This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at CWU chapter.
When people hear about recovering from Eating Disorders (EDs) they talk about the hard parts, but one I never thought about until I was in recovery is becoming a more picky eater. Before developing my ED I loved to eat food and always had as my family would say “eyes too big for my stomach”. Growing up Southern and surrounded by family who could cook incredibly well kept me fed and never without something new to try. However, once my ED started, it got harder to bring myself to eat my old favorites. Sometimes even finishing a full plate of my favorite food was impossible. I would find myself craving the food I could smell from a distance but as soon as I would see all of the food in front of me, a sudden wave of nausea would wash over me.
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My favorite foods or even favorite types of food were no longer appealing to me. If something was too many ingredients my brain would fill with anxiety making it impossible to take more than a few bites. Specifically, I remember one week in middle school where every day after volleyball practice (which I should not have still been participating in) all I could bring myself to eat was a chicken quesadilla. Slowly, I would move from one food to another as I got sick of the previous week’s taste, but I never ventured to more foreign food despite how much I used to crave trying them. Simple easy to make foods with little nutritional value became my best friends and even now years after I’ve been in recovery, I still find foods I’ve never tried causing me distress no matter how much I want to try them. Things like that make recovery feel so hard because as someone who used to love food and trying to keep that fear at bay in order to enjoy it can make me feel like in that one moment I’ve thrown years of recovery away. However, I frequently have to remind myself that recovery isn’t linear. I’m not just gonna wake up one day and be able to eat whatever I want when I want to again. But I do want people out there to know that it is okay if you still sometimes feel sick when you’re trying to eat. It’s fine to push your plate away because suddenly you feel a sinking pit in your stomach and not know why because at least you tried eating and sat down to try to eat. There are going to be days that are harder for seemingly no reason, but just take it one bite at a time and slowly start to reincorporate things back into your diet. I’m still working on finding my love for food again, but I know that just trying is the hardest part for me which helps me keep going every day.
Her Campus CWU Writer
Current Junior at Central Washington University
Majoring in Liberal Studies with a Business minor
A yellow enthusiast through and through
