23/10/2025
So much is misunderstood about eating disorders. Thanks for sharing Dr Aimee Maxwell. Appreciate the work you do.
Eating disorders are never really about eating. They are about survival.
When the world felt unpredictable, food became something you could control.
When love felt conditional, you learned to manage the body that would make you acceptable.
When emotions felt too big, food became the language to express what couldn’t be spoken.
What we call “disorder” is often an intelligent adaptation — the body’s way of saying, I am not safe.
ED behaviours are not choices made in freedom. They are nervous system responses. They are attempts to find grounding in a world that felt unsteady.
The healing, then, is not in mastering willpower or fixing behaviour. It’s in restoring safety.
Safety in the body. Safety in relationships. Safety in being who you are without threat of abandonment or shame.
When you start to feel safe, the need for control starts to loosen.
What once felt like a fight with food reveals itself as a longing for connection — with yourself, with others, with life.
You never had a food problem. You had a pain that went unseen.
And what looks like pathology was always, in truth, a bid for safety.
❤️💜
