Being poor

[windupbird]

I realised something today. I want to look good, feel confident when I'm out in the world, and feel in control of how I look.

Something I would really like, is to have nice clothes. To express myself through my clothes and for them to make me feel good and to enjoy how I look.

But I cannot buy these clothes. I cannot afford it. I simply don't have the disposable income. Which I'm okay with, I'm happy with the kind of work that I do and the 'career choices' I have made and the stage in my life that I'm at, whatever challenges these things present.

This does however lead me to want to control how I look in other ways, and is a contributing factor in developing and continuing to struggle with eating disorders (the logic of which I will not detail here).

I've never heard/read poverty or challenging financial situations cited as a contributing factor to EDs, or a common factor between people who develop them. Quite the opposite.

And with a generation of young adults supposedly worse off than their parents, stuck in low paid/unstable jobs, facing massive rent bills and the ridiculous task of saving toward a deposit on buying property (I like in the UK), alongside new cultures of 'clean living', social media portrayals of other people's lives, and mass media/advertising as pressurising as ever - are EDs getting more common?

Can anyone relate? Has anyone had similar feelings?

[lilybut]

you can have style without expensive clothes ? it is an interesting observation

my take on anorexia is not the given but I want to share it with others however my take makes me very unpopular bc I believe / know that anorexia is caused by demons sounds insane I know - but anyone who is separate from God has a God vacuum and demons can enter - when someone is desperate to lose weight the demon will come across as friendly - either by speaking to it's victim or presenting as an urge or "intstinct" it seems friendly and kind so it can get in - once you let it in it takes over telling you to not eat and to over exercise etc - my daughter got AN and I wanted to get to the source of it and this is what I found out - like I said people are against me all the time for saying this - they insist it is a mental illness - which it is of sorts but the source of it is demonic ? if we could see these demons they look like dark clouds or shadows

[windupbird in reply to lilybut]

I can see how that might be a divisive opinion!

I don't personally believe the source of eating disorders is religious, at all - however if religion/your relationship with god is a big part of your life and importantly your sense of self, then of course it can impact/contribute to eating disorders, just like anything else.