Eating Disorders are one of the sneakiest mental illnesses out there. They slowly (or sometimes quickly) kill the person suffering all while convincing the person that they need their eating disorder, and the eating disorder is the only thing helping them and without the eating disorder they wouldn’t be anyone. It is the epitome of a mind game and so hard to break free from. I can’t count the number of times I’ve been told by someone struggling with an eating disorder that they are completely miserable and don’t want to have an eating disorder only to have them tell me in their next breath that they need their eating disorder. But it’s not a case of confusion or waffling intentions, to the person with the eating disorder both things are almost always true.
So, you might now be thinking “well how on earth do you recover from something that you don’t want but also do want?” You wouldn’t be the first to wonder this. The answer is a complex mix of therapy, dietetic support, meal support, a support system and extremely hard work on the part of the person with the eating disorder. But even with all this help, many people with eating disorders still relapse and still struggle.
I am by no means claiming to have a magic wand or the elusive answer as to “how to cure an eating disorder,” but there is one thing I have noticed in my time working with people with eating disorders that really helps a person as they go through the battle that is recovery and that is finding THEIR reason to recover.
Oftentimes by the time someone seeks help for an eating disorder, the eating disorder has overtaken every aspect of their life and scrubbed all the joy right out of it. Their bodies are decimated from the constant nutritional battle and their minds are exhausted from the internal war raging inside of them. Hopelessness and depression and ambivalence towards recovery reign supreme and any hopes and dreams they may have once had are long forgotten. I’ve seen many motivational tactics tried and failed. Some are told to “keep the eating disorder in their back pocket” so to speak, while they try out recovery in hopes that once the person has had a taste of recovery, they will be able to ignore the temptations of the eating disorder. This rarely, if ever, works. Instead, as the person gets further into recovery, the eating disorder gets louder and more tempting. The memories of the devastation it caused, being replaced by illusions of the happiness and peace it brought them. But doing the opposite and telling a person to retire the eating disorder and from this day forth never go back doesn’t work either. Immediately the eating disorder becomes enraged, its very existence has been threatened, and so it kicks and screams and reminds the person over and over how much they need it, until they give in.
One of the most common motivations I’ve seen attempted is to tell someone with an eating disorder to recover for someone else. Someone they love. Maybe it’s telling a mother to recover for her kids or telling a husband to recover for his wife or a child to recover for their parents or siblings. The premise is solid. Eating disorders don’t just wreak havoc on the one they inhabit but also on their loved ones. There is nothing more heartbreaking to a person with an eating disorder than watching the pain their eating disorder is causing the people they love. But while the premise is solid, it still usually fails. The eating disorder is used to being number one in that person’s life and the minute someone else takes its place it reacts like a toddler throwing a violent tantrum in the middle of a shopping center. It screams and bribes and manipulates until it has convinced the person with the eating disorder that even their loved ones will benefit from it being number one. I said it before and I’ll say it again, eating disorders are sneaky. The problem with this motivation though, is that when the relapse happens, the person isn’t just dealing with the eating disorder anymore, they are now dealing with an extra helping of shame and guilt at not being able to recover for the people they love. They often feel like a terrible person for not loving their children/spouse/family/friends enough to recover and sometimes their loved ones also question that person’s love for them. But love has nothing to do with it. People with eating disorders love the people in their lives as much as anyone else. A relapse has nothing to do with how much they love someone else, just as a relapse of cancer is not caused by not loving someone enough. Eating disorders are illnesses, just like cancer or asthma or any other chronic health condition. Just as someone can’t cure their cancer by loving their child, a parent can’t cure their eating disorder by loving their child.
Both cancer and eating disorders require significant, often grueling treatments. No one wants to pump poison into their veins, knowing it will make them sick. But they do it because there is something else that they want more. In my opinion, finding something that the person with the eating disorder want’s more is the key to successful treatment and recovery. Maybe it is that a parent want’s to be alive to see their child graduate and get married. That is certainly a common reason that people agree to chemotherapy for cancer. However, it’s over simplified in the case of eating disorders. Because eating disorders are sneaky and know how to convince someone that they won’t die, even if logic says the opposite. So, it is often not enough to simply identify what the person wants more than the eating disorder. Instead, a complex strategy of how to use that desire to overcome the powerful urges of the eating disorder needs to be formulated and executed day in and day out.
This is where I come in. As I mentioned above, eating disorders require a bevy of treatment providers, working in tandem, often for long periods of time to help the person stabilize, move into and remain in a place of recovery. Dietetic support is essential for working on the person’s relationship and perceptions about food and nutrition. Therapy is essential for working on the underlying issues that drive the eating disorder and make it feel so necessary. Eating disorders behave similarly to addictions. In addiction recovery therapists address the reasons driving the addiction, medical personnel monitor any physical complications the addiction has caused, 12 step meetings provide group support, and sponsors provide everything from daily support and encouragement to help in crises and an anchor to the life without addiction that the addict is trying to achieve. In this scenario, I am the sponsor.
People with eating disorders typically have a therapist and a dietician (and often a doctor as well). But sometimes that’s not quite enough. I can provide the missing piece. I can be the daily support, the person who helps them figure out what they want more than the eating disorder and then anchors them to that life. While they work in therapy to resolve the pain leading to the necessity of the eating disorder and work with a dietician to stabilize the nutrition and develop a healthier relationship with food, I can work with them to establish those complex strategies to bypass the lies the eating disorder is telling them and remain focused on what they want more. I can provide meal support; crisis support or just support so that recovery doesn’t feel so daunting and lonely. I will be their anchor to the life they want until they are able to be their own anchor.
Yes, eating disorders are complicated and require an interdisciplinary team, working together, to help the person struggling to sustain long lasting recovery. I am, by no means, offering to be a substitute to any of this. But, in my experience, working with and observing people at all stages of eating disorder relapse and recovery, one thing remains constant. Everyone who sustains long lasting recovery does so because they have found something that they want more than the eating disorder and they have found ways to always keep that in the front of their mind, even when the eating disorder is at its loudest. I can help with this. I can help people struggling with eating disorders to uncover what it is that they want more than the eating disorder, even if they don’t believe there is anything they want more, and I can help them develop ways to keep that front and center no matter what the eating disorder throws at them. So, if you or someone you love is struggling with an eating disorder, please reach out to me. I can help.