Mental symptoms of eating disordersThe food-related symptoms of eating disorders are all around, those are what brought you here in the first place, so I won't bore you listing them. In stead, let's list some mental symptoms of eating disorders. Why put the focus in the MS of ED? Because the problem is not in your eating habits, your weight or your inability to eat or stop eating depending on your case. The problem is in all the things in your head that make you starve or overeat, etc. This things are what I call "Mental symptoms of eating disorders". Before we put them on the table. Let's take a look at what are these sickening ideas and how they transform into an eating disorder. Which ideas make us sick? Let's say that there is this little girl...from an early age she learned that she isn't worth that much, that her feelings are not that important, that she should always appear to be happy for others, that her opinion is not valid, that she is not able to do things or something similar. She could have gotten this idea from any life experience you can imagine. Just to name a few, maybe her father was not that much at home and didn't pay attention to her, maybe her mother or someone else was always criticizing or controlling her, or deciding for her, maybe her parents were too demanding...addicted, alcoholic, abusive, absent, depressive... Maybe they were "normal" parents, but... the message all these little girls receive is the same: "you are not that important","you are not good enough","no matter what you do, I won't be totally satisfied with your performance". This girl reaches puberty and on top of this "you are not good enough" message from her parents, she receives another one from the media: "Be skinny, be beautiful, then you'll be loved and appreciated by everyone if you are, despised if you are not." On the other side, there is this consumerist culture and this overload of food everywhere. Here it is where this little girl will pick a team: Anorexic pursue perfection in order to change "you are not good enough" for "you are perfect and deserve love". But is like a rat on its wheel: a never ending chase for a feeling of being loved that never comes because this girls don't think they deserve it in the first place. Bulimics and binge eaters on the other side, tend to overeat in order to compensate for that same lack feeling loved. Some girls play on both teams. Here it is where it all begins, at first food comforts the binge eater and attention comforts the anorexic. It seems to work, but once that little girl takes that road...it's all the way downhill, a snow ball effect, that each time gets worse and worse until eating habits take control and make life impossible. When this little girl tries to fix her eating habits, is too late. As they have been repeated for years, they have hooked up to her subconscious mind and it is very difficult to root them out. The little girls starts diets or goes to a hospital to be fed. But no matter how much she tries, she won't be able to get her her normal eating back until she fixes her broken insides, her thoughts and feelings that took her to develop the eating disorder in the first place. You have heard the stories... psychiatrists, hospitalizations, depression, medication, isolation, diabetes, extreme overweight... ...it will all get worse because this girl refuses to do the one thing she is scared the most of in this planet, the one thing she needs to do in order to get better: Love and accept herself just the way she is. She will even be willing to die before doing it. She might even try to justify her behavior, lessen her pain, and supply of emotional needs by joining this pro ana and pro mia websites that won't help her get what she really needs Based on this, the mental symptoms of eating disorders are thinking that: "You are not good enough" As well as: Seeing life in terms of black and white (perfectionism) Back Home from symptoms of eating disorders
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