not ana anymore but my brain still is

ive spent years feeling miserable. and i recovered. but still i here the voices inside my had saying i am huge and i should starve myself. driving myself crazy. its like i WANT to be anorexic and fainting all the time AGAIN. i am an idiot.

What did you gain from fainting all the time that you serm to be missing now? Is there something more thsn just size that starving yourself gained?

I always wanted to be small & thin all my life but my anorexia was about a lot more than that. It was about my life around me being out of ckntrol & my weight was the ONLY thing I had control over. Mant other complex issues were involved too that I honestly didnt realuze for years after my recovery hit becaise I was finally alone on my farm & responsible for being in control of everything in my life.....not just what I didnt eat.

I am so sorry. I am in recovery too, have been since 2003, with a brief relapse in 2012. Unfortunately, for me too, the voices are still there, and my perception of my body is still skewed. My ED started when I was 20, for God's sake, and I'm 40 now! The voices STILL won't go away. Oh, they have lessened in intensity, and I choose not to act on those ED obsessed thoughts, like it would be great to start overexercising again and I should go off all sweets & sugar, give up gluten, etc. I wish the voices would go away for good!

There was one vacation we took when my daughter was 3 or so, that would have been in 2010. I remember I felt super fat the entire time (yeah, I know, "fat" is NOT a feeling). Anyway, I thought I was fat. My husband has a screensaver on his computer that rotates through his picture album. It recently came upon a picture of me with my daughter during that vacation. I saw the picture, and I thought, "OMG, I looked good!" I had such nice muscles (was good about weight training then). I looked so healthy & fit. Not fat AT ALL. Crazy the perceptions EDs give us.

You're not an idiot. I am pretty sure that reminiscing on the things about your anorexia that felt good at first isn't unusual during recovery. Ambivalence is just something that happens when you have a life changing experience that started out seemingly positive, but ended up very very bad. It is often easier to filter out the terrible and focus on what seemed gratifying at the moment ( In whatever way it served you; physical, mental, etc.)

I've relapsed three times, am 40, and often feel like a lost cause. I know that in my experience of avoiding the detriments to my health and mental well-being, while in a state of recovery, I focused on the initial high, the sense of control, and other thjngs that ultimately seemed to crack open a door to the past. I try to avoid triggers, but sometimes that's impossible.

Try and stay strong!