There is a very good book called 8 Keys to Recovery From an Eating Disorder by Carolyn Costin and Gwen Schubert Grabb. I have started the keys on numerous occasions in the past, but now I feel completely ready to tackle them all. There are multiple writing exercises within each key, so without giving away the entire contents of the book, over the course of eight weeks I want to share my recovery journey with you. The following is a composite of all my answers for this key.

FEEL YOUR FEELINGS, CHALLENGE YOUR THOUGHTS

Gwen: What am I supposed to do with all these feelings?

Carolyn: Feel them.

Okay, so I’m up to key four which is all about feelings. When I’ve done this in the past I felt there was so much WORK to do. Now I feel like I’m doing so many of the things already. So a lot of my answers for this key might be about past behaviour – not current. Which begs the question, why bother doing these keys at all? Well firstly, my black and white perfectionist thinking wants to make sure I get to the end of all eight keys at least once in my lifetime. And secondly, there’s always a lot to be learned no matter where you are in your journey. In fact, you don’t even need an eating disorder to be working on self-improvement. We all need it.

There are a whole pile of distorted thoughts we can succumb to and of the ten in the book, I can confidently say I tick eight of them.

I’m not always sure how these cognitive distortions served or protected me but I know what a hindrance they are. As a teacher, it’s easy to recognise things intellectually – I can see how behaviours impact outcomes, in myself and others. But head and heart don’t always live in accord.

The book then asks for a role-playing dialogue between distorted thoughts and healthy responses. I will just reiterate here how much I detest role-playing. But I’m nothing if not determined to do this key so here we go.

Automatic Thought: I’m beyond redemption.

Healthy Self: 50 years of learned behaviours and habits won’t change overnight.

Distorted Thought: I’ve been faffing around for so many years now and I seem to have gone backwards.

Healthy Self: It takes time to learn new ways of coping.

Distorted Thought: I seem to get more entrenched and comfortable with negative behaviours – it’s all one big backward slide.

Healthy Self: I may have faffed around for years, but it’s only recently I started working on serious change. Rome wasn’t built in a day. 

Distorted Thought: I’m fearful changes I make will be completely undone at the next distressing occurrence.

Healthy Self: If something unexpected and stressful happens, I now have a MUCH larger array of supportive tools and people around than I did a few years ago. It will be okay.

I challenge all of you to do a written dialogue of your internal thought processes. It’s not pretty…

Now the next task is to list all the associated feelings with the last eating disorder behaviours. I can honestly say – hand on my heart – my ED behaviours are disappearing. I had a purging relapse – once – about a month ago (bit more maybe?) and I was dipping tentative toes back into binging and restricting waters a few months back, but all in all, for the last three months I’ve been (for the most part) doing really well. The last month has been the best month of my eating life in – a decade. Or more. Since pre-lap band for sure. But, key four asks so here’s what I remember as associated feelings with ED (and other destructive) behaviours.

• Exhausted
• Teary
• Confused
• Fat
• Ashamed
• Anxious
• Depressed
• Lost

I just don’t feel that needs expanding upon. It’s all self-explanatory really.

The last time I “felt fat”.

This morning. Putting my jewellery on is always a depressing moment when I can “see” what’s happening to my body and I engage in the old dialogue of believing my true worth in life, is based on how I look. I know this isn’t true, but a healthy body image was the first thing in my life that I lost and might be the last thing I find. I’m working on it. I bought new clothes that actually fit me. That must count for something. Right?

I had spent my whole life protecting myself from the judgment of others by judging myself first and more harshly.

Gwen Schubert Grabb

The last exercise for this key is a feelings journal. I’m not going to spend a week cataloguing my feelings – although I don’t doubt for a moment that would be a very useful exercise. But I can tell you what I’ve felt this week.

• Distraught
• Content
• Worried
• Hopeful
• Afraid
• Relaxed
• Bereft
• Productive

And so many more things. I have in fact had an incredibly challenging couple of weeks – emotionally. I have been completely catatonic at times – curled up in a chair with a blanket, tears silently streaming down my face, incapable of doing anything more than sit. But I sat and felt the feelings. I have felt incredibly hopeful about different aspects of my life. So I sat and acknowledged the feelings. I have felt overwhelmingly worried about people and places. But I let the feelings pass. I have felt unrecognisably content. And I soaked the moment in.

To be brutally honest, I don’t like this feeling stuff. I have always been hypersensitive – prone to big wide emotional swings but I’ve never let myself feel them before. Feelings feel shameful. I have said, again and again, I was an emotional robot for 50 years. All those emotions sat inside and poisoned me from the inside out. Now they seep from my pores and I have no choice but to feel them. The good, the bad and the ugly.