I used to work at a Drug Rehab Center where we rented a building to an organization that treated people with eating disorders. If one of their patients needed detox they would send them to us and the patient would take part in some of the lectures given by our staff as well as receive medical attention. This was my first experience interacting with a person with eating disorders. The eating disorder treatment center was within walking distance and we would escort the patients back and forth between centers. The patients didn’t live at the center so during breaks in therapy they would be hanging out, outside or in the hallways. The majority of the patients were young beautiful girls maybe a bit thin but still beautiful. The next thing that struck me was the deep hollow look in their eyes; almost haunting. Once in a while there would be a male client, usually obese; they also had the omnipresent distant stare.

Eating disorder psyche combine a loss of personal control and loss of ones sense of self. That look in the patients’ eyes is a feeling of hopeless desperation to a disconnected life; their life. Their attempt to reconnect is their eating disorder which is why they cling to it in the face of devastating consequences. When their disease reaches this point thinking and perception are distorted which only increase the spiral of feeling ineffective in their own life.

Eating Disorder psyche combined with personality disorders have a poor prognosis for success. An intervention must take place and family involvement is imperative with the end result the person enters eating disorder treatment. The earlier a diagnosis takes place the better chance one has at recovery.