What if it wasn't actually that deep?

I want to begin this blog post by saying, no matter how or why your eating disorder started, it is valid. There is no wrong or right reason to develop one. This post is not to say, prescribe or make assumptions about what caused your eating disorder. If the mainstream theory that eating disorders are coping mechanisms is helping you recover, there is no need to change course. If your eating disorder is/was a coping mechanism, I don't question you. But, if what you are believing now isn’t bringing you closer to recovery, I write this in an effort to encourage you to be open to a new way of looking at it.

The view of eating disorders as coping mechanisms is so pervasive in our society that it is generally accepted as fact. However, I know, for me, that is not what it was. And really, I think I always knew this to some extent. Yet, nevertheless, because I was offered no alternative theory for so long, I forced myself into identifying with this assumption: I had began to restrict my food intake in order to cope with stressors within my life.

This exact prescription is one I had to abandon in order to recover. I had to dismiss the belief that had been stipulated to me over and over again; by every psychiatrist, by every self-help guide, and by every stranger who projected their limited knowledge of eating disorders on me.

I disregarded the idea that I restricted for deeper, more profound reasons.

And here's why

They said from the outset that my restriction was a symptom of deep and difficult psychological problems. That it was part of an incredibly complex, inescapable illness. They also said I must have been controlling my food intake because I felt out of control elsewhere and it pointed at a lack of fulfilment in one or many aspects of my life. They futher hypothesised that my restriction evidently signalled a lack of self-identity, direction and self-love. It symbolised hidden pain from the past that needed to be worked through and resolved. Then they said it was a symptom of long-standing problems; of depression; of anxiety and perfectionism. And my desperate mental hunger? Well, they said that had nothing it do with food either. It was obviously a sign that I was "hungry" for something else. My physical craving for food actually signalled that, deep down, I yearned for something far more complex; like love, acceptance or care.

I clung to all of what they said. It meant that my restriction was something I couldn’t possibly willingly let go of. It had a grip on me that I couldn’t do anything about. It meant: I was powerless. In sum, I learnt that my eating disorder was an outward manifestation of a complex and deep-rooted inner turmoil and it was this turmoil that I had to resolve in order to stop restricting. I pushed down any rational inklings that conflicted this.

As a result, I surrendered to a highly gratifying belief that the urge to restrict my food was some sort of irresistible force. I concluded that ‘just stopping’ and ‘just eating’ was not possible, due to the matrix of underlying reasons I restricted in the first place. I entirely bought into the idea that I restricted for hidden causes and would need outside help of some kind to stop. Above all, I believed that I was flawed and defective and this made me unable to control of my own restriction.

What did these beliefs permit?

These beliefs informed my approach to recovery. I went through therapy that attempted to stop my restriction via healing those deeper, more difficult problems that were supposedly causing my restriction. The treatment assumed that if I identified and heal the hidden cause, the restrictive behaviour would disappear.

At my very first session, with my very first therapist, at my most weak and exhausted, it was suggested to me that I used my eating disorder as an excuse to stay stagnant and not pursue goals. I couldn’t comprehend this. How had this woman who I had met 30 minutes ago come to this conclusion? Why did it feel like I was a piece of dough jabbed at with a cookie-cutter mould?

Ah, but Han. You know nothing about Eating Disorders. She does. She’s a specialist. I told myself. And so, she continued her theory and I listened eagerly. I was afraid to fail, she said, so I used anorexia to avoid trying. If I could always blame my lack of success on my ED, then I would never have to bare feeling inadequate, as my failures had justification. And in my head, I guess this made some sense. I didn't like losing. I liked winning. I got irritated when I lost or made mistakes. AHA! The route cause. At last. Something to work with! Finally!

So, regardless of the fact that I secretly thought my preference of winning was pretty normal, I left the session with the intention to work on my confidence and annihilate my supposed 'fear of failure'. For some time, I was putting in a lot of my energy into healing my personality flaws. Yes- I was still very much restricting, but what did that matter? I had to focus on my intense fear of failure. I had to build my confidence so that I was not afraid to fail and so that I could be happy with losing. And only then, I thought, once I had successfully worked through these, I wouldn’t feel the need to limit my food.

No success, what's next?

A few months down the line, this hadn’t helped. It was then assessed that my restriction wasn’t down to my fear of failure after all. In actual fact, it was my parents. Their managerial jobs meant I spent my childhood ‘under their command’. Only upon my frustrated interjection that my mum had only become manager 2 months ago and my dad had never been a manager at all, that this idea was abandoned too. Oh well, onto the next.

Following this, the theory that arose was I restricted because I lacked self-worth. My inability to write down 10 things I loved about myself on a piece of A4 on command made this obvious. Obvious! Bloody obvious. Why didn't we identify this straight away? Why didn’t we see that silly little me must have felt so worthless that I denied myself proper rice and grated cauliflower instead. It was as clear as day, (although I was modest by nature and exhausted due to being underweight), it was not healthy to struggle with 10 reasons to love myself. So, as you can probably guess, I set to work on my self-worth for a few months. I AM AMAZING, I reminded myself. But all the while, my restrictive urges still came and I still listened. Every single time.

I tried this type of thing for years with no good results. To be honest, when I say, "no good” results, that missed the mark. I mean, with no results at all. All I felt was deep, crippling despair that despite work on my apparent low self-esteem, my supposed low confidence and my perfectionist tendencies, I still had urges to restrict. I felt like I was living up to the category I had been shoved in: broken.

The Book

Then, one desperate afternoon, I came across a suggestion to read Tabitha Farrar’s book, Rehabilitate, Rewire, Recover. For the first time in months, I read and read and read and I engulfed the entire thing ferociously in just one afternoon.

That evening, I sat with a question that I hadn’t pondered for over three years. What if, like the book said, I didn’t need to unearth the underlying ‘cause’ to stop my restriction. What if recovery from Anorexia meant stopping restrictive behaviours, and not finding myself, my worth and healing any other anxieties? What if my entire definition of recovery was wrong? What if healing from restriction would simply mean I didn’t restrict food anymore?

And at first, so much of me resisted this information. It was too bloody simple. If I could just stop restricting, don’t you think I fucking would have done by now? Maybe Tabitha could do it, but mine must be more complicated? Mine had underlying deep psychological causes that needed clearing before I could stop restricting. How dare she propose that eating my way out of an eating disorder was the answer. How dare she propose a food first approach to amend a, so-called, ‘energy deficit’. I couldn't possibly eat first and then clear issues once I had food fuelled mental clarity?

And I also believe another part of me hesitated to believe Tabitha's words, because it made me feel slightly invalid. It couldn't be that this thing that had caused me so much pain wasn't the consequence of a major struggle or trauma, could it? No, I decided. It simply couldn't be as simple and uncomplicated as 'good intentions' turned sour.

But in all of my denial, something lingered— that same inkling that I had when I first stepped foot in a therapist’s office those 3 years ago; what is the logic behind focusing on my emotions and ignoring that I consciously over-exercised and dieted?

What happened next?

I think partly because I felt at the end of my tether with the therapy avenue, and partly because I didn't need much convincing to try, literally anything else, just like that, I abandoned the entire disease concept. I let go of the idea that restricting was not under my control. I disregarded the notion that anorexia was a chronic disease and a by-product of other life disturbances. I forced myself to forget that society at large also embraced this disease concept of anorexia which only encourages and excuses ED behaviours by failing to foster personal responsibility. I realised the other approach I had been taking simply served my eating disorder and helped me avoid responsibility for stopping my restriction.

I moved away from my learning that I must become whole before I could give up restriction.

Trying to solve personal problems before recovery had only been wasting my time and resources (and besides, my malnourished brain couldn’t do that sort of work. That was made obvious by the past few years of therapy). From here on in, I accepted that becoming the best version of myself was not necessary for eliminating restriction. That ‘best-version of myself’ quest is, and will be, a lifetime endeavour. It was something that needed to be completed before I nourished myself back to physical health.

Once I had accepted that I could recover without unravelling the turmoil of my past, I... well...recovered. Needless to say, it wasn't quite that easy. Or even close to easy. In the first couple of weeks of 'taking control', I so almost gave up. Not once, not twice. Constantly. I struggled to feel my weight go up. I battled against my constant movement urges. I fought desperately against my ingrained disorder behaviours which had become so natural. I mistook disorder neurological junk for intuition. I compared myself to others who seemed to physically struggle with gaining weight. My body swelled, I was starving and then stuffed and then back to starving again. My head spun. Every evening as I slipped into bed, I plotted to surrender. My eating disorder, which had weaved its nasty web of rituals, rules and judgements around my entire life, reared it's ugly head constantly, insisting: "You're stupid if you think you can get rid of me without sorting out your underlying problems.You're going to give up tomorrow."

But, I didn't. I held onto the hope that this was just the illness grabbing at straws. This was my brain using all of the harmful projections I had listened to for years in an attempt to stop me from acting out of set pathways.

Recovered

As I write this today, I am recovered. Totally, fully, entirely recovered. Recovered on a rainy day. Recovered when the sun is out. Recovered when the world around me is crumbling. And it is from this stance that I look back in sadness to see how those generic cookie-cutter moulds trapped me into feeling utterly powerless for so long. I could have recovered earlier, if I just hadn't gone to therapy. How fucking ironic.

However, in truth, maybe that's incorrect. Perhaps it is good that I went in order to discover that there really was no deeper underlying cause - as there are for some. Perhaps that it was all a necessary part of my journey, to have felt supported and to have to gather the resources I needed to heal.

My view:

My view is that identifying the route cause is not actually necessary to physically recover. However, I also believe it can be useful, if not essential, to identify and work through any triggers afterwards, in order to avoid relapse due to any uncleared issues that there may be.

Although coping mechanism ideologies do fit and do help others recover, they simply were not apt for my situation. And what's more? I those suggestions were harmful. I directed all of my energy fighting my personality, and not the restrictive pathways that lead to me restrict. I paid mental energy to my restriction - trying to figure out why the hell it was persisting- which only made my restrictive pathways stronger. I thought I restricted to cope with stress, anxiety and lack of confidence, and so whenever I felt those emotions, I felt that it was acceptable to restrict.

My view is that I developed anorexia due to a combination of reasons, which quite honestly, were not all that deep. It was more of a perfect storm situation, rather than a lightning bolt striking me down with an inescapable illness.

I believe I developed anorexia because I have the genetic predisposition to the illness which was activated by energy deficit, or something far more primal, basic and obvious than what was projected onto me during therapy. This danger zone territory was entered for a combination of reasons; reasons which were once innocent and very conscious, but spiralled further due to the 'perfect' storm of my environment, character, nature, society and genetics.

I over-exercised because of a silly goal I set myself. It really was that simple. I set myself a silly running goal because that’s just the type of person I am. I am competitive. I like a challenge. I like winning. And once I succeeded at my goal, I made another. And to get there quicker, I YouTubed how to fun faster. And it instructed me to "eat right". So I did. And then I clicked on other suggested videos about nutrition. I watched and copied "What I Eat in a Day" videos of people that I liked the look of. And soon enough, I was down the rabbit hole of 37-banana-per-day-eating vegan nutters.

Simultaneously, I sought to clear up my teenage skin. I followed the advice of a stranger from Instagram. "Cut out all dairy," she said. And so cut out all dairy, I did. By the end that year, my body had developed a temporary intolerance to anything containing lactose and because I had been so strict with my avoidance of it, just a small amount made me very physically uncomfortable. Here on in, I was so terrified of having an upset stomach, that I began avoiding foods containing dairy. So, now, not only was I avoiding one food group, I was steering clear of foods containing that food group. My avoidance of food was not accidental. It was deliberate. Yes, it was influenced by culture, my personality and my environment, but, it began with me. This, and a combination of various other life happenings made my energy levels dwindle.

Meanwhile, I was growing up in a diet- and exercise celebrating culture. I heard my friends talking about dieting and I watched my mum’s friend’s eat salad. I flicked past information about diets in magazines and on TV. Everywhere I looked, I got the message that what I was doing was commendable. What I was doing showed great willpower. Nobody, anywhere, told me the truth I needed to hear: dieting was going directly against my biology - it was not risk-free.

Alongside this, my personality traits paved the way for dieting to become something more serious and sinister. I believe perhaps my perfectionist nature led me to diet with very few slip-ups, as I have a tendency to be pretty stubborn when I try something. I also believe that perhaps when I realised I was pretty ‘good’ at dieting, it boosted my average self-esteem- a good feeling for any teenager. And then, perhaps, when I got a few acknowledgements of my running progress and leaner body, my naturally slightly obsessive nature meant I continued to run and continued to 'optimize' my diet. And continued. And continued. All consciously. Right up until my body said OOP and my genetic reaction took over. The routines and behaviours had created strong neural pathways, which developed into deep-set habits. As well as these personality traits, new studies have indicated 8 gene risk loci and implicate certain metabolic origins for increasing risk of development of eating disorders.

As you can see, I don’t view my ED as a result of deep or hugely complex issues. Although I didn't choose my eating disorder, (nobody does), I chose behaviours which accidentally lead me to energy deficit: exercise and then food restriction. From here, both my genes and personality traits facilitated my decline and eventually, this allowed the illness to take hold. From here, I think that basically, it just became habit and routine because after a while, I found that didn’t even know why I was restricting. It had just become my 'normal'.

Now I know why therapy to resolve complex issues didn’t work for me. In my case, there weren't any. The cause was entering energy debt. And so, to heal, quite simply, I needed to reverse both of those. I needed to stop all exercise and eat unrestricted. After doing this, I could go ahead and work on any slightly over-active personality ‘traits’ and my ignorance about the dangers of dieting, which made me more susceptible to blindly exercising and dieting in the first place.

And before you question, weren't there deeper, psychological issues playing into your dieting or overexercising...? No. There wasn't. But it wasn't because I was vain, weak-willed or shallow either. But that is something for another time.

For now, I hope that perspective was at least interesting, if not useful. I bring you back to what I wrote initially: There is no wrong or right reason to develop an eating disorder. There is no explanation which elevates one higher than the next. There is no need to make causes for an eating disorder hierarchal. This post is not to say, prescribe or make assumptions about your eating disorder. All are equally valid.

Han

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