Dating after an eating disorder

Skip navigation! Story from Sex. For me, however, dating triggers a torturous chain of thoughts which clutch at my chest and beat at my forehead from the moment they appear on my screen. What day will said drink take place?

Dating can be nerve-wracking for anybody. But throw an eating disorder into the mix and it can feel impossible. Eating disorders are often secretive and isolating, and dating involves sharing ourselves. Recovery is a long journey with twists, turns, and occasionally relapse. Eating disorders affect people physically, psychologically, and socially, so they can touch on nearly every aspect of our lives.

No one from my past relationships had made a point to ask me this question. Instead, I always had to force the information about how my eating disorder might show up in our relationship on these people. And it was more important than most people realize. In a study that looked at how women with anorexia nervosa experience intimacy in their romantic relationships, these women pointed to their partners understanding their eating disorders as a significant factor in feeling emotional closeness. When it comes to body image among people with eating disorders, these issues can run deep.

Getting abstinent from an eating disorder is like traveling to hell and back, looking Satan straight in his fiery eyes and spitting in his face. Wrestling him until he tires and living to tell the story behind the scars he left above your left eye. Blood and botox, rooooooooooooooound the clock. Need I say more?