Many of us get that āEating disorders arenāt about food or weightā because itās the number one phrase that gets shouted from the rooftops by Eating disorder sufferers & Eating disorder support organisations (for good reason) it was/is such a damaging misconception. But what many people still donāt understand, is what they ARE actually about.
I feel like people avoid talking about what Eating disorders are about because they are SO complex, there are often many, many layers, an accumulation of different factors. It gets complicated. The most common phrase I hearā¦āI know that Eating disorders arenāt about food or weightā¦itās about control.ā Yeah. Often this is the case, the desire for control is hugely common but itās a terribly over simplified explanation. The reasons behind the disorder are as individual as the sufferer him/herself, so itās risky territory listing possible causesā¦But Iām writing this in the hope that it helps to broaden understanding of this illness and to shed some light into some of the darker, less spoken about underlying issues.
Itās not about food or weightā¦Itās about feeling unsafe in the world. Itās about feeling like we canāt trust anyone, not even ourselves. The Eating Disorder becomes āthe reliable oneā.
Itās about the feelings we canāt verbalize, that canāt be expressed through words so we try to āsayā it with our bodies.
Itās about an extreme, intense feeling of being inadequate.Ā Like nothing we do or say or feel is ārightā. āNot thin enoughā often means something more painful to admit. That we are not enough. full stop.
Itās about feeling overwhelmed by life. Like nothing makes sense. Nothing is simple. The Eating Disorder gives us a sense of calmā¦to an outsider our life may look like it is in absolute chaos but it gives us the false sense of security we so desperately need. Problems that seem too big and complicated to deal with, feelings that are uncomfortable to sit with; the Eating Disorder provides us with simple, concrete answers to our distress. Our bodies are the problem and we need to fix the problem by losing weight.
Itās about needing to feel loved and comforted but feeling unworthy of real love and comfort. Itās about hating having needs and desires. For some of us, needs make us feel greedy and selfish. For some of us, having needs means we can easily get hurt if those needs are not met. For some of us, we donāt believe we deserve to have our needs met. We try to convince ourselves that we donāt need anything by avoiding food, one of our greatest primal needs.
Itās about having low self esteem. Itās about more than that, itās about self hatred. A self hatred that could be there for another huge list of reasons. Our trust may have been broken by a loved one, we may have been abused: emotionally, physically, sexually. We may have done things we deeply regret. We may blame ourselves for painful experiences that have happened in our lives. We may not even know why that self hatred is there but we feel it in our core. Itās something so deep down, something in us that we believe to be dark, dangerous and disgustingly horrible. We believe we are ābadā people and deserve to be punished. We starve, purge, binge and excessively exercise because we feel like we deserve to die a slow and painful death. We deserve this miserable life.
Itās about debilitating anxiety and/or depression that we struggle to deal with so we use the Eating Disorder to cope. Some of us spend years swinging between depression and the Eating Disorder, when one gets better, the other gets worse.
Itās about being paralysed by perfectionism. In every sense of the word. Many of us have obsessive compulsive personalities and expectations that are so high we constantly feel like we are failing. We put ridiculous amounts of pressure on ourselves to be āthe bestā. We compare ourselves to everyone around us and constantly feel like we are falling behind.
Itās about the disgust we have for our bodies. Some of us have been teased and shamed for our weight by kids in the school yard, brothers or sisters, mothers or fathers. Some of us feel embarrassed by our changing bodies as we go through puberty. Some of us blame our bodies for acts of violation committed against us. Somehow, our bodies have betrayed us.
Itās about the environment we grew up in. Some of us grew up witnessing the messy divorce of our parents, some of us experienced the death of an important loved one, some of us were foster children, moved from household to household. Some of us were bullied for being poor or bullied for being rich. Some of us grew up in chaotic households. For some of us, our parents were distant, for others our parents were overbearing and overprotective.
Itās about secrecy and silence. We are all silently screaming for something. Love, help, escape, forgiveness, support, comfort. We use our bodies and behaviours to communicate instead of our voices.
Itās about fear. We are afraid of growing up, afraid of staying young. Afraid of our future, afraid of our past. Some of us are afraid of failure, some of us are afraid of success. Afraid of being too much or not enough. Some of us are scared we will not be brilliant or amazing or unique or rich or famous or inspiring or important or seenā¦or LOVED. We are afraid we will never find someone who will love us, unconditionally and some of us are afraid we will. Some of us are afraid of both. Itās these contradictions that can make life so confusing and scary and difficult to deal with.
Itās about holding onto something that gives us an identity. We are afraid that without the Eating Disorder, we are nothing. In some weird way, we think it makes us strong. We believe our Eating Disorder masks our fear, our shame, our vulnerability. The things, we believe, make us weak.
Itās about painful feelings and our belief that we are unable to deal with them so we use the Eating Disorder to numb the sadness, anger, hurt, shame, guilt, hopelessness, fear etc.
Itās about being an extremely sensitive soul. We feel things deeply and intensely. We are effected by others emotions easily and often take on their pain. Others feelings and problems become ours. We are emotionally reactive, we cry at the drop of a hat, the daily news makes our heart hurt and our mood plummet. We take things personally and over think E V E R Y T H I N G. We feel the weight of the world on our shoulders, like it is our responsibility to save it (the world).
Itās about subconsciously internalising the āWestern Beauty Idealā we are faced with day in day out. Itās about being bombarded with advertising that is constantly telling us we are not good enough.
Itās about loneliness. Like we donāt fit in or belong anywhere. Like no one understands us. Like we are somehow completely different to the rest of the human population. It doesnāt matter how many friends or family we have around us, this is a loneliness, an emptiness that we believe cannot be filled.
Itās about survival. It helped us to survive and cope with some horrific and painful life experiences.
Itās about being passive. Many of us, put others first at a huge cost to our own health and happiness. We say yes when we mean no and no when we mean yes. We struggle with being assertive and as a result often get taken advantage of. This only feeds into our unworthiness.
Itās about privacy, having something that is ours and only ours. Something no one else can touch.
Itās not about weight, but for some of us, it is. However, not in the way youād think. Some of us want to shrink so that we become invisible. We want to become as small as we feel. We want to hide away. Our shrinking body becomes a metaphor for our shrinking soul. Some of us, want to become bigger so we can hide behind our weight. So that our body fat becomes our protection. So we become āundesirableā to men or women. So we donāt have to face relationships or intimacy or our sexuality. Things that terrify us. Our bodies reflect how we feel about ourselves on the INSIDE. What drains our spirit, drains our body.
Itās about being in so much emotional pain that you canāt even begin to allow yourself to feel it or acknowledge it, the pain the eating disorder brings seems like a blessing in comparison. We use the Eating Disorder to avoid and distract ourselves from all the things that are really going on, inside. More often than not, itās an accumulation of any number of these thoughts, feelings, beliefs and experiences and there is bound to be plenty of other influencing factors that I havenāt listed. Everyone is different.This is just a list of some of the more common causes that I know of from experience living with my own Eating Disorder and being close to many others who have Eating disorders, it is by NO means the āabsoluteā list.
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