So writing this is kinda hard for me since I might make my mental state even worse by doing so.

So, I have always had this weird fear of being labeled mentally defective, since my mother had been misdiagnosed with various mental disorders, when she actually had a neurodegenerative disease. Recently we learned about eating disorders in med school, ofc also about binge eating disorder.

So, where exactly is the line between a fat guy, who doesn't care about the effects of his excess weight on his health, just like a smoker doesn't care about his cardiovascular health, and just wants to enjoy the foods he likes and a mentally "defective" (sorry don't mean that in a harmful way, just trying to point out how society stigmatises mentally ill people) fat guy with binge eating disorder?

My psychiatrist was no help in this, since he doesn't seem to know anything about the matter. When i asked him, he didn't even give me the textbook definition or something. He just said "Oh, I always go by BMI on this. If a person is pretty massive, they most likely have it, but you can't since you are normal weight" (little did he know that I am just a fatty in remession )

I was once actually fat, but dropped the weight due to societal pressure, which i realize now was a mistake btw. But I found out through trial and error, that if i just eat healthy for 6/7 days per week, I can enjoy some of the food in the quantities I ate previously without it affecting my weight. So this has been my strategy ever since. I have to mention here, that I never felt any intrisic shame about my eating, not now and not back then. I was also not eating to deal with emotional issues, quite frankly a bad mood or anger always killed my appetite. The only thing that made me feel ashamed was, when I got bullied hard for my weight in school etc. But i just valued cooking (one of my great passions) and eating out with my friends at pig out spots more than the opionions of random idiots.

But now I am constantly worried about having BED, which prevents me from enjoying the foods I love, when I eat them, which actually makes it hard for me to stick to my diet and maintain my weight, since I always have those intrusive thoughts like "Your restricting and pigging out is a sign that you are mentally unfit and need to get help". The funny thing is, that I am now actually ashamed of the stuff I eat, event the healthy foods (I like to eat large portions of veggies and lean meats in general). So i feel like some sick defective person, whenever I eat, ever since we learned about BED.

Don't get me wrong, I didn't have any of those guilty feelings around food previously, but this constant anxiety is ruining my life. I have already asked 2 psychiatrists and their answer was pretty much identical and along the lines of what i mentioned above.

Can there be such a thing as a person, who just enjoys large quantities of delicous food without any feelings of remorse or guilt and not be mentally ill? Are all my friends, who order food for 2 people when we go out to eat at restaurants mentally ill? What makes BED different from just liking to pig out once or twice week? Maybe you guys can give me a concrete answer on this.

Can there be such a thing as mentally healthy fat person, or was I mentally ill all along and just didn't feel sick?