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Table 2 Overview of themes, subthemes and example quotations

From: “Your mind doesn’t have room for anything else”: a qualitative study of perceptions of cognitive functioning during and after recovery from anorexia nervosa

Theme/subtheme

Quotation

Poor mental and physical state associated with starvation

“And I think, with time everything's generally got a bit harder, I think, early on my body tolerated not eating enough and being at a low weight better than it would do now.” (P06)

Physical consequences

“Like my health conditions, like physically I was feeling absolutely like awful because through the years, like four or five years, I had this condition, um, my health drastically… drastically became worse.” (P20)

Brain function

“…I really do feel like I've lost some part of. Like working part of my brain, I really do feel like that…” (P01)

Difficulties relating to cognition and brain capacity

“But when I’m in a relapse, my brain is not working, at all, very well.” (P10)

Poor information processing

Autopilot

Attentional bias

Alterations in memory

“when I had anorexia I just remember, like people speaking and I just be like trying to like comprehend their words and just trying to like piece it all together and like… it was like a real effort to make sense” (P13)

Overcontrolled and rigid repertoire

“it's obviously quite irrational so sometimes if I had certain routines or things I had to do, I’d have to do them first before I could do anything else” (P02)

Accommodating AN

“I mean in a way it hasn't, I've adapted so that I am able to live my life alongside it.” (P02)

A narrowed focus

“You don't value anything else. Um really, because that is like the main priority, is losing weight and so when you don't value anything else, you don't attribute meaning to anything else.” (P12)

Salient anorexic identity

“Sometimes I feel like when I’m labelled as having an eating disorder and put in inpatient or institutions, that’s when it flares up because then that’s suddenly all I am, all I have.” (P02)

High achievements despite personal sacrifice

“I still kind of got good grades, first year of university, I did a lot better than I have since then because I wasn't really doing anything else.” (P14)

Depression and anxiety entangled within AN

“My obsessive thoughts get worse, and my mood, if I'm at a very low weight, my body struggling, my mood can get worse as well” (P05)

Depression as an antecedent and consequence

“Although sometimes there's, a point which, if my weight is going down. That can alleviate my mood which enables me to be more flexible… which is where the difficulties come in, because I mean that, that happy spot doesn't last very long.” (P06)

Dichotomy between emotional reactivity and blunting

“…I've become like obviously not fuelling myself properly, so I think you just become way more sensitive and more emotional but also numb at the same time, if that makes sense.” (P01)

Tentative optimism about the future

“I'm not sure it [AN] will ever fully go away, but.. yeah, as I said, having a better quality of life than I have now” (P08)

Recovery representing liberation

“…it's being able to. To run again and to exercise but also not compulsively and the ability to maintain a job. And although I do like my routine maybe to be a bit more flexible, so I can say yes to things more.” (P08)

Identity as liberation

“…at the time I was like, I don’t have a favourite colour, I don't have a favourite book, I don’t have any hobby, like, I'm-. I just felt like a shell, whereas now I feel so developed, like, I know who I am and what I like.” (P16)