I want to talk about the relationship between money and my eating disorder.

I'm speaking from personal experience, with the hopes that it can be helpful/reassuring for others.

One of the shocking parts of recovering from anorexia, for me, was coming to grips with how much more money I was going to have to spend on food. I genuinely didn't understand what a "normal" grocery bill even looked like anymore.

Sometimes I think I was more motivated by saving money than I was losing weight in my eating disorder. Skipping breakfast saved money. Splitting my lunch into two meals saved money. Any time I didn't eat, it felt like I was protecting myself financially.

I had experienced a period of financial insecurity that almost led to me losing my housing a number of years ago. It created a really deep anxiety for me that has never totally gone away, even when I did manage to find stable employment and housing again. My ED was fueled by it.

When I was in recovery, and having to eat meals and snacks each day, I was not prepared for how much that anxiety would surface. Having to spend more money on something my brain had stopped considering "essential" was so, so painful.

One dimension of ED recovery that isn't talked about nearly enough is class. How many of us who have experienced some kind of financial/food insecurity have additional challenges in recovering that many clinicians simply don't prepare us for.

Not just accessing treatment, which is a whole beast in itself. But once we are in recovery, how these periods of financial restriction so often give us a sense of safety that is difficult to let go of. Financial restriction and food restriction can be so bound up.

I've known folks who stole food for their binges because they were too afraid to spend that amount of money, or simply didn't have that money. I've known folks with restrictive EDs who WANTED to eat but couldn't bring themselves to spend money on food.

If someone is an eating disorder coach or clinician, but they don't know how to talk to their clients about money, they are not prepared to support these populations, for whom financial restriction is an inseparable part of their ED.

PSA: If you struggle to spend money on food, and struggle to consider food a "justifiable expense," you may be struggling with disordered eating or an eating disorder.

Financial/food insecurity can absolutely alter our relationship to food.

I wish someone had told me this: Saving money at your body's expense, and at the expense of your own health and wellbeing, is not what a budget is. A budget acknowledges your needs — a budget doesn't require that you ignore them.

There are folks still experiencing financial and food insecurity who have to make decisions that no one should have to make. But that's why we need to be prepared to support these populations not just by giving them food, but giving them support to heal their relationship to it.

It's all trauma at the end of the day. And wow, are eating disorders an incredible, accessible, and eventually self-destructive way of coping with trauma.

Just some thoughts swirling around my brain. I still struggle to buy food. I still struggle to give myself permission to spend that money. And I still didn't get the support that I needed in treatment to cope with that.

But it's getting better. Slowly but surely.