Thread by @theshirarose

As long as we continue encouraging restriction for eating disorder patients in larger bodies, we are setting them up for failure.

If you are not #HAES aligned, get the hell out of the ED field because you are causing further harm to your patients.

This includes colluding with the ED & saying that you’ll help your patient lose weight once their behaviors stabilize -which happened to me more than once.

It sent me the message yet again that my body was wrong, eating was bad, & that I wasn’t safe to exist in my natural body.

I spent a long time blaming myself for going through intense ED treatment without achieving recovery.

I believed that I must not have wanted recovery or that I didn’t try hard enough but the truth is that I wasn’t given the chance with my restriction being PRAISED and encouraged

Restriction is at the root of eating disorders. We need to challenge our own internalized fatphobia and make it safe for our clients to eat freely if we want them to recover.

-Not being allowed snack because of my body size
-Going to bed hungry in residential treatment
-Being taught to measure and weigh every bite I consumed

These things STUCK with me.

Unlearning all of it is a huge challenge with my ED brain.

I remember begging to be allowed to eat “real food” instead of a Luna bar in PHP. I was so damn hungry and just wanted food.

I said this while in treatment for anorexia. Imagine a patient with an ED begging to eat more. They said no and that I was being manipulative.

So I learned in treatment that I shouldn’t listen to my hunger. That it wasn’t meant to be trusted. That I wasn’t meant to be trusted.

I can’t even begin to explain the lasting impact that it had and continued to have on me.