Anorexia Therapy
Serving all of Nevada, Arizona and Florida Virtually.
Let’s face it: scrutinizing our bodies and obsessing about food and weight is part of the day-to-day of *a lot* of people’s lives. But sometimes, what seems like “lowkey” body drama slips into something else, an even darker and more sinister place that’s hard to come out of. And before you know it, it’s ruling your life.
Welcome to anorexia. You’ll hate it here.
Anorexia, straight out of the Seventh Level of Hell.
At a certain point, it can seem like counting calories and “watching what you eat” is just a part of life. I mean, it makes sense. Lots of trends in our culture promote anorexia—they’re just layered with a tacky filter on top so you don’t really see the torture. Think: Weight Watchers, intermittent fasting, keto diets, paleo diets, carnivore, juice fasting. And don’t even get us started on things like The Grapefruit Diet, The Raw Food Diet, and The Maple Syrup Diet. They’ve got to be kidding… Nope. They’re serious. Seriously bordering on promoting Anorexia. Ooof.
So what is anorexia, really? What does it look like?
Do I have Anorexia?
Anorexia can make your world feel smaller without you realizing how much has changed.
You may spend a lot of time thinking about food, your body, exercise, or whether you are doing things “right.” Meals may feel stressful. Unexpected changes can make you anxious. Rest may feel uncomfortable. Rules around eating or movement can start to feel less like choices and more like things you have to follow.
And yet, part of you may still be thinking:
It’s really not that bad.
I’m functioning.
Other people are sicker than me.
Maybe I’m just being healthy.
That internal back-and-forth is common in anorexia nervosa. You can recognize that something is taking over your life and still feel terrified of changing it.
Anorexia is more than wanting to be thin.
Anorexia is a restrictive eating disorder that involves not getting enough nutrition, along with fear of weight gain, behaviors that interfere with eating adequately, and significant distress around food, weight, shape, or body changes.
For some people, anorexia is closely tied to body image. For others, it becomes connected to anxiety, perfectionism, control, identity, predictability, or a need to follow rigid rules.
That is one reason anorexia treatment usually involves more than simply knowing what you “should” eat. People can understand their eating disorder intellectually and still feel stuck in the behaviors.
You Don’t have to “look anorexic”
This is important:
You cannot tell whether someone has a serious eating disorder by looking at their body.
People with anorexia and other restrictive eating disorders exist in many different body sizes.
Atypical anorexia involves the same core restrictive eating-disorder symptoms and fears associated with anorexia, but the person does not meet the low-weight criterion used for an anorexia nervosa diagnosis.
The word atypical does not mean mild or unimportant.
If you keep telling yourself that you are not thin enough, sick enough, or struggling enough to deserve eating disorder treatment, that may be part of the problem—not proof that you are fine.
How much freedom is the eating disorder taking from you?
Instead of asking whether your symptoms are “bad enough,” it may be more useful to ask:
Is food taking up more mental space than you want it to?
Are your eating or exercise rules becoming harder to break?
Are you avoiding meals, restaurants, travel, social events, or situations where you cannot control what happens?
Does your mood depend heavily on what you ate, how active you were, or how you feel about your body that day?
Do people close to you seem more concerned than you are?
If food, exercise, weight, or body image is taking over more of your life, it is worth talking with an eating disorder therapist.
You do not need to diagnose yourself first.
You also do not need to wait until things get worse.
Anorexia treatment can start with simply acknowledging that this is taking too much from you.
Anorexia isn’t the most common eating disorder, but it’s also not some incredibly rare diagnosis that only happens to a very specific type of person.
Research suggests that hundreds of thousands of people in the U.S. will experience anorexia nervosa during their lifetime, and the true number of people struggling with restrictive eating disorders is likely larger once we include conditions such as atypical anorexia.
And here's where the statistics get a little messy: anorexia has historically been easier to recognize in people who fit the stereotype—typically young, thin women. People in larger bodies, men, adults, LGBTQ+ people, athletes, and others who don't look like the image many of us were taught to associate with anorexia can be missed or diagnosed later.
So prevalence statistics only tell us part of the story.
What matters more for you is this:
You don't need to be part of a certain demographic—or look a certain way—to have anorexia.
If restriction, fear of weight gain, food rules, compulsive exercise, or thoughts about food and your body are starting to run your life, the fact that you don't resemble someone else's idea of anorexia doesn't make your eating disorder less real.
And you definitely don't need to wait until you fit the stereotype before getting anorexia treatment.
It’s more common than you may realize.
Symptoms of Anorexia
Anorexia symptoms aren't always as dramatic as the internet makes them sound.
In fact, you can be struggling significantly with anorexia nervosa and still be going to work, going to school, exercising, seeing friends, and telling yourself you're basically fine.
The symptoms often show up in a few different ways.
Psychologically, you may notice that food, weight, exercise, or your body takes up an unreasonable amount of brain space. You might feel anxious when eating plans change, have rigid rules about food or movement, fear gaining weight, struggle to see your body accurately, or know logically that your eating disorder is a problem while still feeling very resistant to changing it.
Behaviorally, anorexia can involve restricting food, avoiding certain foods or situations, compulsive exercise, body checking, or increasingly arranging your life around eating-disorder rules.
And physically, not getting enough nutrition can affect nearly every system in the body. Some people experience fatigue, dizziness, feeling cold, trouble concentrating, gastrointestinal problems, changes in sleep, hair or skin changes, hormonal or menstrual changes, weakness, or changes in heart rate or blood pressure. Over time, malnutrition can also affect bone health, the heart, the brain, and other organs.
That sounds serious because it is serious.
But here's the part we don't want you to miss:
You do not need to have all—or even most—of these physical symptoms before anorexia treatment is appropriate.
And you definitely don't need to wait for your body to become medically compromised before deciding that restriction, food anxiety, compulsive exercise, or constant thoughts about your body are taking too much from you.
Eating disorders can become medically dangerous, and anorexia has one of the highest mortality rates among psychiatric illnesses. That's why we take restrictive eating seriously—even when someone looks “fine” from the outside.
If you're experiencing physical symptoms alongside restrictive eating, it's important to involve a medical provider as well as an eating disorder therapist. Anorexia affects both the mind and the body, and good anorexia treatment pays attention to both.
We get it, you are exempt from the consequences of Anorexia because you aren’t THAT bad.
Maybe you’re here reading all of this and thinking to yourself, some of this sounds like me, but not all of it. Or, maybe, yep, this is me alright, but I’m not really… that sick. I don’t need therapy for anorexia, because I have it all under control. My friend, “under control” is a myth when it comes to eating disorders. It’s the very myth that feeds it. Let’s break that shit down like a cardboard box and put it out on the curb for trash day.
Allow us to burst your bubble. You do not have control. If you had control you could show up at a potluck and try a bit of everything that looked good, without overanalyzing Every. Single. Bite. or ruminating over the ingredients. If you had control you could spend a week on the beach sipping your favorite drinks and indulging in your favorite meals without feeling a deep sense of impending doom about the “repercussions” of relaxing. People that are in control order popcorn when they go to a movie. They enjoy coffee drinks and pastries with friends. They eat cake on their birthday.
Sure, maybe you aren’t suffering any medical consequences, and you blend in with the rest of the world pretty damn well. But let’s face it, you’re here on this page for a reason. People that don’t have a screwed-up relationship with food don’t usually surf our website in their spare time.
You’re actually here because you want to know about therapy for anorexia. And at Recovery Unfiltered, anorexia therapy looks like this:
Learn to trust your body
When you eat, you likely keep a running tally of what you consume because you feel like your body can't be trusted. Maybe you keep track in an app or you just obsessively review things in your head. Or perhaps there is no safe amount of food, the less the better, why count, it’s all bad. You have some underlying belief that any amount of food could turn you into a whale by Saturday. Your body feels like a thing that you are constantly trying to control and manage. We get that, we really do. At Recovery Unfiltered we can help you let go of the scale, and let go of the constant counting. (We know this sounds like a terrifying proposal today, but give us a chance before you knock it). We can help you learn to love yourself unconditionally so you can feel confident in your skin and not go running for the hills at the thought of a swimming suit.
Find Freedom with food
You probably can’t sit down for a meal without hearing a relentless voice in your head telling you how guilty you should be feeling for consuming it. And then there’s the actual eating part of it. Maybe you limit yourself to one meal a day. Maybe you only eat certain foods, at certain times, in certain quantities, that are just shy of enough to sustain life (even though the voice has you convinced you’re a glutton). We’ve been there. At Recovery Unfiltered, we help you shift your negative associations with certain foods, or food in general, so you can see food as fuel, pleasure, comfort, and even FUN. You know, kind of like a 3 year old that just eats when he’s hungry and stops when he’s full and then goes on to pursue more important things like toy cars and running naked in the sprinklers. Remember that?
Heal your trauma
You’ve probably grown up watching your friends compare their bodies to other people’s, or maybe you were the friend who was doing the comparing. Your mom might’ve droned on about her “cheat days” all throughout your childhood, or whispered into your ear about what you should or should not eat. Maybe you were bullied for being the fat kid at summer camp, or you were kicked out of gymnastics for going through puberty. We’ll be the first to tell you, that shit takes a toll. Maybe you’ve got bigger fish to fry; you found your brother hanging from the ceiling fan, or your dad used you as a punching bag. We are all about addressing the big shit too. Let’s unpack it all, together, arm and arm, and free you from the drama that keeps you stuck in disordered eating.
Be supported unconditionally
Anorexia is a lonely and often times embarrassing disorder. You likely skip out on all of the social gatherings that include food, or you go but spend the entire time in a hell of your own. Anorexia can make you feel like a bit of a freak. Maybe you’re overly picky, or you cut up your food into tiny bites so it *looks* like you’re eating when you’re actually not. Perhaps you dip carrots in mustard and call it a meal (don’t get any ideas). We get it. Anorexia can make you do some weird shit and that weird shit can make you a loner. At Recovery Unfiltered we don’t judge you. We will create time together where you don’t feel like a freak. At Recovery Unfiltered you also have the option of joining our recovery community and taking part in weekly group therapy where you no longer have to hide your crazy.
Eating Disorders suck.
Therapy for Anorexia can be hard, but regret is harder.
Let’s face it, if you were going to recover from this on your own, you would have done it already. Clearly you are missing something. Maybe therapy would help?
Look, it doesn't matter where you are on the eating disorder spectrum—you don't need to be a toothpick to ask for help. And besides, you’ve heard it before: healing isn't linear. It’s going to be quite the journey, so you’d be best served by starting sooner rather than later. There’s really never going to be a good time to do hard shit. Never.
So stop wasting precious moments and call us so you can get on the road to the good stuff, like going out to eat with your friends or having a gnarly, guilt-free slice of chocolate cake.
You might be wondering, how is therapy going to fix my anorexia?
Honestly, it's not. We can't “fix” anorexia. We are fresh out of magic beans. Recovery is 100% yours for the taking and only you have the power to take it.
Our job is to shine a light in the darkness so you can see the path. Maybe even find the door or point you toward the key.
Even that sounds a bit dreamy. We won't bullshit you. The reality is, the path is littered with bees and the door is probably jammed shut and you're going to need to learn to whittle a stick to pry it open. The key is often lost in pile of 100 other keys that look exactly like it.
But we will happily stand alongside you on this journey with a compass, a road map, and a host of knowledge about how to get to the other side.
Your first step is to shoot us an email. Hint hint. Nudge nudge… Now would be a great time to do that.