The Public and Private Loss in Eating Disorder Recovery

In the last post, I wrote about how people with eating disorders personify their illness. With the increased focus on mental health, especially for Gen Z, ownership or personification of a psychiatric disorder is increasingly common. People aren’t stressed any more but instead talk about my anxiety. My depression is the term used a lot more than I’m really sad.

The results of this change in language are both mundane and profound. Vocabulary changes through generations are to be expected and reflect both a desire for individuality and how cultural attitudes change.

The new terms to describe mental illness help shake off the stigma and enable more people to identify issues and get help much earlier in life. Fewer people will suffer for years untreated.

A different effect is that it is harder to give up or fully get better from a mental illness when the language used makes the disorder a part of one’s identity. It’s difficult to let go of an eating disorder fully when it becomes a part of how one sees oneself, how one navigates the world and even how one presents oneself to others.

Even though people don’t want to suffer, letting go of a critical piece of one’s identity is still a loss, and perhaps a choice.

This change is evident more in eating disorder treatment than anywhere. Eating disorders can become a large part of a person’s social media presence and an identifying factor to those around them. Although the goal of full recovery is paramount, an eating disorder in this climate can be so linked with oneself that, even after getting significantly better, announcing full recovery can be difficult.

Recovery needs to include a more direct approach to the loss of eating disorder as identity, not just in oneself as always, but also publicly. The stigma and shame around eating disorders very much still exists; however, the knowledge, exposure and understanding around these illnesses are all much more evident in younger generations.

Due to the substantial cultural change about mental health, eating disorder treatment can adapt to accommodate and acknowledge how recovery looks and feels different now. The loss of a piece of identity is private and public. Attention to both processes will help many younger people fully recover.