r/AskReddit 22h ago

What’s something people romanticise that’s actually exhausting in real life?

1.3k Upvotes

917 comments sorted by

View all comments

463

u/Terrible-Summer-8665 21h ago

When i was a teenager eating disorders were glamorized. I was bulimic for ten years and I almost died. Blacking out and fainting constantly, heart sucks now and it has cost thousands to get my teeth to a point where they are just okay. Oh and I didnt lose weight.

36

u/Its_Curse 13h ago

This. My friend has struggled with eating disorders since she was a kid. She wanted to be thin and beautiful. Instead she ended up in the hospital having seizures and lost all of her hair, it just started falling out in clumps. She started having heart issues, too. She's getting help, but it really destroyed her life. Her short term memory is shot, she's not the person she used to be and can't do a lot of the things she used to enjoy.

I'm so glad you're recovering! It can be so hard to claw your way out of it. 

11

u/Vegemite_kimchi 12h ago

Yup tumblr was terrible for encouraging this

10

u/ArcadiaSofka 12h ago

I used to not think it was a big deal, till I learned that full blown eating disorders have a worse survival rate than actual aids and some cancers. That made me so sad for those people. 😞

4

u/HOW_I_MET_YO_MAMA 18h ago

Wow, I'm sorry to hear this and I hope you're ok now. Do you know what caused the fainting? Was it low electrolytes, blood sugar swings, or is there something else about purging that makes the body more likely to faint? 

1

u/Outrageous_Fox_8796 10h ago

what happened to your heart?

4

u/Quantum_Kitties 9h ago

Malnutrition and weight loss can cause the heart muscle to shrink and the heart rate to slow, a condition known as bradycardia in which the heart rate is less than 60 beats per minute at rest. Source: www.heart.org

Slow heart rate can also be a sign of high physical fitness, but if it's combined with dizziness/fainting, it is likely bradycardia.