"Sleep that knits the raveled sleeve of care." William Shakespeare

Body signals often are misinterpreted by a person with an eating disorder. You may have a tendency to avoid sleep when you are tired. When feelings of tiredness transform into food cravings rather than getting needed rest trouble is brewing.

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" 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.

Do you recognize the two main influences that propel you to the slippery slope and undermine your eating disorder recovery?

1. Anyone who supports your symptoms rather than your recovery. Be wary and alert when someone encourages you to starve or invites you to join them in a binge.
2. Eating disorders distort your thinking and your perceptions. Under the influence of that distortion, you can rationalize and justify eating disorder behaviors. That justification puts you well on the slippery slope to relapse.

"Do I have an eating disorder if I only binge on healthy foods?

Desperate Hope

This question speaks of a desperate hope to find a way to be safe and healthy. You want to give yourself good nourishment. You want to take care of yourself. You want to live. Yet you know that a binge, even quality food, harms your body and your life.

Compulsion to Binge Eat

At the same time, you can't stop bingeing. Since you are helpless to stop, you try to make your binge and yourself as safe from negative consequences as possible.