Public and Private

That difference between what we show others and what is really going on can be enormous. For me, a critical part of recovery was healing that disconnect so that ate the same alone as I did in front others. One weird side effect of the shame and secret behaviors was that at the time (I'm talking 30 years ago), my own public/private behavior was so deceptive that I began believing anyone who was smaller than I was had a worse eating disorder. So many times our assumptions about others are a reflection of what's going on with us. We can never really know what they're thinking or how they're eating because we color it with our own beliefs.