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BoldEagle8927 karma

restricting and controlling your body and diet are strategies that people use to feel in control of their lives. it can snowball.

it's like anything else addictive and compulsive; no one sets out to be a morning drinker when they start having a whiskey at 3pm to steady their nerves before a meeting. no one who starts taking Adderall to finish their homework intends to wind up smoking meth at 3am on a weeknight. That would be... illogical!

if you don't have a background with or understanding of addiction, compulsion, and disordered eating I get that it can be tempting to try to understand it through a logical framework. There isn't a logical thought process to explain it from a perspective of health and wellness and desired outcomes, but there's a pretty tight internal logic to how certain behaviors can help stave off feelings that one does not have the tools to deal with while at the same time engendering more "positive" feelings of progress and control.

I don't think you were setting out to be mean, but as someone who has dealt with substance abuse and eating disorders, I felt a little trigger when I read your comment. Addicts and disordered eaters are not stupid; we are not illogical people with poor problem solving skills- I don't think you really meant to imply that, but that's sort of the message that "golly that doesn't make sense! how could they think that would help them?" sends. I can't speak about my experience in that context. It's not really a comment made in good faith.

If you're curious about the internal economies of people who have different kinds of problems than you, I would just ask that you think a little bit more deliberate about the language you're using. The tone of your comment was "god that makes no sense," and I would feel a lot more comfortable generally responding to something that felt a bit more "I don't understand that." I would love to help people understand addiction and compulsion more, but I don't want to start that conversation from a place that presumes some myopic stupidity on my part. If you don't understand, say you don't understand. Don't impugn the intelligence of a group of people with careless language.

BoldEagle8919 karma

How do you account for social phenomena like racism, segregation, etc. when discussing resemblance? I guess I'm asking if you assume resemblance is more of a biologically than socially significant factor- does that make sense?

BoldEagle891 karma

eating disorders are rarely the extreme examples we are familiar with from tv news and magazines. if you have a pattern of compulsive and unhealthy behavior with food... that's probably an eating disorder. it's all about if it's helping or hurting. people can have bulimic eating patterns and never throw up- maybe you binge and starve yourself. maybe you binge then force yourself to do extreme amounts of cardio, etc etc.

it's like any other mental illness. you can't just see it.