PART 3: The torturous position of knowing and not doing.
In the previous blogs in this series, I spoke about how human nature and current ED treatment contribute to us desiring to acquire volumes of insight before taking the radical actions required to neurally rewire the brain out of fear and behavioural pathways. If you haven't read those already, you can here.
This penultimate instalment will begin to suggest 2 things you must stop if you want to use your TEDX talk-worthy understandingof your eating disorder actually help you to escape it. All in all, I have noted 6 things you must stop doing. The final 4 will be in my next post to avoid this one becoming too lengthy. (I find it a bit of an ask to read a blog that takes me over 5 minutes). Before you get going, please know that some may be more relevant than others to you, so, as ever, take what applies and leave what doesn’t.
1) Stop valuing intellectual change more highly over practical change
I get it, you like understanding. I do too. That’s our human nature and a trait that has kept us safe throughout history. But by now, you’ve realised that being about to write a book on the theory of anorexia recovery still doesn’t mean you feel capable of doing it yourself. Of course– rationally – you know the damage any extent of undereating is inflicting on your body. Of course, rationally, you know that the relationships you have are being compromised by it. You can see it with your own eyes. You know, from witnessing it, that nobody who has ever fully recovered as looked back and sighed with sweet nostalgia. But rationally knowing something isn’t enough. In a moment of fear, this crumbles like a rice cake beneath an elephant’s foot.
Relying on broadening logic, intellect and understanding to force yourself through a fear situation hasn’t been all that successful so far. It will not be even if you extend it further.
So, stop the attempts of broadening without pairing it with a directly recovery-related action.
If you’re reading a recovery book, read it whilst eating from a tub of biscuits. If you’re watching a recovery YouTube video, watch it whilst eating an ice cream you’ve never had. If you’re listening to a recovery podcast about compulsive movement, sit the fuck downwhilst listening to it rather than slotting your AirPods in and going on your stroll. If you’re attending a CBT therapy session, stop nodding your way through and then returning home to have your bowl of fat-free yoghurt topped with a measly sprinkle of granola. Have a tub of muffins waiting for you in the car for afterwards and work your way through them. And right now, to accompany you whilst you’re reading this blog, go and get a snack and then come back.
No seriously, go. This is about action.
Stop the reading. The watching. The listening. The resource gathering without accompanying it with a directly recovery-related action. If you need reminders of what you already have, go ahead, gather more data, but do not let yourself do it without action too.
2) Stop discomfort avoidance in anticipation that the emotional tax will be too high to cope with.
On reflection, I consider a large part of the reason I preferred to think about recovery, compared to do recovery is because thoughts ‘cost’ less than action.
As I pointed out in the first blog, actions come with resource costs. Of course, thoughts do too, but they come a lot cheaper. So, if I could get away with just doing some thinking, inferencing, and pattern-matching, then I could get the interpretive satisfaction and perceived without the ‘costs’ of actually doing anything. It feels almost like ‘free’ progress, (except it’s not really progress in the end…).
And by ‘cost’, I suppose I mean mental pain, stress of discomfort. I didn’t induce fear by writing lists of future challenges, because they weren’t in front of me right then. Whilst writing: ‘large bowl of crunchy nut cornflakes’ may have provided me with an excited anxiety, pouring myself a giant bowl used more emotional energy, and the ‘excitement’ element of the challenge – which was now immediately ‘threatening’ to happen – was lost.
When in quasi recovery, you will experience cognitive dissonance on a daily basis. This inner conflict means sitting in the discomfort of knowing that you are currently living in a way that is entirely incompatible with what you truly believe or value. In order to reduce this discomfort and make yourself feel better about inaction, your brain will try every trick in the book. Many of these will sound extremely valid. You’ll persuade yourself of all sorts of reasons not to go ahead for now. The problem isn’t as serious as it might seem. That the costs of action are too high now because you don’t want to compromise that *thing* you have later. The probability of success is too low because look what happened last time. And so on.
But the key here is recognise that attempting to avoid discomfort is completely incompatible with change. Your brain is going to react. It is going to try to force you back onto those same highways that you always go down. Your job is to engage within that discomfort, and not do yourself a disservice by assuming you can’t possibly sit with the aftermath.
Even if the emotional tax is high – something you do not know until you have engaged in it – you will absolutely get through it. It will pass, and you won’t be able to muster up the same level of that emotion related to the matter tomorrow. Don’t believe me? Try it.
And that wraps up this blog. The forth and closing instalment will cover the final 5 things you must stop doing if you truly want to use your knowledge to your benefit.
Click here if you're ready for that.
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