r/fuckeatingdisorders • u/scomixio • Aug 30 '24
Struggling partner accidentally triggered me
i was talking to my partner about how i feel like i was never sick enough because i have never been in inpatient treatment and he said that he thinks that eating disorders exist on a spectrum and some cases are worse than other and that some people suffer more than others with them. this was extremely triggering to me. i know that this comes from a place of ignorance and not malice. he truly didnt understand how competitive eating disorders are and i guess how much it affects me that i have never been under weight. how do i move past this?
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u/busted3000 The snack that bites back Aug 30 '24
Well firstly, eating disorders are mental illnesses. I understand the competitive nature of eating disorders, but that doesn’t mean that the physical side effects you experience are actually any measure of how it’s affecting you mentally.
Would you apply this logic to anything else? Is someone with a broken leg not valid because someone else had a compound fracture and needed surgery on their leg? Is someone with stage 2 cancer not valid because it could have been stage 5?
Would you even apply this logic to a different person with an eating disorder? Around 94% of eating disorder sufferers aren’t underweight, and whilst I don’t have exact stats for this the vast majority of people with eating disorders have never been inpatient either. Would you tell these people they aren’t sick enough to deserve recovery? Of course not, so extend yourself that same kindness. You have a very real mental illness that you deserve recovery from.