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Tag: disordered eating

WHAT’S IN IT FOR ME?

I am trying to figure out why I indulge in actions that disgust me, but I do anyway. Sure – most of them are inherent behaviours. But I’m not as silly as I look – I do have the capacity to learn and change. My mental health stuff has become appallingly resistant to change. There is nothing we do that is without benefit to us. Nothing. Even all those things we do “for other people”, it turns out, there is also something in it for us.

FAILURE ISN’T A FEELING & FEELINGS AREN’T FACTS

Food tastes like failure.
I don’t savour beautiful textures and flavours. I never mindfully and sensuously nibble delicacies, inhaling aromas and luxuriating in the tantalising sensations on my tastebuds. When I eat, I scoff food down like a starving woman fighting a horde of ravenous dogs, scratching around for the last morsel on a carcass. Washed down with guilt and loathing and fear, and an overwhelming sense of failure – I’ve done it again. I’ve eaten food I didn’t want, in a manner I didn’t like. I’ve failed myself. Food tastes like failure. Day in and day out – I eat failure or I don’t eat at all.
And that failure is an emotion so powerful it’s almost tangible – I could reach out and touch it. Food tastes like failure and failure is a feeling.
But that’s a lie.

VOICES

There’s a war in my head. Some days it gets so loud in there, it gives me a headache. A real one.
The voice nattering incessantly in my ear is not a healthy voice. It’s a familiar one. It feels like a safe one. But that voice is an expert manipulator, liar and thief.
There’s another little voice in the dark – the voice of reason and wisdom, sense and sensibility – but that voice is weak and timid. It has never learned to stand up to the manipulator.

REASONS

My psychologist talked about recovery, and I said (amongst other things), what’s in it for me? Which sounds appallingly self-interested – because it is! But it is the crux of my recovery issue. Everything I do in my life, is for other people – even my recovery. And without having intrinsic reasons to travel this rocky road, it is nigh on impossible to keep trudging along.

BORN IN A BODY

What my body didn’t know when it was born, was that it wasn’t the “right” shape. It wasn’t the “right” size. It wasn’t the “right” colour. That while it functioned in a beautiful, healthy and practical manner, aesthetically it didn’t conform to the ideal of beauty, espoused by those who raised me and the society in which they lived.

TOO GOOD TO EAT

I have been bulimic, on and off, for 30 years – although I developed anorexic behaviours during a breakdown earlier this year, and was (ludicrously) thrilled to bits. But my disordered eating behaviours began way, way earlier than my 20s. In fact, I have no recollection – whatsoever – of having healthy eating thoughts and behaviours, or positive body image and self-esteem. I’m (supposed to be) all grown up now – so casting blame is pointless – I am old enough to take responsibility for my beliefs and actions. But life is rarely simple. Developing my eating disorder was like a jigsaw – a whole gamut of pieces came together to form disordered thinking and maladaptive behaviours. This is how my personal puzzle evolved.