Dear Eating Disorder (What Would Your Letter Say?)

If you’ve been treated for an eating disorder (or more than one) in your life, you’re probably familiar with the “eating disorder voice.” These are the thoughts that squirm and wiggle their way through your consciousness about what you ate that day, what you will or won’t eat that day, whether you feel the urge to purge or over-exercise, or check out your thighs or run your fingers across your abdomen for the eighth or hundredth time. That voice can be louder on some days, softer on others. Your eating disorder voice might be one that you’ve learned to speak to with compassion and love when it arises. Maybe it’s no longer a voice but more of an echo—one you’re able to ignore.

Because I’m a writer, like many of you, I have journaled about that voice, in that voice, and in response to that voice more times than I can count. When I decided to put together an anthology of women’s experiences with eating disorders, I wondered what others would write about, to, or from their eating disorder voices as well.

So, tonight, I wonder: if you wrote a letter to your eating disorder, what would it say? What would a letter from your eating disorder, to you, say? What would a letter from your eating disorder, to a family member or friend, share?

As I write in the anthology call for submissions: Let your anger, your pride, your sorrow, your joy, your uncertainty, your guilt spill onto the page. Your letter might devastate us, amuse us, surprise us, or feel all too familiar. It might make us squirm, laugh, shed tears, seethe with fury, feel understood, pick up a guitar, or take to the streets. Write the letter to or from your eating disorder that has been weighing on you, and release what you have been holding.

Share it in a direct message to me or, if you’re a subscriber, share it in the chat!