One thing that, for me, was particularly shameful in my illness, was the sense of jealousy it brought out in me.

I’ve never liked the person anorexia turned me into, but this was one element I particularly despised. There are lots of reasons people with an eating disorder might feel jealous of others, but this is a list of some of the reasons I struggled with it.

Competitiveness in treatment
This is something I think a lot of us are guilty of. Treatment can be life saving and so helpful and really help people to turn things around, but there is a heavy element of competition for a lot of us. Comparing how much we are eating to them, whether they came in at a lower weight, whether they are gaining weight slower or faster. There’s so many ways to try and measure yourself up against other people. The things I really struggled with were people being on smaller meal plans than me, so not having to eat as much, and also people on larger meal plans who were gaining weight at the same rate as me. It felt really unfair that some people’s bodies allowed them to eat more than mine did.

Jealous of people who are well
I was frequently incredibly jealous of people who were far into their recoveries and managed to overcome their eating disorder. Why could they do it and I couldn’t? What was it about me that meant I kept failing time and time again, still stuck 20 years on, when I could see other people doing so much better than me? I now realise I am that person who is managing to stay stable in recovery, but at the time I thought that would never be me and felt like I was broken.

Jealous of people who are sick
Simultaneously, I was really jealous of people who were sicker than me. I felt like they were more successful, had more willpower, were somehow ‘better’ at being anorexic. I realise now that those thoughts in themselves meant I was sick, but at the time it was hard to see that because I always felt like I wasn’t good enough.

People who recover into small bodies
I am someone who has objectively recovered into a small body, but it’s much bigger than it’s ever been. I desperately wanted to be able to be well and at a BMI of 18.5 because I felt like I was ‘allowed’ to do that. It was okay for me to gain weight, as long as I stayed at the minimum I could possibly be to be considered ‘healthy’. I recognise, as I am further into the journey, that there are a lot of people in very small bodies who say they are recovered, but probably have a lot more work to do on themselves. I’m still getting my head around the fact that my weight needs to sit at a higher place than I ever imagined it would.

People who can be sick but function
I really struggled with looking on at people who were clearly very unwell but were allowed and able to do normal life things like travel and work and study. I couldn’t do any of those things when I was at my most unwell and I didn’t understand why other people seemed to be capable of that but I wasn’t. I still don’t know how people can seemingly function so well on the surface with anorexia, but I do recognise there are probably a lot of sacrifices that go on behind closed doors to maintain that image.

People who have never been sick
I cannot fathom what life would be like if you have never had an eating disorder. I just can’t unknow everything I know now. I am still envious of people whose brains have never been taken over and whose bodies have been tortured. All I can do is try my best going forward to keep well and recovering.

Jealousy is a normal human emotion but can be really amplified when experiencing an eating disorder. If this is your experience too, don’t beat yourself up over it. It’s not a nice feeling to have and it can make us behave in ways we aren’t proud of, but also for a lot of people that is part of being unwell. Importantly, for most people these feelings reduce as recovery progresses. I no longer feel jealous of people who are sick, I feel sad for them because I know how unhappy they must be. I don’t feel jealous of people in recovery because now I am that person in recovery.

Be kind to yourself, these feelings will pass.