Yeah, the classifications for diagnoses of eating disorders are kinda harmful bs. I remember when I was first diagnosed with bulimia and learned there was “anorexia-binge/purge type” and the difference (in my and everyone else in the bulimia-community’s mind) was those with AN-BP were “successful” and we are disgusting failures. So much jealousy from bulimics towards those able to consistently restrict too. I know that AN-R really is a lack of control and desperate attempt to gain it that just makes you less in control in the long run, but when you compare it to being consumed by the impulse to binge, then feeling so awful until you purge, and then feeling “better” for 3 minutes then getting slammed with either being physically fked up if lucky or drowning in lordly shame. And then no one believing or suspecting or taking it seriously that you have an ED because you’re not sickly thin, have become a master of hiding the actual b/p sessions, and other people see you eating more often is just the icing on the cake.

They just should collect all the eating disorders and then specify the behaviors, maybe identify most likely severe health risks based on which behaviors (like right now I’m probably primarily at risk for cardiac stuff from hypokalemia or hypoglycemia (well, when it comes to my body failing due to malnutrition rather than an intentional death—that’s probably even more likely in all honesty) whereas I’m surprised I never needed surgical repair of a MW tear when I was b/p’ing like 20 times a week).

So like, instead of “bulimia-purging type” it could be “eating disorder including binging and compensatory purging- biggest risks are [gastro, cardiac, dental, whatever].”

And with such common BPD and ED comorbidity, I bet a lot of people with an eating disorder have a big problem with black and white thinking and can see anything but “extreme” as a severity specifier and think it’s not an issue because it’s not the worst it could be, probably intentionally getting sicker to feel valid and “prove competency at self-abuse” (or however is a better way if wording that) or see the specifier go from”mild” to “moderate “ and quit trying because now it’s more than “barely a problem” so it’s hopeless. I know it is sooo common (and the treatment providers add to this SIGNIFICANTLY from my experience) to think you’re not sick enough for (really any mental health issue) to be a problem, too. Jesus, when I was like 19 and switched back from struggling with b/p to restricting and overexercising again, my doctor fking congratulated me on losing weight (to he fair he was old and in family medicine and had no clue I ever had any eating disorder behaviors).

And they still use “atypical anorexia” too (we might be behind the majority on that, I don’t know, but one of my diagnoses as an adult was “undifferentiated schizophrenia” and that was supposedly wayyy after they dropped the subtypes) if your BMI is over a certain amount, but you lost a certain amount of weight in a short time using disordered behaviors, and come on, you KNOW a lot of people find out they’re “atypical” and immediately set their next goal weight to whatever it is at exactly the BMI to lose the “atypical.”