They Think They Know: Living with an Eating Disorder When No One Really Sees It

I sit at the dinner table, picking at my food, and I can feel their eyes on me. My parents watch every bite like it’s a measure of my worth. They say things like, “We’re just worried,” or “You looked better when you were eating more.” They think they’re helping. They think they understand.

But they don’t know.

They don’t know the war in my head. The noise. The rules. The guilt. The silence afterward when I’ve eaten and I hate myself for it. Or the strange calm that comes when I don’t eat at all. They think it’s about food. About weight. But it’s about control. It’s about trying to feel okay when everything inside me feels wrong.

When they say, “Just eat,” I want to scream. Do they think I haven’t tried? Do they think I want to be like this? That I enjoy the exhaustion, the obsession, the fear?

I wish I could make them understand. I wish I could explain how eating feels like failure and not eating feels like success. How a number on a scale can ruin my whole day. But even when I try, they just look at me sadly, and I can tell they still don’t understand it.

I know they love me. But love isn’t understanding. And sometimes their love feels like pressure—to be better, to be healed, to be someone I’m not sure I can be yet.

I’m trying. I really am. But healing isn’t linear. And if you’re reading this—whether you’re struggling or watching someone who is—please know: listening means more than assuming. Just sit with me. Just hear me. That’s how you love someone through this.