Being atypical is miserable
>!While I am not diagnosed (because I've gotten good enough at lying and covering up the symptoms that no one has tried to get me a diagnosis of any kind), I very much so have some kind of ED, presumably ana considering I meet essentially all the diagnostic criteria, but it's atypical. I started out midsize/plus size, and even after some incredibly severe restriction and fasting, I've only just become an average weight for my height, but I'm also just naturally pretty curvy so I look bigger. !<
>!It's fucking miserable to be really sick but never look "sick enough" even after losing a lot of weight. I just look normal. Like a friend of mine who is fully recovered and was much less severe in restriction when they had an ED is still so much smaller than me and I feel like a terrible person for comparing myself to them constantly and for doing things that I'm always worried could trigger them into relapse, but it's a compulsion for me at this point. It's like my mind won't let me feel worthy of help until I look like them (even though logically I know I will never look exactly like them) and it's awful but I don't even want to recover. Like, until I "look sick" and I am visibly too small, I don't want a proper diagnosis because my family will make me get help and I don't want to recover until I'm at a small enough starting point? Because I just look normal, even big at certain angles (at least to me) and that doesn't feel like enough to deserve a diagnosis or treatment.!<
>!I'm just miserable all the time and I hate lying to everyone. Like, I'm pre planning everything I could eat and every lie I could tell for when I'm camping and can't fast, and I've had panic attacks over it, but I just don't want people knowing or trying to get me to recover too soon. And so all I do is lie, and I hate it. I feel awful all the time, and sometimes I feel like I'm making everything up because if I look the way I do, it feels like I can't really be sick (even though I never think this way about other people, I'm a massive hypocrite to myself). I hate having an atypical presentation of whatever the fuck is wrong with me, it's just making me fucking miserable, but there's such a sick satisfaction when I get closer to looking "sick enough" (and I guess also a part of me that wants to choose recovery sees looking "sick enough" as a sign I can really get help) but god, it's awful. It's the worst. I feel like I'll never be able to be taken seriously because of it. Just, everything about it is the fucking worst.!<