Competitiveness in eating disorders is something that I don't feel is discussed a lot. People feel ashamed of their eating disorders but another form of shame comes along with feeling competitive with others in the same situation as you.

For me personally I was quiet about my eating disorder for ten years so it was something I felt very attached to and protective of. I was jealous of other people that would openly talk about their issue and I would look at them with thoughts like "Yeah, well I'm ill too!" "I need help too.". This sounds so awful but eating disorders are awful. They change your mind set and make you think disturbing thoughts. My eating disorder would look at others that had eating disorders and tell me I wasn't sick enough, I didn't deserve help because I didn't look like that person which would then make me want to look as poorly as that person as a cry for help and a way to prove to people I was ill.
A time when I struggled with this most was the month leading up to me starting my group therapy because I was in the mind set that everyone was going to be slimmer than me and that they'd judge me so I needed to lose weight to look like them (I had never even met them before so had no reason to assume any of this). Your eating disorder wants you to be the thinnest one in the room which leads you into a vicious cycle of competitiveness and comparison.
When you have an eating disorder you don't ever win. No size will ever be "good enough."

I remember being in group therapy and I don't want to go into too much detail about it because it wouldn't be fair but there was a girl in the group who was more vocal about her struggles and it did feel like she was quite competitive about making sure she was seen as the worst and I remember getting mad about it during every session and I would rant about it to my mum. I would be thinking whys she saying these things? why does she think that? Why is she trying to make it out like she's had it harder than the rest of us? When in reality she was just being more vocal about what she had been doing than any of the rest of us. She was ill. I was ill. We were both in the same situation. We both deserved recovery.

Due to the attachment I had with my eating disorder I felt like it was mine and I didn't like it when somebody else expressed they had the same struggles because in a way, it felt like they were taking it away from me. I do think that the competitiveness comes from anger of the things that you've gone through and the things that you've done to yourself because to you the things that you have put yourself through are so huge so if you have somebody else saying I did this or I did that then it can feel like the behaviours you used yourself have been somehow dismissed and that hurts.

Now that I have got out of that mind frame and it does make me look back at old thoughts I used to have and think why?
Why did I ever want to be the unhealthiest?
What was so attractive about being seen as the unhealthiest?
The reality is I thought that way because I wanted to justify that I was poorly enough to get help. I wanted to know that the things I had put myself through weren't going to be ignored.

Everybody has their own story and their own struggles and there is no point comparing them with other  peoples. We are all worthy of recovery ❤️