How do I motivate myself to eat?
For years I used food deprivation to punish myself or to cope with overwhelming emotions. When I started therapy, I thought if I could address the emotional side of things, my weird ideas and struggles with eating would disappear, but they haven't and turning down the volume on the self hating voice in my head that discourages eating is proving to be hard. And just fundamentally, sometimes finding the motivation to think of and buy or prepare food is more than I can handle. I've found that distracting myself with TV while I eat or prepping meals in advance when I feel okay increases the likelihood that I'll eat, but I was wondering if anyone has suggestions for how they drum up the motivation to keep nourishing themselves.
@KSicily, I have a similar problem, I just never want to eat. It's so much work and often overwhelming. One way I deal with it is that I admited my issue to a good friend and to a coworker I'm very close with. They happen to love food and eating out, so they often talk about food. Sometimes just talking about food in such a normal and natural way reminds me that I need to prepare and eat something, but they also make a point to ask me if I've eaten anything recently. They don't make me feel guilty, just encourage me to come out to lunch/dinner with them, or give me an idea for a quick and easy meal that requires so little effort it doesn't feel overwhelming to me. It was hard to admit my problem to them, but they've been very understanding and genuinely want to help take care of me. Maybe you can find someone who can help remind you that eating is both important and good.
I lost 10 kg last year, I couldn't cook (too hard), I couldn't keep food in my stomach the rare times I was eating (food was making me feel sick all the time, I was throwing up even after just one bite sometimes) and I was associating food with my feelings, so I thought it was impossible to get any better. I asked the same question you asked so many times without getting a good answer.
Now I got my weight back, I'm always hungry, I even enjoy cooking. Most of it came from my mental health improving of course, but I can tell you how I started eating, hopefully it can help you. Also I don't know how bad your situation is, I was probably eating one meal every three days, so I really had to start from basics.
My advise is easy: fruits and vegetables. I'm not vegan or vegetarian, I actually didn't like vegetables that much, but this helped me get through it. Cooking was hard so I was always eating the same shit, unhealthy food that was easy to prepare but difficult to digest and was giving me no energy.
Raw fruit and raw vegetables are the easiest thing to eat (you buy them, you wash them, you eat them), they're easy to digest, they're healthy, they give you energy (more than I was expecting), they also have a lot of water and that's good for people like me that don't even drink that much. I'm not saying this should become your usual diet, it's clearly not enough, but it's a good way to start. Buy a lot of fruits and vegetables (A LOT) and just start eating one. After one hour try to eat another one. Try to eat small amounts of food very often, just keep something close to you so everytime you feel like trying to eat, you have something ready to be eaten, with no effort. Every time you see you manage to eat something, even just a banana or a peach, it gets better, you feel better about yourself.
After a while things changed for me, knowing that my body wasn't feeling like shit every time I was putting something into my stomach made me feel better about eating and I started buying other food again. At first I was making salads putting some beans, cheekpeas, cheese,other things I didn't have to cook. Then I started making rice, pasta, meat. It took a long time, but I think it helped a lot. It's like being a baby again, educating yourself and your body to eat.
Second thing, as someone already suggested, try to involve other people. People can help you cooking, can distract you while you're eating, it's always good to have someone around.
See if it can help, I really hope you can get better.
@BlackWater thank you for posting I think this will help me too. It gives me somewhere to start :)
Really great advice, everyone. 
@KSicily A piece of advice a good friend who struggled with remembering to eat due to work recently gave me: Put reminders to eat everywhere. Sticky notes on your computer screen, make it your phone background, etc.
And if you aren't feeling like preparing a meal, just take the ingredients, as far as they can be eaten raw, and eat them. Like, instead of making a sandwich, just eat some bread and whatever you like on a sandwich.
Hey yall. So I have the same problem, but it happens because of eating around my mom. And being around mom puts my brain in danger mode. So it associates eating with danger and just all around decides that eating is bad. Ive recovered from this once, but since school started Im back and its starting to happen again. I figured Id just not eat around mom and eat other times, but she decided to make me eat with her and my stepdad every night. What should I do?
@TheatreNerdQueen I get that, I'm pretty sensitive about eating around people in general cause I think they're all judging me. What is it about your mom that puts you in danger mode?