The Siren Songs of Anorexia - Part 1

For somebody who has never experienced Anorexia, but who has been close enough to watch it consume somebody they love, it must be the most unfathomable thing in the world to witness a resistance to recovery. Bemused questions I get from parents or partners who are supporting their loved ones in recovery ratify that.

What’s more, I also often find myself utterly perplexed too. So, to put that into context, I have had Anorexia myself. I wasn’t able to let it go for an extended duration. Yet, I frequently catch myself utterly mystified by inaction towards recovery. Distance from Anorexia’s claws both psychologically and temporally will do that for you, I suppose.

It is not easy to think of another illness that individuals cherish (at least some of the time) and hold so much ambivalence about healing from. And so, through the following blog post, I am going to explore the main reasons why embarking on healing seems like a fraught decision.

Even whilst having the conscious knowledge of the illness’ many dark, lonely pitfalls, why does one hold on?

The 4 areas I will cover will be:

1.    Anorexia is supercilious

2.    Anorexia is a purposeful martyr

3.    Anorexia numbs

4.    Anorexia protects, excuses and ensures care

Just before I begin with those, there is an observation I wish to share.

Sometimes when somebody is deeply entrenched in anorexia, their life has quite overtly fallen apart. Work has to be reduced. Relationships are perceptibly strained, and passions have become tediously taxing chores.

Sometimes, though, when somebody is deeply ensconced, that isn’t the case at all. Work ensues, friendships are maintained and passions are slow burningly peripheral, but there.

In either circumstance, there is something plainly obvious in anybody that is beyond the budding months of the illness. If life has ground to a stop or it slogs on, there is almost always some degree of recognition of life’s emptiness.

In my own experience, this recognition was perhaps most discernible when I was parked in the partially weight-restored version of anorexia; when some degree of healing had happened allowing for a slightly more fulfilling existence (or at least the outer appearance of one). During this suspended phase of ‘damage control’ and maintenance, Anorexia had certainly lost its unquestioned blissful allure. My body was not a source of obvious alarm to others and I had fleeting glimmers of interest in a life beyond being ill. Yet, even with awareness of the illness' terrible implications on my life, I was still very resistant to letting go.

But I think this exactly is why many people report that this halfway house stage feels worse than the depths of illness: you yearn for life beyond what the ED offers but are still stuck in the muddy trenches of terror. For many, this place rarely feels closer to life than death at all and it's no coincidence that I've heard several describe it as feeling like the worst of both worlds. If you are currently in this place - unable to blind yourself with anorexia’s siren song but still remain far off being free from its eroding clutch - I want to communicate that it doesn't have to continue like this. The dissonant position of knowing anorexia isn’t the solution, but still feeling unable to let go is an escapable limbo.

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1.    Anorexia is supercilious

Yet despite this most obvious absence of peace – that ebbs and flows in waves of urgency to resolve – there so frequently remains a strange feeling that is difficult to describe to anybody who hasn’t had the illness itself.

That is, a feeling of being wholly irreproachable. For, when you have anorexia, you are an impeccable example of what many ‘normal’ people of this world (think that they) wish they were: restrained around food.

Horrifyingly, I frequently hear accounts from people with Anorexia who have praised by their doctors for their 'admirable' lifestyle and choices, or, equally as disturbing, approached by friends for dietary advice.

But first, far beyond this ‘ability’ to deny biological cues, individuals with eating disorders often present with ‘control’ in many other areas that enhance this sense of distinctiveness. Though a generalisation that has exceptions, many people with restrictive eating also refrain from ‘indulging’ in other pleasures that ‘regular folk’ do; spending a little extra money, having a little too much wine, nattering for a little too long, putting off the laundry for a day longer. You know the stuff.

The most common explanation for this is that when you have an ED and reside in scarcity mode, existence does not often deviate from well-practiced, ‘productive’ hamster wheel efficiency. There is no room for the (quite beautiful) chaos of leniency or spontaneity, no time for unplanned interactions and no space for anything beyond the usual disordered rhythm.

And that very sad ‘capability’ is what characterises Anorexia’s haughty arrogance. There is pride, in the status of having ‘achieved’ the measured existence that is the topic of self-help books read by ‘the masses’. You are ‘disciplined’ in your responsibilities. You are dependable in your routines. You handle everything with aplomb. You are on top of everything.

(That is, only on the surface, of course. Behind the poise is a noxious regime upheld by fear, obsession and malnutrition-induced OCD).

And circling back to the aforementioned point, you are handling everything so efficiently, apparently, whilst having utter sovereignty over your body weight and appetite. It seems that a culture allured by thinness perceives one who has ‘managed’ to exert authority over their pre-determined equilibrium (e.g., bodily hunger and set point) as both curious and exceptional. This awe, especially when novel, is something that Anorexia revels in.

Again, the reality of having control over one’s body weight or food is no remarkable experience. The people who truly care about you often don’t hold your disorder with reverence. What’s more, an underfed body will forever attempt to retain sovereignty over itself irrespective of an individual’s internal war of resistance leading to an immense internal battle. As life becomes devastatingly empty, any euphoria of the initial weight loss, or gratifying bump attained from compliments at weight loss/dietary restraint strongly subsides. This is gradually replaced by the sorrow of suppression.

I think this shift from conceited satisfaction to numb grief was made most stark to me when I noticed I was no longer looking disdainfully or pitifully at people who were living in ignorance of calories or macros or health. Instead, I began seeing them as idols. It seemed a blissful state to be making choices with the simplicity that they did, and there soon remained no smugness in observing them eating the delicious food I had prepared for them. As I sat, hungry and psychologically tortured by my own brain’s fear of ingredient impurity, I yearned not to have my (apparent) ‘restraint’ or unique encyclopaedic knowledge of (so-called) health.

Sadly, though, the truth remains. The modest and restrained existence of a restrictive eating disorder somehow becomes an utterly appalling ‘gold standard’. And though there is no ignorance of the pain that comes with upholding this standard, the eating disorder fears fading into normality. Heaven forbid being merely ‘average’ in some areas! Perish the thought of having an identity which is not built on exceptionality! Both states are actually pretty bloody wonderful by the way.

Unless Anorexia progresses to a level of physical compromise that becomes visibly overtly concerning (which for most, it doesn’t), you appear to have things everyone cares about accounted for. The sad truth is that the inward experience of this is not what it outwardly presents as. The exhaustion of fighting your biology and living in cognitive dissonance cannot be ignored long-term. You end up with full knowledge that you are not ethereally floating above other humans. You are not morally, cognitively or corporally above them. Far from feeling as though you are transcending, you lose your relation to humanity altogether. As well as my sense of womanhood seeming to dull as my hormonal system succumbed to the lowered economy of my metabolic rate, my relation to being a human at all frequently felt tenuous.

Some lyrics from Anorexia’s coaxing siren song in this category may sound like:

Don't recover...

·      You’ll lose your ‘specialness’.

·      You’ll become lazy.

·      You’ll lose control.

·      Your identity will suffer.

·      You’ll be good at nothing if you don’t have anorexia.

·      You’ll lose commendations on your body.

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2.    Anorexia is a purposeful martyr

The second of anorexia’s apparent advantages is one that serves to uphold the eating disorder from two angles. That of the individual with the ED, and for those who the behaviours are benefitting.

Initially, before deep exhaustion settles in, there are a few practical advantages to anorexia. As far the eating disorder is concerned, not spending excess money on food and drinks is respectable budgeting. Not doing trivial, fun things allegedly means more productive priorities are kept in order. After not too long, your proficiency to tackle the invisible load becomes expected, as you run high on the fumes of energy deficit to get everything done before others even rise from bed.

Anorexia (seemingly) provides drive, purpose and meaning to each day. No, these are not fulfilling to any extent. But the attribute they do hold is that they are incessantly cyclical. The quantifiable perpetual demands of the ED reset each and every day meaning you forever have something on the agenda to do. Thus, Anorexia’s parsimonious, diligent and proficient drive (in part, driven by a biologically induced migration response to starvation) means early or incipient months of the illness can feel both occupying and rewarding.

Inevitably, though, it isn’t all too long before this ‘honeymoon’ experience wains. The lows of hunger replace the rewards of frugality. De-prioritisation of fun results in depression and excessive productivity becomes a resented obligation. In the end, the appeal of self-sacrifice ceases and a desire for authentic internal quietude prevails. This is where contemplation of recovery begins.

For me, full recovery led to everything coming full circle to how it was pre-anorexia, with a few vulnerabilities healed. I now enjoy spending money on non-essentials that I can afford if they make me happy. (Like a tea bag and some hot water for $2.90 from Pret A Manger, or a bottle of bubbles to see Heidi’s reaction). I also now enjoy so much that is unserious. I will entertain an inconsequential game of Guess Who, or give a comprehensive answer to my boyfriend’s frequent (nonsense) existential questions.

Last but not least, it led me to hang up my housekeeper’s apron and permit others to help out around the house too. I now welcome other people cleaning the plates up after dinner, rather than jumping up myself to do it. And, though it took a little adjustment, other people have re-gotten used to that too, welcoming with it a far less uptight co-inhabitant.

Some persuasive pitches Anorexia attempts to present in this category may sound like:

Don’t recover…

·      What will you be without anorexia?

·      People will think you’ve let yourself go.

·      You won’t have so much financial security.

·      You will become lazy

·      Other people rely on you to do what I do around the house

·      Recovery results in distraction

Thats enough for one blog post I think. I'll pop the final two of anorexia's anchors and the conclusion on here.