Feeling like a "failed anorexic"

Recovery from anorexia comes with a deep sense of shame, because it feels somehow like a failure. Caroline Knapp has referred to this as “the post-anorexic riddle of identity, a sense of wild shapelessness.”

Aimee Lui writes accurately that;
“Eating disorders sabotage identity… You’ve failed to reduce yourself to a perfect object…

“For years you’ll move along just fine, gaining weight, gaining confidence, gaining all the trappings of a thriving life, and then, unexpectedly, a shadow of your past will resurface in the face of a long-lost friend or a moment on revived anxiety, and your bright new self will cringe, yearning for that old mask of perfection.”

Sheila Reindl has valuable insight into this area as well:
“We all have to integrate the light with the dark… the noble and ignoble aspects of ourselves. That’s a normal developmental task. It’s just harder for people with eating disorders.”

Source: Lui, Aimee. Gaining: The Truth About Life After Eating Disorders.

Can You Inherit Anorexia?

“Researchers often say that genetics load the gun of eating disorders, and environment pulls the trigger.”

Aimee Lui believes that genetics make the gun, environment loads it, and that an experience of unbearable trauma is what actually pulls the trigger.

Source: Lui, Aimee. Gaining: The Truth About Life After Eating Disorders.