the table and not completely disassociate from the conversation as he holds back hiccups and wishes he was curled up in bed with cyno's comforting hands on his tummy </33

- i think his tummy gets especially noisy when he drinks and he has to hold back small burps and hiccups as it rumbles loudly, much to the amusement of his friends. while neither of them are big on pda, their tipsy clinginess surpasses their disdain for touchy feely couples in public, and alhaitham lets cyno wrap an arm around his waist and place a comforting hand on his stomach to calm down its loud protests and tight discomfort. it's not rare to see him dozing on cyno's shoulder by the end of the night, head nuzzled into his hair as cyno plays a one-handed game of tcg with their friends, his other hand softly rubbing comforting motions into his bf's stomach <33

[suicideenthusiast]

when you lowkey just made yourself throw up but you look hot in the mirror after so it's okay

[neck-thats-made-for-bruising]

It's a weird feeling when you think you're going to purge or gonna hate yourself for eating but I am so hot look at my nourished belly that's so cute I'm so pretty

[the-axolotl-skellie]

Toothless.

This... turned out darker than expected ^^"

Tw for implied CSA, bulimia, purging/vomiting, self starvation/refusing to eat, trauma, gross food, food trauma, food issues, psychological torture, obsession with control!

☽️Reblogs appreciated!☾️

The man who spoke in hands had his ways of getting want he wanted. Rather that be sexual pleasure or an unnecessary experiment. And Lune never got what they wanted, rather it be their consent or their opinion heard.

But Lune was rebellious.

So there were punishments.

The man who spoke in hands would purposefully only serve a dish he knew Lune had a negative reaction to. For whatever reason, the 'creature' would rather starve themself than consume it.

So Lune stopped being rebellious.

They gave in.

There was a time though, when the man who spoke in hands realized that a self inflicted punishment was not a punishment at all. He couldn't let Lune get their way by obeying him, and therefore getting served their regular meal.

So he decided if he gave the food, they would eat it.

...

After three days, Lune eventually gave up their protest, choking diwn the disgusting mush in order to not die of hunger.

And later that night, they ended up vomiting it up. That was one of the first times Lune had experienced vomiting.

It was freeing. Something... about not having that in them anymore, was librarianship to them. Like the man had not gotten his way. Like Lune won.

And so that day, food became another reminder of their lack of control. Lune needed food, but they didn't want it.

As years passed, and after they were taken in by Lust, it was still a thing that haunted them.

Anytime they had to sit down and eat, their mind immediately associated it with punishment, even if the food itself was fine. Anytime they had to eat it, their mind associated it with a lack of control.

Thry didn't like that, even if they didn't fully understand it.

And one time, Lust made refried beans, which, absolutely set Lune off into what could be described as a full blown meltdown. Because they didn't want that, but they didn't know why so they didn't communicate why.

So Lust was scrambling to try and calm down Lune, who eventually fled from the dinner table to the bathroom. The bathroom was a safe place, with water and privacy.

Running the bathtub wasn't an option though, they hadn't figured out how to turned it on. So that was just making their day more shitty.

Eventually they just started sobbing. Everything was bad today, everything! The food, the lack of swimming, lack of control, everything!

And then they felt sick again.

And that reminded Lune of an old trick they learned with the man.

And that they hadn't used it here, because there wasn't a reason to rebel again Lust, he was just trying to help...

But this helped too.

Lune had mildly calmed down, and crawled over to the toilet, peering inside.

Lust wasn't even in their thoughts by the time they did it. Raised two webbed skeleton fingers. The time they started purging. Amd even if they had been thinking of their current caretaker, this wasn't anything against Lust.

This was against food.

[rigormortisangel]

what kind of abuse is it called when someone forces you to eat something youre allergic to and then doesnt give you your epipen so you have to purge the food out as fast as you can to avoid an even worse reaction or possible death?

[skinnygirljournal]

Hit a new low. Unfortunately, it wasnt my weight (lol?). Just sneaked outside to pvrge in the middle of the fucken night

"Oh no, babe, I heard a noise outside our window! 😭"

"Dw it's just the fat chick pvking"

what is wrong with me

[bored0writer]

Beel with a s/o that has bulimia please! (Yeah this is a selfish ask, I am sorry!)

Hey it’s not a selfish ask I promise, Also i hope you can get the help you deserve your not alone Love ya<3 and thank you for this request obviously there will be a trigger warning for eating disorders so if anybody is uncomfortable/will get triggered by this please do click away and read something else:) hope yous are all doing okay remember there are multiple people you can talk to sure im a stranger on the internet but please if it will help feel free to message me

sorry this has took a while to come out

fluff, angst

beel

trigger warnings- purging, mention of binge eating, description of sick

You continued shoving your fingers down the back of your throat so much too the point where quite big chunks were all that were coming out you couldn't stop just before the chunks it was little bits spewing from your mouth now it was only chunks. You choked multiple times on it but that wouldn't stop you you were about to continue on again until you heard a very light knock causing you to turn the tap off and stand up. "Mc you alright you've been in there for a while now I heard gagging are you making yourself sick again?" quickly you reply, turning the tap back on washing your hands "No sorry Beel I was just using the toilet" " why are you apologising?" You knew he wasn't buying it. "Mc" "Please come out" you can hear a faint sniffle causing you to flush the toilet washing your hands yet again. Unlocking the door your met with a teary eyed shaking Beel "I wasn't making myself sick" you give him a hug "I can smell it". he grips onto you "I'm sorry".. "Beel don't apologize You done nothing wrong" you can barely hold back a tear "Please mc tell me why talk to me I'll help you" his grip the same as before maybe just a little more tighter "I love you I really love you Mc I want to help".

you lay there on Beels lap eyes shut telling him about how you had binge ate again causing you too purge him comforting you through out all of it telling you he still loves you, wiping your tears when they fell, making sure you felt loved like always "It's not your fault you know that don't you?".

[thelunarsystemwrites]

Uhh, help?-

TW: purging and blood!)

Uhm, soooo I purged, and my nose immediately started bleeding. Am I okay??

[bunny-celeste668]

my friend made me eat lunch w them so time to purge i guess…

[dorianbrightmusic]

Somewhat Quick Guidelines for How Not to be Triggering to ED-Havers

i'll do a more elaborate version of this some other time, but i have just consumed way too much youtube and i need to get some very mixed feelings out of my system

(tw for some discussion of EDs and the areas these render most sensitive)

Don't equate 'eating disorder' with 'anorexia nervosa'

The most common eating disorders are Binge-Eating Disorder and OSFED – according to Santomauro et al. (2021) and Yasmina and Keski-Rahkonen (2022), OSFED is more common than BED, so yeah. OSFED includes many, many categories in and of itself, including: subthreshold bulimia, subthreshold BED, atypical anorexia, purging disorder, and night eating syndrome. Orthorexia isn't recognised in the DSM-5-TR, but should be. I could not tell you what the most common form of OSFED is – I'd always thought it was atypical anorexia, but some studies I can find on a general population point more to purging disorder, subthreshold BN, subthreshold BED, (see Stice, Marti, & Rohde (2013), while this more recent study in a less reputable journal by Hay et al. (2023) places atypical AN as the most common OSFED. Either way, full-threshold AN is comparatively very, very rare.

Most eating disorders are not becoming emaciated + growing lanugo. If you did become emaciated and grow lanugo, then I'm proud of you for surviving your ED every day, because they are the absolute worst illnesses. However, you are also in a substantial minority. That doesn't make you any less valid—all it means is that EDs aren't necessarily traditional anorexia.

I'll get onto the main difference between atypical and non-atypical AN in a minute, but for now, let's say that even if atypical AN is horrifyingly common, most EDs aren't anorexia of any kind. Most EDs are one of the other kinds. And while good AN rep is great and rare, using 'eating disorder' to mean 'anorexia' is incredibly dismissive of the immense and debilitating of eating disordered behaviour out there. It's limited in the same way as using 'neurodivergent' to just mean 'autism + ADHD' – just as neurodivergence is much, much broader than Au/DHD (and this isn't to detract from the validity of Au/DHD folks), EDs are much, much broader than anorexia, and using 'eating disorder' as a synonym for 'thin and restrictive' is an extremely limited definition.

Moreover, many ED-havers go to immense, immense efforts to downplay their symptoms. The common refrain you'll hear in ED recovery is 'but I'm not sick enough to need help' – and the more narrow the operational definition of ED, the more people are made to feel they aren't sufficiently ill to have a real problem. EDs thrive in secrecy. They are often silent, and they are lethal. By using 'eating disorder' as a euphemism for 'anorexia', we give power to each of these illnesses by letting them remain silent, too macabre and mysterious to acknowledge.

Be specific. Do not talk about someone having 'an eating disorder'. Do not use it as a smokescreen behind which to hide nervousness. Say the exact disorder, or, if unsure, use an adjective: a restrictive eating disorder, an ED with purging, an ED with bingeing, etc.

2. 'Eating disordered' does not mean thin

This goes for all EDs, and especially for anorexia. Argh.

Bulimia is often overweight, and can be any weight. BED can be any weight. ARFID can be any weight. Pica, rumination disorder, night-eating syndrome, and orthorexia can be any weight. Moreover, a thin person with an ED may not have AN—they might have ARFID, BED, BN, or so many more.

And most importantly, most anorexics are not underweight. There exists a diagnostic distinction between AN and so-called atypical AN, wherein the sole difference is that atypical anorexics are not underweight. That's it. That's the one difference.

It's also a completely BS distinction, since ED psychopathology is as bad/worse in atypical AN, and atypical AN recovery rates are marginally worse. The two are the same illness. How thin you are does not necessarily correlate with how restrictive you are, and every use of 'anorexic' as a synonym for 'thin' is indicative of a total misunderstanding of the complexity of this disorder.

Have courage. Give me obese characters with BN and AN, normal-weight characters with BED, characters of all weights with ARFID. Please: I'm outright begging at this point.

3. Sensationalising weight makes us feel, unsurprisingly, fairly awful

Writing eating-disordered characters by focussing on their weight is an excellent way to sensationalise the illness and implant a horrible feeling in audience mouths. If I google search images for anorexia, I will see ribs and spines everywhere. If I google search images for bulimia, I will see extremely thin young women eating pizza or crouched beside toilets. If I google search images for binge-eating disorder, there's no end to the pizza.

There is no definitive size eating-disordered folks are. But the more we see EDs represented in extremes of thinness and fatness—think To the Bone or The Whale—the more we, as a society, convey the message that by not fitting a size mould, people aren't sick enough to have a problem. And that perpetuates the cycle of hiding disordered behaviours and getting thinner.

Making a show of how thin or fat certain characters are is a great way to make people with EDs feel embarrassed either by their similarity to the thin/fat people depicted ('wow, I am disgusting') or by their lack of similarity ('I was never anywhere near that thin. God, I couldn't even succeed at being a failure'). So, please don't emphasise specific emaciated or larger body parts as explicitly indicative of an eating disorder.

4. Please keep the numbers out of this

I don't have the perspective to speak from the POV of those with other disorders, but I can say this much: Anorexia is a very analytical illness—will I be small enough to fit in this space, hold this, do this? —and seeing someone else's minimum weight is an excellent way to make someone feel as if they are a failure for being less thin. This is especially problematic given that 'xxkg lady' is a headline that sells like wildfire in a world where most anorexics aren't thin. I love Hank Green and his work, but the CrashCourse video on eating disorders is an excellent example of how not to handle talking about weight: explicit height/weight numbers are mentioned for the hypothetical sick woman, emphasising the role of emaciation in the illness. It's a bit sensationalist and very triggering.

This is also one of the things Heartstopper (the comic – I haven't watched the show) does right. Though it's not perfect, Charlie's weight is never given a number, and while he's shown to be unhealthily thin, we never get an explicit close-up of any bones or the like. It's other physical symptoms, like fainting and constant coldness, that make it clear that he's seriously, seriously ill. And that took immense, immense tact. Also the fact that later on, after diagnosis, he's explicitly said to have anorexia, rather than the smokescreen of 'an ED', and that he still struggles after he starts recovery... those are all very respectful ways of writing ED-having characters. Alice Oseman, I tip my hat to you.

I'd recommend against mentioning numbers of calories in anything (guess who once scrolled through an ED blog, found out the number of calories in a normal breakfast food, and then was promptly very scared of eating such), or about mentioning explicit amounts of food. Moreover, if you're going to depict a character eating, please do it carefully.

If you want to mention any numbers when writing eating-disordered characters: mention blood pressure, temperature or rate of weight loss/gain (I don't think it's awful to say 'lost/gained this much in this much time), but keep the discourse around rate of any weight change as neutral as possible. If I say I weighed xyz kilograms at my sickest, that doesn't do justice to the illness. If I say my temperature was about 35 degrees and my blood pressure was 59/40, it does, but it's not exactly something that can be made competitive as easily.

5. Don't sensationalise amounts

See above. We don't need to know the explicit number of slices of pizza/bags of xyz/bars of abc that a character consumed during a binge, nor how little a character with a restrictive ED had for breakfast. There is an immense amount of horror that can be engendered through implication. One exception—showing that a character can remember the exact number of whatever food they consumed (so long as this isn't being done in kcal/kj) is an excellent way to show disordered eating behaviour! e.g. I generally count how many water crackers I eat in a snack and have strict (low) limits on how many I'm allowed per day. This is proof AN doesn't go away too quickly.

6. Don't sensationalise weight, generally

This goes out to every time i've seen neuroleptics bashed for having the side-effect of weight gain, but without it being then explained that there are a host of many, many other side effects, most of which are much worse than weight gain.

This goes out to every time I walked out of the ED clinic and saw the Jenny Craig ads across the road.

This goes out to every time I see losing weight promoted as a panacea for every single health condition, including those that cause weight gain.

Showing weight gain in an overly negative light or isolating it when it's one of many, many other things in a category is just tasteless. Please, don't do this.

7. Don't sensationalise kinds of food

Some binge-eaters will never touch pizza or chocolate in a binge. Some anorexics friggin' love chocolate. Don't assume a diagnosis necessarily means one will have or lack a sweet tooth.

8. Setting up ground for comparisons is... worrisome

We probably don't want to know the specifics of someone's diet, clothing size, or any of the like. When handling EDs, please don't focus on the specifics of what someone consumes or how large/small they are.

9. Don't assume EDs are character traits

BN and AN are correlated with perfectionism and harm avoidance, amongst other things, but EDs aren't personality traits. Bingeing is not sloppiness. Restriction is not vanity. Please don't assume these behaviours are indicative of what's in the soul.

10. Please don't focus on white, young, otherwise-neurotypical women

People of all ethnicities, ages, genders, and neurotypes can have eating disorders, natch. There is no single way to look or be eating-disordered.

11. Please don't assume we get better immediately

When you live with an ED, you live with a voice in the back of your head that is constantly vying to hit the self-destruct button. And it isolates you and mimics your own voice, and after a time, it becomes extremely difficult to tell it from your own thoughts. It's being taken over and possessed, semi-conscious, from the inside. It's living in a trance and being made a puppet. It is learned helplessness. It is sewn into the fabric of your thought, your speech, your values. Even before you are acutely sick, you live with it inside you. Learning to survive an ED is learning to live with it beside you—becoming less helpless to the behaviour, but no less aware of the thought for a very long time. Recovery is possible, but it's most certainly not linear, and most certainly a long, long process.

Recovery is not merely the cessation of the behaviour, or weight restoration. It's a disservice to ED-havers to say you can easily get to a point of never having ED thoughts ever again. So know that we are living with our illnesses every day, but that even so, we can move on. Grant us the grace to let us admit we won't always be well, and guide us nevertheless to believing in our own ability to recover.

[wildestdreamcatcher]

i feel like marley would struggle with an eating disorder because of the bullying she experienced and she had really bad body image issues

TW: Mentions of binge eating, purging, bulimia, starving yourself, bullying, eating disorders,

I feel like I could really see this. Marley started binge eating for almost a year straight because she didn't see food as an enemy but then she noticed that she was gaining weight because of this and people were bullying her because of the weight gain She felt really gross whenever she ate anything, she started to see food as an enemy in her life so she wouldn't eat anything and if she did she would quickly purge it because she didn't want to risk gaining weight and struggling with more bullying.

@sadlonelyyogurt @vommitgirl @blowflygrls

[neck-thats-made-for-bruising]

Things to do to help not purge:

(I know most of these things are pretty basic and heard of)

Chew gum

Snap a rubber band / hair tie on your wrist

Brush your teeth*

Go to the bathroom*

Take a shower*

Do a bloated belly massage

Text / call a friend or family member

Hangout with a household member

Listen to music

Sip water

Occupy your hands

Play an instrument

Read

Play a game on your phone

Knit/crochet or something like that

Make bracelets

Draw

Paint

Do something with clay

Learn some signs in sign language

Paint your nails / draw on your hands

Write

Practice typing

Fold laundry

Clean your room

Practice your handwriting

Organize something

Make your bed

Play a video game

Learn a new hairstyle

*I know it's hard to be in the bathroom sometimes so if that's triggering for you don't do these

I know not all of these will work for everyone but I hope you can find something that works for you, I'm proud of you

Feel free to rb with other things that work for you

[wherethefoolsgather]

Being a parent WITHIN the system

Tw for mentions of starving, p*rging, sh, and generally unhealthy behaviors

(Note: my daughter uses she/xem pronouns)

Hello, this is 💙. While we don't have any children of our own outside of the system/irl, I DO have a daughter within the system itself. As I'm now a father with a kid within our system I've come to realize a lot of things about myself.

We never planned on having kids, we still don't. We just don't feel the want to have children in our future irl. I thought that was the end of discussion after that. What I wasn't expecting to find was there to be a new headmate within our system claiming that I'm xir dad. (For context of how this happened: she ended up splitting off of me during a time I was fronting and extremely stressed out)

I wasn't ever expecting to be a dad in any form, yet here I am now. Of course, as time went on I began to realize she's the most important thing in the world to me and I wouldn't trade her for anything. She's made me realize a lot of bad habits about myself that I need to fix, if not for me but for xem at least

Xey've made me realize that if I st//ve myself or p//ge then that affects her too

Xey've made me realize that if I s/h then all those injuries that I've inflicted onto myself will be inflicted onto my own daughter as well

Xey've made me realize that if I don't take our medication then the consequences of that will be forced onto xem when xey front again

I've come to realize that as we exist within the same body, but have no headspace, I'll never be able to see her or be there for her as a father in the way I want to. But thanks to Tumblr, Twinote, Simply Plural, etc we at least have ways we can at least somewhat communicate to each other

I know this may all seem silly to some of you. "You exist within the same body, you're the same person!", which may be true. But, our system just doesn't see each other that way. We see each other as our own individual people. Xey split off of me and sees me as a father figure. I'll be damned if I'm going to let me little girl down. Maybe I didn't want to be a parent, but I am one, and I love her more than anything in this world. I may not care about myself or my self-destructive habits harming me, but I DO care about them harming xem

I have memories from when xey fronted for the first time, of xem being scared I wouldn't accept xem as my daughter. I never want her to feel that way again. I don't want her to feel like she needs to earn my love or doubt it. I want her to know I love xem more than anything in this world

I'm not entirely sure why I made this post. I think I've just had a lot on my mind lately and becoming a parent has made me come to a lot of realizations. If nothing else, I just want 🟢 to know I love her more than anyone else and I'll always be here

- 💙

[lucysweatslove]

(Tw ED related stuff under the readmore, this time talking about purging too)

(Don’t worry I’m safe/fine and didn’t engage in any disordered behavior)

So y’all know how I went on a hike yesterday and saw beautiful foresty sights?

Well idk how many calories I actually burned because fuck that, but I was out for a while, about 2.5 hours of actual moving but that involves very slow going on snowy patches. I spent maybe half an hour total with taking pics or stopping for a snack midway, some of that time getting low underneath trees to get closer to the creek (which was very active!).

Anyway, I was SUPER HUNGRY yesterday which is totally fine because 2.5 hours of activity requires fuel.

But today I’ve been having like a really hard time feeling full and satisfied, which is probably also related to hiking. Doubly annoying is that my body doesn’t want protein. Like I had a protein heavy breakfast but needed to pair it with potatoes (which, like carrots, are absolutely not a vegetable 😉) and toast because alone the idea of eggs and a vegan sausage like. I felt nauseated thinking about it.

Now I believe my body is trying to replenish its glycogen and is like “feed me carbs so I can continue to take you on hikes through knee deep snow!” which is fine but I don’t make carb heavy meals. Like they just aren’t in my repertoire of things to cook. And the few I do make that are carb heavy are also still protein heavy- like a turkey bagel sandwich is carb heavy because carbs in bagel, but I also put goat cheese (maybe with avo) and deli turkey on it and have vegetables and dip which I like with yogurt. Even my pasta is more protein heavy because I use lentil pasta (I honestly love the taste). Anyway most of the meals I know how to make and can do without much executive planning will have 25-35g protein in it.

And my body today is just not wanting it. I try, and the moment meat is being cooked, or cooked meat is being prepared, or I even smell the yogurt or milk, I literally feel so sick.

I could just eat carby things alone but something about it ALSO felt wrong- like just a bagel? Boring. Bagel with jam? Also boring. Also, snacky. I couldn’t bring myself to actually make a meal- even like, cutting up fruit I just couldn’t do. It didn’t make any sense to me. So after breakfast I finished an older protein bar I had forgotten about from last week, and then just didn’t eat.

Husband made (quite large) garlic knots tonight to use up old pizza dough. THIS smelled divine. I ate one- still hungry. Second- still hungry. Third- why tf am I still hungry? He only made 6, 3 for me and 3 for him, so I couldn’t have another one. So I was rummaging through the cabinets and remembered all the candy and treats we got on Sunday. I still had some of those, so I finished off the licorice and hello panda cookies (maybe 1-1.5 “recommended servings” left for each), have a couple pieces of fruit mochi, even have some coffee candies and a lychee gummy because they sounded super good. I was sipping water throughout too, as I do throughout the day.

But nope, still hungry. And now I’m craving something salty. Like great I satisfied my need for carbs, but my body is still hungry and is now wanting salt. So I have a couple handfuls of cashews. Keep in mind this is all spread out around 3.5 hours. It’s not all at once. I’m giving myself time to eat, to get it in my body, have my hormones adjust to the new fuel, etc.

Finally, after the cashews, I feel ACTUALLY satisfied and full. Not sick full but like, appropriate full. The full that means I won’t be hungry at an inappropriate time but I’m not over full. No more cravings. Like “move on with your life” full.

But what does my brain decide to do with this? It’s like I’m 19 or 20 again and my brain is saying “nope we can’t feel full, hunger is good, get rid of it.” (Note: I primarily exercise purged, so this little voice isn’t just like throw it up or abuse laxatives, which I also have done, but also “count up all the calories, try to estimate, and then go to the gym and burn it all off, you haven’t gone since Tuesday!”)

It’s just this small little instinctual urge which is likely coming up because stress and new scholastic endeavors and being forced to have people perceive me. Just got me in that old headspace again because of situational similarities.

Also: the fact that it was cashews that did it at the very end is killing me. Like not even after the mochi or the lychee gummy. Something with micronutrients and very very much needed salt because I DO get dizzy without it. Something traditionally considered “healthy.” THAT is what turned ED brain on. It’s literally about how full or empty I feel and how many calories I believe I’ve eaten vs burned in a day. Doesn’t matter where it’s from. Oats or chocolate or molasses or fucking carrots or nuts.

I’m just annoyed that even this far into/past recovery, my brain still goes back ten years when my body literally just feels NORMAL. Ten years into recovery and my brain is STILL triggered sometimes just by *actually feeling fully and completely satisfied.*

Anyway: I’m totally safe, not going to do anything, it was just like this little whisper of old times which I can easily tell to stfu now, but these moments are so rare I forget they exist and when they come back, it’s just a reminder that I will likely always have them trying to peak through stressful times.