We’ve been talking lately about myths of eating disorders and some clients have brought up that their family members and friends believe that they’re cured because they are out of treatment or out of residential treatment. 

I’m going home in a few weeks and I want to start by saying. 

I Am NOT Cured. 

And that is OKAY. 

It’s still a process. We are told so many times that recovery isn’t linear. There will be good days, there will be hard days. There will be days that I will be so deep in my eating disorder, but eventually they will be fewer and fewer. That is the goal. 

Yes, I am going home. But no, I am not recovered. 

Yes, I eat more. But no, I am not recovered. 

Yes, I have hit my maintain weight goal. But no, I am not recovered.

Treatment has taught me and given me the skills to not need my eating disorder. It has taught me that there are other ways to cope with life. I wish I could say I use those skills every time something happens. However, that’s not realistic. It isn’t always my first initial thought, but it’s still there. It should still be there as an option. I’ve been in treatment for just over 3 months, and have had my eating disorder for most of my life. It isn’t realistic to expect someone in recovery who is just getting out of treatment to be behavior free or think that those thoughts won’t still be there. 

Remember that for most people who are coming out of intense treatment, the urges to use behaviors are going to be higher than ever. Remember that this has been our main use for coping for most of their life. Remember that we aren’t perfect. Remember that when we use a behavior once or twice, it doesn’t mean we are relapsing. Remember that when we are struggling, it doesn’t mean we didn’t learn anything from treatment. Remember that some days are going to be harder than others. Remember that we are trying. 

When I go home, I am not finished with treatment. I am not going home with the same mindset I had leaving, which means I won’t let my eating disorder run my life.  I will be stepping down to my outpatient team which consists of a dietician, psychologist, psychiatrist, and primary physician. The work is still continuing and will be for some time. I ask for people to be patient with me. To know and believe that I am trying my hardest. 

I am working on a new life where I won’t need to rely on an eating disorder. 

Dear Eating Disorder, Ed, Anorexia, the other part of me,

You’ve made one of the biggest impacts in my life. Thank you? It seems weird to be writing a thank you letter to you, but you’ve helped me through a lot. I wish that weren’t the case, but I can’t change that. 

Thank you for always being there. You had my back. You were there for me during my worst days and during my best days. You were there for every celebration, for every sorrow, for every new experience that I had. You protected me when I couldn’t deal with my reality. You helped me cope with my life even when I didn’t realize it. You were a constant. You controlled my anger. Sadness. Guilt. Shame. You made me numb. Thank you. Because at the time, that’s what I needed. 

Thank you for giving me a sense of control when everything around me seemed to be falling apart. You grounded me. With you, I knew I could restrict all day.  With you I knew you’d be okay with that. I was pleasing something.  I had control. 

Thank you for forcing me to hit my breaking point with you. Because of you, I hit my lowest moments in life. Because of you, I ended up in a residential treatment facility. Because of you, I was able to get to the root of my problems. Because of you, I was able to figure out where my negative core beliefs come from. Because of you, I was able to learn more about myself. Because of you, I was able to begin the work of learning new positive core beliefs. For all that, I say Thank You.   

But now, it’s time for me to say goodbye to you. You’re no longer needed in my life. I don’t need you to play that role for me anymore. I am learning how to manage without you. 

Thank you & Goodbye.

It’s just food.

I have heard that so many times. I wish that’s all it was. Before entering residential treatment a few months ago, encountering food was very stressful. (It still is at times- like I’ve said, I’m in recovery, not recovered.)

Here are the thoughts that ran through my mind when sitting down for a meal:

How many calories are in this?

I’ve already eaten today, so I can’t eat too much.

I’ve already eaten today, I don’t need to eat again.

I haven’t eaten today, so I can eat this.

Make sure my portion is small.

But make sure it’s not too small for people notice.

I’m really not hungry.

Today was a shitty day, I don’t need to eat.

Today was a good day, I don’t need to eat.

Why do I need to eat?

I’m going to get fat if I eat this.

I’m not hungry.

I’m not hungry.

I’m not hungry.

If I had a dollar for every time I thought or I said I’m not hungry,  I would be a very rich person. I mean for any of those thoughts, but especially that one. I think all of my friends and family can say that they’ve heard me say any of those phrases.

For me, there was so much calculation that had to happen before eating. Every once in a while there would be a rare moment that I would get what I wanted to eat and actually eat all of it. But most of the time I would get what I wanted to eat, then not finish it. Or skip eating altogether. That would be the easiest. I’d have to take into account how much I had ate that day or the day before. If I ate a lot more than usual one day, I wouldn’t eat as much or at all the next day.

Eating was anxiety provoking, whether people could see it or not. My eating disorder voice was going 1000 miles a minute giving me reasons for why I didn’t need to eat. It gave me all the excuses I needed. I believed all of the excuses. I used all of the excuses. I only needed to eat enough for survival.

For me, it’s wasn’t just food. It was a constant internal battle between my healthy self and eating disorder self. Most of the time my eating disorder self won. Food was going to hurt me. Change me. Make me hate myself for eating it.

NOW. It’s just food. Not all the time, but it’s getting more like that. I sit down for a meal or a snack and I think to myself, it’s just food; it’s not going to hurt me. Food tastes good, it keeps me from not dying. That’s a good thing. My eating disorder wants me to believe that food is dangerous and restricting is good way to cope with whatever I am dealing with. Let me tell you. It’s not. Everyday I have to tell myself it’s just food. 

The following phases are from a section  from the 8 Keys to Recovery From an Eating Disorder by Carolyn Costin and Gwen Schubert Grabb.

1. I don’t think I have a problem.

• It’s my body so leave me alone.
• There are people who are a lot thinner (worse) than I am.

It’s interesting looking back now and thinking how it wasn’t a problem. Even on the days when I wouldn’t eat all day and just consider it normal. Weighing myself and seeing the scale drop to a lower number, I still didn’t think it was a problem. Like they said above, it was my body and there were people who were a lot thinner than me. I wasn’t that thin. My eating disorder grabbed hold of that thought and held on as tight as it could.

2. I might have a problem but it’s not that bad.

• I only throw up once in a while.
• My physical didn’t show anything wrong so I am OK.

I remember when I realized I might have a problem. I was in the middle of high school. Of course it wasn’t that bad then. My pediatrician just told me the same thing he had told me my whole life, you need to eat more, you’re underweight. Nothing new. But nothing else, nothing concerning, so of course it couldn’t have been that bad. It was just a mild eating disorder. Ha. Oh how the eating disorder voice rationalizes everything.

3. I have a problem but I don’t care.

• I know throwing up isn’t good for me, but it’s working for me so I don’t care.
• I could change if I wanted to, but I don’t.

A significant trauma event happened weeks before I moved to Bend. I didn’t know anyone in Bend besides my parents and brother. I was alone. I was sad. I was hurt. I was angry. I was depressed. I hadn’t told my family or friends about the event because I was scared and I hoped I could just forget about it when I moved. Apparently that doesn’t work. Instead, I turned to my eating disorder. Restriction was working for me. It gave me a sense of control.  At that point my life I didn’t care about anything. I hated everything. I hated myself. So why not keep starving myself. I deserved it, right?

4. I want to change but I don’t know how and I’m scared.

• I want to eat normally, but I am afraid I will get fat (gain weight).
• I want to stop binging, but I can’t figure out where to start.

In January of 2018, I went to the movies with my parents and one of my brother’s and I passed out going to get popcorn. I remember feeling a little dizzy, but I never thought I would’ve passed out. The next thing I remember is being woken up by the lady who had taken my order and a gentleman who was apparently in line behind me. I was lying flat on my back. It was a terrifying moment for me. Luckily I was going to see my physician that week. I knew my anorexia was getting the best of me. I didn’t know how to stop it though. I met with my friend who is a dietician and she referred me to my current dietician who specializes in eating disorders. I was forming my outpatient team without even realizing it. I was meeting with a therapist and dietician every week, a psychiatrist and physician a few times a month. I was getting labs done to see where my levels were. Little did I know in January that I needed a higher level of care. I finally told my family in May that I was anorexic. A few days after that I passed out again at home. I had a pretty bad concussion and wasn’t allowed to go back to serving. I didn’t go back to work the rest of the summer. Even after passing out again, I still thought I was fine. I began to look into residential treatment centers with my dietician. I was scared. I was in denial. I was defeated. I couldn’t work. I couldn’t go on hikes. I couldn’t live my life. I had trips planned in the summer and I told my dietician and physician to let me go on those. If I can stabilize myself, let me wait until the end of the summer to go into residential. I did stabilize myself. I learned the tools to do that. I did what I had to do while traveling to make sure I wouldn’t end up in the hospital.

5,  I tried to change but I couldn’t.

• I told myself I would not (fill in the blank) but I found myself doing it again.
• I don’t feel like I can really ever (change) get well, so why keep trying?

It wasn’t enough for me though. I couldn’t keep it up without more support. After my trip and even during, I was still skipping meals. I didn’t want to eat. The voices in my head were getting louder. I didn’t want to gain weight. I didn’t want my body to change. If anything I wanted to get skinnier. I would hear that I was gaining weight and immediately would want to lose it. But I wasn’t allowed to work out because I could pass out. My parents got rid of the scale in the house so I would stop checking my weight multiple times a day. At the end of August, I was admitted to a Monte Nido residential facility.

6. I can stop some of the behaviors but not all of them.

• I could stop purging, but I will not be able to eat more.
• My heating has gotten better, but my exercise is out of control.

I was in residential for exactly two months. In residential we ate three meals and three snacks every day. I am proud that I didn’t ever refuse a meal. There was no way for me to restrict in residential which was really hard for me to accept. Obviously, a good thing. But very difficult. There were still behaviors. I started eating a lot slower at meals and snacks. I was still self-harming. As we were diving into my life and reasons that fueled my eating disorder, the urge to restrict was so strong. My body was changing and I had no control over it.

7. I can stop the behaviors, but not my thoughts.

• I can’t stop thinking about food and bingeing all the time.
• I keep counting calories over and over in my head and still want to lose weight.

That’s where I am at now.

8. I am often free from behaviors and thoughts, but not all the time.

• I feel fine all day, but under stress I revert back to my unhealthy behaviors.
• I was fine, but wearing a bathing suit triggered my eating disorder thoughts, and with it some related behaviors.

9. I am free from behaviors and thoughts.

• I feel mostly OK in my body and am able to eat things I want and not feel guilty or anxious afterwards.
• Once I had stopped the behaviors for a period of time, at some point I realized that I was no longer having thoughts or urges.

10. I am recovered.

• For a long time now, I no longer have thoughts, feelings, or behaviors related to my eating disorder.
• I accept my body’s natural size. My eating disorder is a thing of the past.

 

My therapist says that eating disorders are a form of communication. I’ve learned that it’s been my way of communicating being hurt, sad, angry, happy, excited, nervous, stressed out, proud, etc. ED’s may have started out trying to convey an unpleasant feeling, but as time went on, it conveyed all of my emotions.

I’ve been trying to communicate with my anorexia for so long that I use it for all of my feelings. It seems easier to use it than to actually say the words that I am trying to communicate. Or at least that’s what I’ve led myself to believe. I’ve used it a lot to numb out my feelings, especially anger. I’ve never liked feeling anger. I didn’t know what to do with it other than be self-destructive. Either with self-harm or my eating disorder. An incredible woman, author, activist, Glennon Doyle wrote in her book Love Warriors that her anger is:

“the ocean. There are moments of calm and stillness and then, without warning, the disturbance begins beneath my skin, churning, gathering power until there is nothing I can do but surrender and ride it out.”

Doyle’s description of anger resonated with me on two levels. First, that’s how my ED was. It would be calm and not a huge deal at times, but then out of nowhere something would happen and I would be in a full spiral of restricting and I would just ride out the spiral. Looking back, often times it was when I was angry. Second, as I have tapped into my feelings in residential treatment, I learned how to express my anger, and again, it seemed as if it would come out of nowhere and I would just have to ride it out. The difference being, I wasn’t using behaviors. I wasn’t starving myself to numb the pain. I truly felt the pain, sat with it, and was able to verbally express it. Instead of using my ED behavior to communicate my feelings, I replaced it with words.

I’ve started taking my power back and communicating my needs, wants, and feelings. Obviously it’s still a work in progress because I’m just starting to do this. But let me tell you, it’s way better than starving myself. Some days it’s really hard. Just have to take it one day at a time, one meal at a time, and sometimes one bite at a time.

1. Get over it.
2. Just eat.
3. Are you sure you should be eating that?
4. Just exercise.
5. That’s too many calories.
6. That’s not enough calories.
7. You’re fine.
8. How much do you weigh?
9. It’s not that hard to eat.
10. You look so healthy.
11. You look so unhealthy.
12. You don’t look like you have an eating disorder.
13. Why can’t you just eat like a normal person?
14. Why is it taking you so long to get over your eating disorder?

I also want to add, a lot of these things you shouldn’t even say to people in general.

I am not recovered. Not yet, at least. Right now I am recovering.

My eating disorder has affected my life in every single way. Whether I knew it or not. My eating disorder was alway with me. From the day I started hiding food and throwing it away when I was really young to continuing behaviors as a means of control or coping until I was 22. My relationship with food was never healthy. I was underweight from the day I was born, malnourished, and I shouldn’t have survived. I did. However, I survived with anorexia and almost died from anorexia.

I didn’t choose to have an eating disorder. I didn’t choose to be born underweight. I didn’t choose to go through traumatic events.

I didn’t choose it.

I didn’t choose it.

I didn’t choose it.

I tell myself that everyday.

I was deep in my eating disorder and trained my brain to use restriction as a coping mechanism. I trained my body to not want food. I shrunk my stomach. When the behaviors started, I didn’t stop right away, and the disorder eventually consumed my every thought, every move, every bite, and I started believing the lies the disorder was telling me. I was seeing through the lens of an eating disorder.

You’re fat. People won’t like you if you aren’t skinny. You don’t need to eat that. You don’t need to eat today. Take a bite. Throw it away. Take a bite. Give the rest to someone. Take a bite. Feel guilty and resent yourself for eating. Belittle yourself because that’s what you deserve. Restrict. Restrict. Restrict. Look at the scale. Too high. Restrict. Restrict. Restrict. You aren’t beautiful. You aren’t smart. You aren’t good enough. If you don’t eat, people will like you. You’ll fit the image that people have of you. You’re little. That’s who you are. Don’t change that. Restrict. Restrict. Restrict.

I took pride in being able to starve myself for days. It was addicting. I had survived this many days without eating or maybe only eating one meal, what’s one more day? I took pride in how skinny I was. I thought that’s what defined me. Without my eating disorder who am I?

In high school after volleyball games we would go out to eat as a team. I rarely would eat. I would say I wasn’t hungry. At home, I would say I ate. With friends I would say do you want the rest of this?  I taught my brain to turn off hunger cues. When? I don’t know. Over time. I rewired my brain and body to constantly be in fight or flight mode. 24/7. My body kept fighting with the little energy it was receiving until one day it stopped fighting. One day it wanted me to realize how much it was hurting. I ignored those cues. I was fine. Passing out happens. I’m invincible. I’m still alive, right? I started eating a little more to get my body back to “normal.” My normal. Added a meal or snack here and there. Just enough to keep myself afloat. But not enough for noticeable changes. Had to keep that flat stomach. I had to keep my weight under a specific number. I weighed myself multiple times a day. Making sure I wasn’t giving myself too much food.

I was fine.

Fine meant hurting, self-hatred, suicidal, lying, failing, depressed, disconnected, dying inside.

I had my eating disorder and it was fulfilling my needs. It numbed me. It was my secret. My eating disorder said I was fine. My eating disorder controlled my life. That is the eating disorders goal. It wants nothing more than to control every aspect of your life. I wanted something to control and in turn it controlled my life even more.

They say it’s not about the food, it’s about the food. In the grand scheme of everything, it isn’t about the food. My eating disorder covered up the pain and struggles that were going on. It was a coping mechanism to deal with my reality. However, it ruined my relationship with food. It ruined my life.

I didn’t choose anorexia.

I am choosing to face my demons.

I am choosing to face my trauma.

I am choosing to rebuild my relationships.

I am choosing to do the hard work.

I am choosing to fight against the eating disorder.

I am choosing to find my self-worth.

I am choosing to find my identity without an eating disorder.

I am choosing recovery.

              And one day I will be recovered.