I’ve spent most of this weekend transcribing interviews I’ve conducted with experienced therapists who work solely with clients presenting with eating disorders. Listening to their experiences and reflecting on my own, both with clients I’ve worked with, and my own history, has left me feeling really sad at the depths of despair that some people using eating disordered behaviour are experiencing.
As someone with past experience of both Anorexia and Bulimia, I’m also left feeling full of gratitude, that although I did spend many years lost in the despair associated with disordered eating, I was one of the lucky ones. Psychologically, and emotionally, I suffered deeply for a number of years, but my physical health was never compromised to any dangerous extent. When I hear, or read about, some of the extreme practices that some people with eating distress are driven to use, I feel thankful, that although I did self-starve, I did binge and purge, I never did so to a point where my life was in imminent danger … many people do. Indeed, many people lose their lives to eating distress; how sad that the very substance that nurtures us and keeps us alive, can, when an individual develops a complex relationship with it, lead to some peoples’ death.
I find it desperately sad to reflect on the individual with Anorexia, who, although she is starving, feels she has to deny herself food, has to deny her own bodily hunger, because she feels unworthy of food. Because she feels so worthless that her bodily needs don’t deserve to be satisfied. Because she feels so worthless, she feels that she doesn’t deserve to exist. I remember the absolute terror and fear associated with food and eating … of being hungry, of wanting to eat, but of an overwhelming fear, a sense of terror, that wouldn’t allow me to.
And then I read and hear about some of the extremes some people with Bulimia go to, the huge amounts of food they can binge on, stealing to get that food, eating raw, or frozen food because they’re so desperate. And again, yes, I binged, but never to those extremes. It makes me reflect though on the absolute despair, self-disgust, shame and fear I used to experience before, during and after a binge / purge. And the inability to control it … not wanting to binge, knowing it would just lead to me feeling bad about myself, to feeling disgusted, and knowing I’d have to ‘get rid’ of that food before it became visible on my body as increased weight. Not wanting to purge and make myself sick, because I was aware of the disgust and shame I’d feel afterwards, and the fear (again, sometimes terror) as to the potential damage I was doing to my body and my health.
And yet, although eating distress seems to focus on food, that’s not what it’s really about. Eating Disorders are coping mechanisms individuals develop in order to survive. They are complex conditions with many factors leading to their development and maintenance … and consequently, this makes them so difficult to treat. Every individual experiencing eating distress has their own individual story … and hence every individual needs help to understand their own unique and personal meaning behind, and need for, their behaviour. Everyone’s path through, and out of an eating disorder will be different. It won’t always be easy, but for many people (sadly not all), there is a way out. And it’s about understanding the symbolic meaning of their use of food, and their behaviour. What purpose is it serving? What more effective ways can they find of coping with life, coping with their Self and their feelings, so that they now longer need to rely on food …
And speaking from personal experience … there is a way forward, free from eating distress…
No comments:
Post a Comment