When your body isn't your own.

[Cheldoll]

Absolutely. Especially in public bathrooms or when the light is really different from what I'm used to.

When I was a kid and I realized that your voice doesn't sound the same on a recording as it does in real life, I prayed it was the same with your reflection. Yeah, literally prayed, thanks to my Catholic upbringing. Sometimes I'd get a double-whammy and pray during fasting periods.

Pictures aren't much better, but at least there's usually a time difference and I can convince myself that I don't look like that anymore.

[Talia]

I also wonder why it's ok in people's minds to comment on someone being too thin. I have had complete strangers ask me why I'm so thin. Would any of them ask a heavier person why they are so fat?

I think that it is a common myth that people with eating disorders all want to be skinny. We're all just afraid of weight gain, because what if it doesn't stop?

[Churble]

The answer to that is yes, they would. I've had people suggest gyms to me (I go to the gym 4-5 days a week, good to know it shows) they suggest what I should be eating instead of what I am currently eating, letting me know that my sleeves are too short so it makes my arms look bigger. It's said in a similar way as it's said for thin people, with mild concern and a complete disregard for how their helpful suggestions and concerns will make you feel.

[ThJulie]

There were definitely times in the high tides of my eating disorder when I was so dysmorphic that I would look a the mirror in terror and not recognize my face. I felt like I was looking at a moving picture of this alien. Everything was so intensely contrasted and foreign and frightening.

This was in part due to starvation weariness but mostly because there was such a severe disconnect in reality from what I THOUGHT I looked and felt like and what I truly did.

Aligning them takes time and a lot of reality testing and pushing yourself to FEEL yourself in your body and mind.