Eating Disorders Never Go Away
Recently, in my PSYC 115 (psychopathology) class, my professor dropped one of those lines that made me pause, highlight it aggressively, and think, damn, that’s a blog post waiting to happen. He said:
“When treating things like eating disorders, there isn’t really anything you can do to make it go away. Instead, what you can do is work on shifting it from being in the constant foreground of your mind to a background voice that you can tell to quiet down.”
Now, before you start spiraling, let me just say—this is not supposed to be a depressing post. If anything, it’s meant to be liberating. But hearing those words from someone who has been studying psychology longer than I’ve been alive, I had one of those oh, okay so I’m not crazy moments. Because, yeah, he’s right—this thing never fully leaves you. But that doesn’t mean you don’t get better.
I, like most girls (and let’s be real, most people), have had my fair share of “eating issues.” (Side note: Isn’t it almost funny that we downplay it so much? Like, “Oh yeah, I have a few little eating quirks” as if we’re not talking about something that literally consumes our thoughts and wrecks our physical and mental well-being? But anyway, I’ll step off my soapbox now.) Again, as is the case for most girls, these “eating issues” come in waves and look a little different with each phase of life they sprout up in.
My first struggles with eating and body image began in my sophomore year of high school when, in a time of uncertainty, where I felt largely out of control of almost everything in my life, I found one thing I had power over: food. It started small- as it always does- with a harmless interest in nutrition and the completely illogical categorization of food into two categories: good or bad. Then, it escalated. Skipping meals became routine, daily calorie limits dropped to reckless lows, and I convinced myself that lying to everyone about my weight loss was working. (Girl, no one thought you lost 30 pounds from “going on walks.”) The control felt good—until it didn’t. Until it started controlling me.
Of course, as is a recurring theme in my life, I didn’t get help because I suddenly saw the light and wanted to heal. No, I got help because my mom forced me to. And let me tell you, I hated her for it at the time. She took me out of school to see a nutritionist, brought a scale on our family vacation to make sure I wasn’t losing more weight, and sat with me while I cried over family dinners. She begged me to help myself. And, God, she was right.
At my worst, I genuinely thought, This sucks, but I guess this is just how I live now. But if you’re reading this and thinking the same thing, let me be the one to tell you—it’s not. You won’t always feel like this. That voice in your head won’t always be this loud. But I’d be lying if I told you there’s some magical point where you’re just… cured.
Healing doesn’t mean that the thoughts disappear; it means they lose their power over you. It means learning how to separate yourself from the voice that tells you your body is the problem. It means realizing that food is not the enemy, your body is not something to fix, and your worth has never—not for one second—been tied to your weight.
Some days, you’ll eat a meal without a second thought. Other days, you’ll hear that old voice creeping in, whispering outdated lies about what you should or shouldn’t eat, or how you need to look a certain way. The difference is, now you have the tools to shut it down. You can say, Yeah, I hear you, but I don’t have to listen to you anymore.
I won’t pretend that self-love is something you wake up with one day and just have (if only it were that easy). It’s a daily practice. It’s the choice to treat yourself with kindness, even when you don’t feel like you deserve it. It’s unlearning years of ingrained diet culture bullshit that told you that thin = happy, that beauty = worth, that food = guilt. It’s rewiring your brain to understand that none of that was ever true.
Your worth has never been determined by your weight, your body shape, or the food you eat. And it never will be. Read that again.
You are not more valuable when you shrink yourself. You are not more lovable when you deny yourself what you need. You are not a better person because you skipped a meal.
What actually makes you you—your kindness, your humor, your passions, your mind—has nothing to do with your body. The way you make people feel, the way you laugh until your stomach hurts, the way you care about the world—that’s what matters. And none of that changes based on how you look in a mirror.
So no, eating disorders never fully go away. But that doesn’t mean you’re stuck in the same place forever. The voice might always be there, but it gets quieter. You get stronger. You learn how to live your life without letting it take the wheel. And eventually, you realize—there is so much more to you than this struggle.
To leave you all with a smile on your face, I decided to include a photo of a note my mom left me when things were really hard. I come back and read her message a lot more than you would think and I wanted to pass it along to you all in case you needed someone to remind you. So keep going. Keep choosing yourself. Keep reminding yourself that you are so much more than your reflection. And on the hard days, when the thoughts are loud, and the self-doubt creeps in, just remember: You are already enough. Exactly as you are.
