Eating disorder relapse?

About three years ago I develped an eating disorder, after hiding it sucessfully for a while my friends and family soon sought out help for me and I started to see a therapist who specialized in eating disorders. After a few months of sessions I thought I was cured, an got back to a healthy weight.

My problem is, now with summer coming up, and recent stressful times in my life, I find myself going back to my old ways. I am lying about eating, skipping meals, working out obbsessively, using laxatives, throwing up, and simply not eating at all. I've gotten a lot skinnier, but I'm constantly cold and shaky, tired, grumpy, and just all around not doing great.

I realize that I have a problem, the only thing is I don't want to tell anyone because of the hard time i went through last time, and the stress and dissapointment my family went through.

So I guess my question is, are relapses common, and what should I do?

i think that you have to change what you value about your 'health.' from the way i see it, you value your skinniness and looks more than being truly healthy. you seem smart and already know that being skinny doesn't equal being healthy. the problem for you i think is simply lack of will power. its easy to not eat, and make yourself throw up, and to lie to friends & family about the issue...

take better care of yourself and you'll feel (and look) much much better... i promise

I think it is a good sign you recognized the problem yourself. It's easy to fall back into old habits, no matter what the habits are. So take control for yourself and impliment the strategies that get you back on course. If you aren't able to take control on your own, enlist the help of a friend to help remind you of the problems you had before and the payout that awiats you. Good luck!

Yeah they are very common indeed. I heard something like, "50% of eating disorder patients that seek treatment will have a relapse."

Try seeking out professional help from a couselor/therapist. Or at least someone you can talk to whom you know is going to help you without judging you, and who can take the steps with you to getting better. Tell your parents that you would like to see a therapist and leave it at that. Tell them that you don't want to say why, but you need to. When I was having problems in my life, one day I told my dad i needed to see my therapist badly but i couldn't tell him why. The next day I was in her office for an appointment. I mean isn't it worth a shot???

Seeking professional assistance is the only way I can see you moving forward in your life. You need to not only learn to stop starving yourself and throwing up, but to also discover the underlying emotional issues that have led to this. There may be something inside yourself that you don't yet realize could be causing this ED to live inside you. You need to free yourself from that and then and only then you can move on to living a safer and healthier life.

Well, hope a helped a little bit :]