Question about eating disorders

My question I feel is a bit too long to put in the actual heading. But basically, with people who have eating disorders, do you think their eating disorder was enivitable? I ask this because I developed my eating disorder during my first year of uni this past year. Before I was happy and carefree. Food was never an issue for me, my life didn’t revolve around food like it does now. Idk how it even happened. It was very rapid. But one day I was laying on my bed in the depths of my ed thinking ‘how did my life become like this?’ I never ever thought that I would ever be experiencing this.
So what do you guys think? Are eating disorders inevitable? Do you think there’s something of an eating disorder/other mental heath problem that exists in every one of us?

Reply 1

random_matt

There are triggers everywhere, it's a dangerous world kid. Seek help though, my half sister was in hospital for a long time.

Reply 2

xoxAngel_Kxox

The problem is it can creep up on you, and before you realise you have a problem, it's got quite bad already.

I wouldn't say it was "inevitable" though - and I know quite a few people who have been very, very poorly with EDs and who are now living a happy life at a healthy weight :smile:

Reply 3

Pathway

You can have predisposing risk factors, but even then it's more of a case of having healthy coping mechanisms to cope with life rather than maladaptive ones (which is usually what an eating disorder is).

I have anorexia nervosa, as did my mum when she was younger (so genetically I might be predisposed, plus she was a poor role model food-wise when I was younger), but I've also got a physical disability which causes various issues with eating and have an extensive trauma history as well as multiple other severe mental health issues. I do think having an eating disorder was inevitable for me, if people picked up on it earlier I don't think it would be this long-standing, but I was neglected a lot as a kid so medical needs weren't exactly top priority for anybody in relation to myself. I've been disordered with eating since I was about 5 and I'm 24 now.

Reply 4

Connie101

Everyone has it in them somewhere, but only a few actually act on it. I would recommend trying to find the root of the problem, where your eating disorder started

Reply 5

cxlvin

Love this question! I think some of us are genetically predisposed to certain mental health disorders, and our environment (both current and past) determines how likely it is for those disorders to surface. Obviously this is a massive generalisation, the nature vs nurture debate is a big subject.

This does not mean you're destined to suffer though, you can get through this OP :smile:

(edited 5 years ago)

Reply 6

Anonymous #2

All of us have certain genes that have a predisposed risk of getting a certain illness/diseases. But many other external factors are involved in the activation of these genes. For example someone may have an increased risk of getting schizophrenia but their external circumstances may never lead to the activation of the genes so they will never actually develop the illness. So we don't actually have the diseases we just have an increased risk of getting them which is why lots of illnesses tend to run in families - there's generally a genetic component. In your case you may have had the unactivated genes for developing an eating disorder your whole life and only now were they activated.

This is a very simplified explanation (partly because my knowledge is limited) so don't see the development of your eating disorder as the be all and end all - it isn't. If you feel that it is impacting your life negatively please seek help.

Reply 7

Pathway

Would also like to add that you might want to look into the diathesis stress model. It's about internal (e.g. biological) and external (e.g. experiences, trauma, coping styles, etc.), and applies to a lot of health issues, not even just MH ones.

Reply 8

Anonymous #1

Original post by Pathway

Thanks for replying. How are you doing now?

Reply 9

Anonymous #1

Original post by random_matt

There are triggers everywhere, it's a dangerous world kid. Seek help though, my half sister was in hospital for a long time.

How is she doing now? Did she manage to get through it?

Reply 10

random_matt

Original post by Anonymous

How is she doing now? Did she manage to get through it?

She's fine now.

Reply 11

Pathway

Original post by Anonymous

Thanks for replying. How are you doing now?

Not great. The eating disorder service discharged me due to being too high risk and because of disengagement (although they maybe shouldn't have as according to them medically I'm quite unstable so not sure if discharging was the soundest logic they had), I'm currently waiting to hear back about my referral to the long-term MH issues team and I'm with the crisis team as well.