Eating disorders and all that press
As for me – the height of my anorexia was when I was 17. I was fully aware there was a serious problem. I was totally aware of what I looked like and that people called be “skelator”. My mom would yell at me that I look like a concentration camp victim. I did not think of myself as beautiful nor fat. It just was not about that for me.
But, as you so often hear in meetings I was powerless over my addiction. Eating was NOT an option. Terror, fear, and had many times where I could not be within 10 feet of food no matter what kind.
Looking back I understand that it was also a refusal to grow up. I was graduating high school, and had spent all of high school having men and boys trying to have sex with me. My addiction literally slowed down all the physiological aspects that made me a woman: loss of period, boy-like figure, and loss total seclusion. I removed myself from all harm’s way and external violation. I used to wish that had one magic power – to be invisible and I literally was shrinking myself to nothing.
My experience tells me this: You can easily live without consuming alcohol or drugs. You cannot live without eating food. Thus, eating disorders are actually much more difficult to recover from and from my personal experience have a much lower recovery rate.
There are those that speak of eating disorders as being a “process” disease – comparable to gambling, sex, or shopping addictions. Recovery for me consisted of a combination of 12 step programs, an ongoing commitment to psychoanalysis, medication, and Dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT).
I think one of the major misconceptions is that eating disorders are always driven by the desire to be thin. I have struggled (but now in full recovery) with one flavor or another of eating disorders for over 15 years. It is a powerful thing that I believe is an addiction same as alcohol and drugs.
My perspective is that it is actually an oversimplification to say it is the media who causes the pressure to be thin and promote eating disorders. I surely understand the connection, but I think that same argument and media presence can be made for promoting drinking, how people socialize and even “hook up”.
Eating disorders have not so much to do with how much a person actually weighs. It is much more about how much the obsession deteriorates the quality of one’s life. Same as any addict or alcoholic. One in the same. Not necessarily about how much or how frequently.
The media hypes up anorexia and the ultra thin, but uses what are considered to be ugly words such as “obese” to describe compulsive over eaters. As if it is a matter of willpower, and not compulsion or obsession. The childhood obesity problem in this country is more or less due to an addiction to sugar and processed food, and ultimately leads to diabetes.
These childhood addictions can easily lead to “harder” drugs – dare I use the word gateway- to alcohol and drugs. In fact, in the AA Big Book it actually recommends people to eat sugar and candy to ease the craving after stopping drinking. After all, alcohol is sugar.
So yes, I agree it is all connected. Unfortunately, what you often hear at inpatient treatment centers are people who make light of food addiction and eating disorders. I have seen more than once addictions make fun of food addicts / eating disordered people because they do not feel their issues are as serious. There is a fundamental lack of understanding and knowledge about what it really is all about.
Contrary to the seemingly glamorous, sexy, and dramatic stories you hear of drug and alcohol addiction, eating disorders are not typically social events. While people may meet in a bar and drink until 4 AM, not that many bulimics plan to meet others in public to binge and purge.
As you stated in a former blog, underneath it all is shame, trauma, and fear. I believe to my core that people die due to shame and loneliness. Both of which are defining factors of people with eating disorders.
My experience tells me this: You can easily live without consuming alcohol or drugs. You cannot live without eating food. Thus, eating disorders are actually much more difficult to recover from and from my personal experience have a much lower recovery rate.
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Filed under: Conditions and Disorders
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