To most people, eating is the easiest thing in the world. But for an anorexic, someone whose life has for a long time been centred on extreme and rigid control over food, you could say that there is some degree of anxiety that comes with it.
Why is this so? To understand this, one must first understand the purpose that an eating disorder serves to the person living with it.
To a large extent, eating disorders have little to do with food and more to do with control. Engaging in restriction allows the anorexic to have autonomy and control, in a world where nothing is predictable and real problems are often painful or difficult to solve.
Anorexia is a distraction from real-life problems. It is a way to soothe and suppress difficult emotions. Self-flagellation and punishment, though painful, are highly effective in drawing attention away from whatever emotional difficulties the anorexic is facing, because it necessitates intense, unrelenting concentration on achieving conformity and control.
A person ill with anorexia is numb to the people, situations and relationships that are deemed ‘too difficult’ to deal with on one’s own terms. Anorexia deadens the heart and the soul.
This is not to say that food does not play a part. To the anorexic, food has an implicit moral dimension- eating “too much” invites guilt and shame for the perceived lack of control, excessiveness and lavishness, gluttony and sin. Therefore in order to avoid these feelings, food must be managed precisely and with great caution, lest one loses control.
This brings me to the topic of recovery.
A huge part of recovering from an eating disorder entails regaining the weight that you have lost.
The process of regaining weight means letting go of false ideals and replacing old, misguided beliefs with truths. Once upon a time, deprivation was good, restriction an achievement, emaciation a beautiful and desirable goal.
In recovery, one re-learns that food is good, that hunger signals are something to be welcomed and weight gain is something to be celebrated and rejoiced over. Though these facts are understood objectively by the recovering anorexic, it takes a tremendous amount of willpower and effort to tear down distorted thoughts and replace them with the truths.
The other great challenge is that, just like an alcoholic who is coming out of dependency, a recovering anorexic needs to find new ways of carrying on without the anchor of an eating disorder. When asked to eat more and gain weight, the anorexic is basically being asked to face up to a huge fear each day, every day. On top of this, he or she must also learn to confront difficult situations and problems, without using the eating disorder as a shield.
Everyone fights their own personal battles. For the anorexic, the battle is literally one of life or death: one either chooses to recover, or to remain in the shadows of a half-life, ending in destruction.
Facing up to these fears comes not without a huge struggle. Examples include waking in the morning and slipping into a paroxysm of panic, knowing that one cannot exercise to ‘purge off’ the inevitable intake of calories later in the day. Eating more, with greater regularity, and increasing the volume and variety of foods with each passing day and week. Eating, and carrying on after a meal, in spite of the intense guilt and anxiety.
As recovery progresses, old habits and routines that were dangerous and harmful have to be thrown off and replaced with new ones. These routines have to be repeated each day, in order to be sustained.
It is an exhausting effort- imagine tearing down a house and rebuilding it from ground up, only to have it torn down again the next day and having to lay the foundations over again.
The good news is, there are ways to make it easier. Keeping accountable to a treatment team or loved ones helps immensely. These are the people who love and care for you and therefore can be trusted to have your best interests at heart.
So it has been in my case. Leaning on my support system has helped me through countless difficult days, when hopelessness, frustration, anger and despair crept in. When my head, my heart, my values and my eating disorder were in raging conflict, all fighting for control.
When the thoughts kept coming and the tears kept flowing, they reminded me that feelings are just feelings and they will pass. They urged me to keep persisting, assured me that the time would come when things would get better and I would be able to cope when my emotions and thoughts became overwhelming.
Reminding oneself of the reasons for pursuing recovery as a goal is equally important. Athletes who run races do so with a desire to reach the finish line and earn their medal: likewise, recovery could be thought of as a race (a marathon, not a sprint) with the promise of multiple gold medals- restored physical and mental health, fulfilling relationships, and a deeper meaning and purpose to one’s life beyond achieving control.
To the person reading this who is going through recovery: be encouraged by the fact that recovery is difficult, but it is certainly not impossible. One must learn to be doggedly persistent and not give up despite the setbacks. There will be days where hopelessness and helplessness creep up, and victory seems impossible. But this is untrue.
And indeed, being “fully recovered” is obviously important, but at this point, the journey in recovery may be more significant than the end goal. The daily practice of sticking to healthy routines and being willing to sit with difficult feelings is immensely rewarding, because these will shape you into the person that you want to be.
Finally, though you may not see it presently, things will get better over time. The fight will become easier, and you will notice it in little signs of victory- bites that are less forced, the restoration of physical strength. Meals that do not revolve around isolation, anxiety and fear, but instead warmth, laughter and shared companionship.
Over time, with persistence and faith, you will reap the seeds of your sown efforts. You will have the energy to walk, laugh, breathe and thrive.
In short, you will have the energy to truly live.
#eatingdisorders #recovery #awareness #beatingstigma
S.L.
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