TW: Eating disorders, bulimia
It’s not particularly fun to tell people you had an eating disorder. There’s not a cultural framework for talking about them, and societal perceptions of them are often very outdated.
Saying ‘yeah I had an eating disorder’ in polite company, even around people you might know well enough to not be weird about it, usually produces the same physical response as saying something like ‘yeah I used to train puppies for dog fights’ or ‘I funded my degree by selling my underwear to old men on the internet.’ Not quite disgust, not quite pity, more a sort of embarrassment that you’d bring up something so unsavoury. Mentioning eating disorders forces people to confront both shame and bodily fluids, and we hate that.
I couldn’t tell you when I first actually made myself sick, I have never been a particularly consistent diarist. But I can tell you the thought process that led to it started...
English (US)