Thread by @AlexaRWhite, alright I want to talk about how out and out traumatizing eating [...]

alright I want to talk about how out and out traumatizing eating disorder recovery can be when you have chronic illness. paging #NEISVoid

tw restriction, ableism, food, trauma, emotional abuse, etc

I started feeling that mental discomfort you get before you start spiralling a few months ago, when I had to unfollow 90% of the recovery accounts that kept me eating when they all universally claimed:

biohacking is eating disorders rebranded to appeal to men

as someone who keeps a running list of food and esoteric trace nutrient compounds to manage my own illness, all under the umbrella of biohacking, I was upset

I didn't realize how upset I was till today, over six months later

backtrack: I hit a plateau in recovering last year so I doubled down on anti-diet content

it said that most diet and exercise advice was false, and you can give yourself food sensitivities by dieting, so the goal is to eat everything

within 1 month of following that advice, I was bedridden from pain. pain that didn't stop for ten months, and I still feel echoes of it because my body doesn't trust me to listen to warning signs so it jumps straight to the most extreme

a few months after that bedridden episode, I discovered atypical anaphylaxis, started following the low histamine diet, and my quality of life skyrocketed

I had to biohack to improve, and biohacking freed up mental space taken up by fear

backtrack further: when I started recovering, everyone and everything said fear of food was irrational. fear of eating six times a day was irrational. irrational irrational irrational. eat small meals, eat many times in a day, meal plan, just be disciplined

it's your illness' fault, they said. you're afraid of food for no reason, they said. eventually you'll hit a point where everything will be better, they said. sickness when you start eating more is normal but it'll go away eventually, they said

nobody had a backup plan if any of those statements ended up *false*

nobody had a backup plan if the distorted eating came from undiagnosed illness

in eight years of being in the recovery space, I've only seen a post mention allergies as valid two, maybe three times. in years

meanwhile, books have whole chapters dedicated to telling you that food sensitivities aren't real most of the time and you *should* eat everything

I get that mentioning allergies and introducing the concept of restriction can be triggering to folks with distorted eating

but the eating disorder recovery space has crossed the line so far into harm-creating that it needs to learn to hold this space

restrictions in diet aren't the problem. using restriction to self harm is the problem. and we need to be willing to have conversations around necessary vs unnecessary kinds of restrictions that are more flexible to people w/chronic conditions, especially undiagnosed

my food restrictions came about because it was literally *less* painful to not eat than to keep engaging with food, and I'm just now coming to the need-to-scream-in-anger portion of coming out of what is, essentially, 8 years of gaslighting

yes, it's normal to be sick and anxious and have fever sweats and acne and your body generally feeling very, very odd in early recovery

it should stop feeling that way within a few months

if it doesn't, chances are there's something else wrong

what I would've given for somebody to have sat down early recovery me and given me a chart that explained what food is supposed to make you feel at various stages of recovery, and how certain symptoms can be a sign of recovery or, say, allergies

(lol I know this would require widespread acceptance of debated conditions like MCAS, fybro, and various other helped-by-diet conditions, but I can dream)

this isn't even counting how food makes you feel things more intensely, which can be super dangerous if you have an intense trauma background, and very few people acknowledge that

because on top of just numbing: general, there's all the food trauma. from being called too picky or a hypochondriac or lying or all sorts of things when you express food HURTS

because nobody expects food to hurt

in case you need to hear it like I do:

your food fears aren't invalid
it's okay to be scared of eating, especially if you haven't figured out what foods produce what problems
it's okay if you have to restrict for your health

I don't know when I'll stop screaming. I don't know when I'll stop crying. because while these 8 years have produced some good results, they've also been traumatizing as fuck, and I can't go back to the communities that encouraged me to eat because they tell me I'm doing it wrong

I just. want. space. I just want a community that acknowledges the nuance and problems when too many restrictions trigger you, but not enough sends you into a flare. about how long refeeding symptoms should last. about what atypical anaphylaxis is

because I'm so tired of the gaslighting that says you're wrong for not wanting to eat that thing based off arbitrary rules, because sometimes those arbitrary rules come from getting sick if you don't follow them, and that sickness is NOT in your head from stress

because yeah, when you have a restrictive eating disorder, sometimes you do get sick from the stress of eating a "bad food"

other times, the fear of the food comes from you reacting poorly to it in the past, and the only way to stop eating it was make it part of a diet

restricting has saved my life. period, point blank. sometimes it meant I didn't eat enough, but that was from my environment and people responsible for grocery shopping not listening to me, so my only choice *was* to restrict

sometimes the restriction looks like planning my meals around a few dozen ingredients that make it I still get enough calories but from a very limited food pallet

either way, the restriction has kept me from flaring so badly that I lose all quality of life, and as a result, restriction is necessary

and I just cannot keep engaging with spaces that tell me it's not

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