Body's pain is not an alarm, but a distress signal

An eating disorder is not a weakness, but a battle between the left hand and the right hand.

Eating and purging are, at their core, the body's ways of processing emotions. Humans begin to establish a sense of security through eating from the oral stage of development. When real-life pressures cannot be resolved — whether academic stress, family conflicts, or self-doubt — the body may convert anxiety into a response to food.

I had a patient who was a middle school student who felt immense guilt due to her mother's smothering devotion. Her mother frequently said, "My entire life is for you; I divorced and will not remarry for your sake."

These words became a mental burden for the girl and eventually led to severe purging behavior. The child was unable to refuse her mother's kindness and could only symbolically expel the love she couldn't bear through vomiting.

Patients are both the creators of the problem and the solvers, which often leads them to reject external help.

Even if symptoms improve, treatment is far from over.

The disappearance of symptoms is like extinguishing a fire, but the repair of brain neurotransmitters still requires continued medication for 3 to 6 months, or even longer. If underlying conflicts remain unresolved, suppressing one symptom only creates more dangerous outlets, such as self-harm or severe depression.

These patients are often the most sensitive and kindhearted individuals. They choose to harm themselves rather than others — redirecting the aggression intended for the outside world toward their own bodies.

That girl who induced vomiting is, at her core, processing the pain of an unbearable mother-daughter relationship. Society often misinterprets this as a lack of willpower, when in fact it is a strong self-preservation instinct that gives rise to the symptoms.

I don't think they're bad — these patients are the most sensitive and self-aware individuals. Their intense self-battle demonstrates that their psychological strength surpasses that of ordinary people.

Those acts of binge eating or self-induced vomiting are the body's wise attempt at self-preservation.

They absolutely deserve a better life. Current methods such as purging are merely Plan A, but there will always be other plans. True healing begins with believing someone is willing to stand by their side.

Forcing patients to "eat normally" is like telling an anxious person to "stop being anxious", which only exacerbates feelings of loss of control. What we need to do is uncover the emotional roots, analyze family dynamics, societal stressors, or traumatic memories, and address the true source of the problem.

When patients believe "I deserve to live well" — they may stop fighting against their bodies.

The body's pain is not an alarm, but a distress signal — someone is fighting to save them, and that someone is themselves.

Shi Yu talked to Wei Wangyu.