what locals with a savior complex need to know — an open letter

i’m only one person out of millions who suffer from an eating disorder so this thread does not and can never encompass the complexity of having this illness

i can’t tell you what an eating disorder is completely because it’s different for each and every person,, they experience thoughts and manifest symptoms differently

just because someone has anorexia doesn’t mean they don’t eat just because someone threw up doesn’t mean they have bulimia,, you can’t put it in a box there are literal diagnoses and criteria for these things

i can, however, tell you what it’s not

an eating disorder is not skipping a meal once because you weren’t hungry

an eating disorder is not throwing up by accident because u ate too much

an eating disorder isn’t fasting for 16 hours and then just eating when the time is up

AN EATING DISORDER IS NOT A DIET AND GOING ON A DIET DOESN’T MEAN YOU HAVE AN EATING DISORDER

disordered eating definitely is a thing that is very common which most people experience but that is also not an full-blown eating disorder

this isn’t something you can just quit because you’ve lost a couple of pounds,,, sure some people recover that quickly but the majority stays sick

did you know it takes an average of seven years to recover from an eating disorder? SEVEN FUCKING YEARS

and this isn’t something you develop by searching up diets online,, it’s possible but if the mindset was already there then being exposed to this kind of content is merely a trigger for the habits to start

stop harassing ppl, especially minors, on this app and telling them to recover and eat when they’re not ready

recovery is about the mindset change literally changing how you perceive food and your body and seeing the point of not killing yourself through starvation so do you think a random person yelling at me through the internet will help me do that?¿

what you’re doing is causing more harm than good because comorbidity is a thing,, you’re literally triggering people to just continue on with this disorder instead of helping them

so pls pls pls stop interacting with communities that you’re not a part of, communities you know nothing about and communities that you are most definitely not welcome in

you are the personification of “just eat a cheeseburger and you’ll be fine” and i’m sorry to tell you, it’s not that easy