Can I eat that?
It shows up in all different ways. At different times. For different people.
Our relationship with food and bodies. With shapes and sizes. With scales, weights, intakes, outputs.
No matter what age or gender you are. It doesn’t discriminate. It doesn’t just show up in the stereotypical angsty teen. I’m talking about the world of eating disorders (ED).
There is a foundational puritism thinking trap about it; that there’s some sort of ‘right’ that we’re searching for. Something perfect, something… enough. “When I reach X kg, then I’ll stop. When I reach X amount of calories eaten, that’s my limit for the day. When I burn X kilojoules, only then can I call it a day at the gym, or end the walk or run.” etc. Exhausting.
We make bargains, rules, agreements, negotiations, allowances, strategies within our minds. We stop doing activities of movement or sports or dinner catch ups with friends for pleasure and enjoyment, and everything, EVERYTHING, becomes related to reaching or maintaining ‘the goal’ and monitoring and protecting fiercely the regimented process of what is allowed in and what must come out / off. ED can be tricky, but we never really fool ourselves. Exhausting.
I hear people ask me, “When will it stop? I just want to be free of it, have a clear and peaceful head. It’s never not there.” Eating disorder brains can be all consuming. Relentless. The constant background buzz in the brain, by which all inputs and outputs are monitored. The silent prison.
The truth is, there can be huge shame with ED. And like with anything, shame is the number thing to address first and attempt to move out of the way, with compassion and acceptance.
Finding someone who gets it can be beyond validating and liberating. It can be hard for professionals to know what the inner workings of the ED brain and behaviours can be like without a lived experience, but there’s some good ones out there. Finding words to describe your experiences can be hard, but give it a go if you can, even if it doesn’t make sense. It can also be excruciatingly hard to try to explain it to loved ones (if we get brave or vulnerable enough to do so - and it feels / is safe enough to do so), especially if they haven’t had a lived experience of it. But bearing in mind, it’s pretty hard to find a person that hasn’t had some form of disordered cognitions or behaviours towards food and body these days.
If you can slowly, safely open up to a person who can offer compassionate acceptance, then you’re in with a helluva chance of changing. ED needs to be witnessed in some way shape or form to take steps towards reducing the shame and secrecy of it. If your partner can reassure you that you' can do (or not do) what you like, that it doesn’t change how they think or feel about you, and they won’t try to change you… I mean, wow. If you and your partner/s or household can move with a little more ease with it, it’ll help reduce the shame. If you don’t have to hide it, it’ll peter out over time and find its’ natural equilibrium. It’s a significant first step.
If you’d like to explore some questions about your relationship with food, eating/intake, exercise or your body, check out this evidence based free online questionnaire (EDE-Q) to help give you some professional feedback in the comfort and privacy of your own space.
Australian national organisation on eating disorders, The Butterfly Foundation, also has a similar free brief risk screening tool here you can complete online also.
For further self-education, check out some:
The main message is, help is out there and you are not alone. See if you can inch towards taking whatever your first or next step is. But hold on to your little person inside as you do it, because ED starts at very young ages and they are likely pretty scared you’ll take ED away from them.
