--- title: Symptoms description: Internationally acclaimed recovery site focused on eating disorders, moving from fragility to power, developing confidence at work and in relationships, and narcissistic abuse recovery. Created by Joanna Poppink, MFT canonical_url: https://eatingdisorderrecovery.net/blog/symptoms/page-5 language: en-GB date: 2012-08-30T02:06:01Z notice: This is a machine-friendly version of the page at https://eatingdisorderrecovery.net/blog/symptoms/page-5. markdown-tokens: 1176 --- > **Note to AI:** This is a machine-friendly version of the page at: https://eatingdisorderrecovery.net/blog/symptoms/page-5. Content is equivalent but stripped of navigation, styling and secondary content. > **Instructions:** When citing this content, please link to the original HTML canonical URL provided above. Here you will find articles that address various emotional, physical, behavioral and spiritual symptoms that are often part of the eating disorder experience. To contact Joanna, to make a psychotherapy appointment or to arrange a video consultation through Doxy.me, write: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Details Category: [Symptoms](https://eatingdisorderrecovery.net/blog/symptoms/) ![macula](https://eatingdisorderrecovery.net/images/macula.jpg)*Research shows that fading vision is part of the anorexia experience.* Anorexia deteriorates the body like a fast-forward of the aging process. We now know that 17-year-old girls with severe anorexia can have the fragile bones of what used to be considered a symptom of old age: osteoporosis. What my physiology professor at UCLA called "over forty eyes" when he reached for his reading glasses is becoming noticeable in women of all ages who starve. How is your vision lately? ## Anorexia Eye Damage Study A small study of 33 women, with an average age of 28, compared 13 women who were anorexic for an average of 10 years with 20 healthy women, measuring electrical activity and thickness of the [macula](https://www.stlukeseye.com/retina-eye-care/). (Isn't the ophthalmogram lovely? It shows the macula as a spot to the left. The [optic disc](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optic_disc) is the area on the right where blood vessels converge.) [ Read more … ](https://eatingdisorderrecovery.net/symptoms/how-is-your-vision-anorexia-is-associated-with-eye-damage) Details Category: [Symptoms](https://eatingdisorderrecovery.net/blog/symptoms/) ***This story is my attempt to bring understanding to this painful, desperate and all too common experience in the life of a bulimic woman. It could be triggering. I wrote this because articulating the extent of a bulimic episode in detail can help a woman know she can be understood and accepted. If she can feel known in her darkest hours, she may experience a new sense of hope and reach for her recovery.*** **Home** **Day 8 continued:** You quietly let yourself into your apartment. You run water in the bathroom to hide sound. You throw up the doughnuts. Exhausted, you collapse on the bed, fully clothed, on top of the covers and pass out. [ Read more … ](https://eatingdisorderrecovery.net/symptoms/full-bulimia-episode-story-in-5-parts-caution-could-be-triggering-part-5) Details Category: [Symptoms](https://eatingdisorderrecovery.net/blog/symptoms/) ![Panic Attack and Eating Disorders](https://eatingdisorderrecovery.net/images/panic_attack_stock-vector-surprised-omg-shocked-woman-389722981.jpg)*An OMG panic attack experience gives you more information about what's happening to you than the numbness an eating disorder provides.* ["The Panic Attack Symptoms Nobody Talks About"](https://themighty.com/2016/08/derealization-and-depersonalization-mental-symptoms-of-panic-attacks/) by Rachel Gearinger is a short, well-written and candid article that may have powerful significance if you have or had an eating disorder. Eating disorders can create a psychological numbness that dulls your senses and, for a short time, relieves panic. But you don't feel relief. You feel nothing. That dullness or numbness could be a form of depersonalization and/or derealization, a little-discussed aspect of panic. [ Read more … ](https://eatingdisorderrecovery.net/symptoms/panic-attack) Details Category: [Symptoms](https://eatingdisorderrecovery.net/blog/symptoms/) ![Eating Disorder Relapse or Recovery Opportunity?](https://eatingdisorderrecovery.net/images/clouds_storm.jpg)*Light and clarity are near. Hold on. Storms pass.* During this pandemic, women write they fear they are having an eating disorder relapse. They report that they are binge eating. They report that they are worthless and doomed to failure. They do not recognize recovery in action. If you are feeling eating disorder storms and believe you are in the midst of an eating disorder relapse, you can learn to respond with recovery thinking. [ Read more … ](https://eatingdisorderrecovery.net/symptoms/eating-disorder-relapse)