I'm sorry if a lot of the things I'm about to post are sort of basics or givens that go with the disorder, but I've never really spoken out about my anorexia in a community/forum for discussion or done much counseling about it.

I know that I am anorexic and have been diagnosed, but consider myself to be in remission right now, as it were. I really do value nutrition (kind of a nut about it), exercise, and healthy lifestyles, staying active. I'm not perfect at it, but it's what I strive for.

Being anorexic was something that happened as a referred issue from depression/anxiety and was a form of self-harm in the beginning. I never intended for it to be a weight-loss thing. I just started to get a high from the control (retrospectively I now believe it was because I didn't have much control of anything else in my life at the time). Of course, once it began, it evolved into other things, but that's another story.

This was something I hid (which I guess is common?). My family is a food-loving bunch. They enjoy the human act of eating, not necessary from overeating at all, but find food a hobby or activity I think, trying new things and enjoying the human pleasure in it. Which is fine. It's something I'll never quite understand perhaps, but it's fine.

When I finally was honest about family and some friends with my problem, at first I was literally laughed at. "You're not anorexic!" as if I was being dramatic or attention-seeking, just because I was a normal weight. At a certain point, I really lost a lot of weight, and unfortunately that was what took my family to recognize it as something real. At this point, I'm a healthy weight and have been so a long time. I go through stints of abstaining from food, but catch myself. But, every day it is a struggle to remind myself to eat, or to convince and remind myself I really haven't overeaten for the day, et cetera. I feel guilty after almost every meal, even if I know it's unwarranted.

I occasionally shared with family things weighing on my mind about being anorexic, and eventually, now that I'm at a healthy weight again and have been a long time, they've taken to discounting my struggles, almost as if I never "had it" in the first place, like it was some phase or something. Even my boyfriend of 4 years, who is normally more than extremely supportive of my other problems, discounts me often. From time to time I'll share that I've not been eating during work days and such, and he'll tell me I need to eat, and does kind, helpful gestures like surprising me with breakfast when I wake up, or a lovely boxed lunch. But I feel this is more out of helping me out thinking I've not been eating because of being busy and things like that.

Some family members, at the point when I first shared, I felt began to judge me in a way, albeit out of concern. I was constantly catching glances at my "meager" (my stomach has been shrunken significantly I think) meals, and then being asked if that's really all I was going to have, or that I should have more in a sort of softly reprimanding way. ...After that started, I just stopped sharing, except with my boyfriend, whom I'm hoping will come around.

It's really hurtful that people don't believe me that I still have anorexia, that it never really goes away, that it's a struggle I will have to keep in check for the rest of my life. I also feel so awkward and uncomfortable knowing that some friends and one or two family members remember my thoughts and do still judge me, even seem to get bothered by it! I know this shouldn't bother me - what does it matter if they believe me? I'm not looking for attention or even help about it! Just talking about it helps - but it really does... it makes me really, really sad and adds to my depression when I remember their eyes rolling when I tell them about this stuff.

Have others experienced this? How do you cope with it? This has been happening (since I shared) about five or six years now.