The Abyss of Bad Body Image...Don't Get Sucked Under!

How many times in your life have you been having a perfectly pleasant day and then suddenly find yourself drowning in negative body image? In an instant, you feel like X body part has tripled in size even though, rationally, you know that is not possible. Over the course of my life, throughout relapse and recovery, I have had countless moments like this. Every therapist I have gone to throughout my life told me that "body image is the last thing to go" in ED recovery. As a therapist working with ED clients, I endorse this train of thought as well.

Given our culture, I don't know that body image ever fully dissipates. The notion that in order to be successful and beautiful you must be skinny penetrates every media outlet. So, everywhere you go, watch, and read the message is clear. Plenty of women without EDs have moments of "feeling fat" or thinking their quality of life would improve if their pants were just a bit looser. Rationally we know that this is not true, but our minds--ED or not--are not always rational. So, even after years in recovery or being fully recovered, there may be momentary flashes of negative body images.

I would be misrepresenting myself if I said that I don't ever experience body image issues. However, the major difference today is HOW I CHOOSE TO RESPOND. Today when that negative voice tries to disrupt my happiness, I realize that I have a choice. I can choose to listen to it and really get into self-hatred. Or, I can choose to not listen, knowing that nothing good can come out of it. If it pervades and tries to lure me further by giving me a sudden awareness of a certain body part, I have to really ask myself what else is going on? If I am okay with my body one minute, but having issues the next, then, clearly, this is not about body image.

My clients often ask me, so HOW do you choose not to engage in negative body image??? Here are a few actions that work for me:
1.) I recognize that I am having negative thoughts about my body.
2.) I explore possible explanations as to why the thoughts are occurring at this particular moment. Many might think that there are no explanations, and that it "just happens." I encourage you to dig a bit deeper with this. Even if it is ED talking and thus doesn't need explanations, ED is not a separate entity that lives in your brain. It may feel like that, however, you are the only person that is actually thinking and listening to your thoughts.

3.) I MAKE A DECISION NOT TO ENGAGE. More than that, I have to ask myself, DO I WANT TO ENGAGE IN SELF-LOVE OR SELF-HATRED TODAY??? This is what it really comes down to. It might feel like you haven't any choice, but YOU DO!!! I'm not saying it is easy, but you can do this. It is difficult to want to choose self-love when it is so comfortable to emotionally beat yourself up. Recovery from negative body image is hard work, but it is far from impossible!

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: FOR THIS MOMENT, I HAVE THE ABILITY TO THINK POSITIVELY ABOUT MYSELF. :)

Dis-Ease or Disease?

At least two times a week, my clients at Renfrew will inquire about whether an eating disorder is a disease, like in alcoholism, or if this is a disorder one can fully recover from and never have to think about again. Looking into their eyes, eyes that reflect a desperate desire to know that they can fully recover, I want to tell all of them that full recovery is possible for everyone. However, that is not my immediate answer.

First, I have to define how I'm defining "fully recovered." I think of recovered as no longer relating to having an eating disorder, not using eating disorder symptoms as maladaptive coping mechanisms, not being plagued by the ED voice, not concerned with weight/body image issues, not struggling with wanting to use symptoms, and not engaging in symptom use. Now I know there are others to add to this list, but you get the picture.

I believe that some will fully recovery while others will be in recovery for the rest of their lives. I think are a variety of variables that determine whether one will have a period of dis-ease with an eating disorder, or will have a disease that will have to be managed for the rest of one's life. Some variables could be developmental stage, age of onset, age of first intervention, number of years in ED before entering treatment, ability to restore weight, chronicity, level of support structure, family history of mental illness, co-occurring disorders, trauma, external antecedents, inability to alter worldview and belief system, etc. And there are so many more. I think the closest answer to the truth is that we don't really have much evidenced based knowledge what makes someone fully recover. I think of it similarly to having siblings who grow up where their parents are alcoholics--one sibling becomes an alcoholic later in life, and the other is, seemingly, without pathology. Why is that?

If eating disorders were reduced to issues of weight restoration and symptom management, my guess is that it would be much easier to have evidence based predictors of full recovery. But, as we know, the food and juxtaposed behaviors are merely a symptom. Can we predict that the prognosis for a 14 year-old who goes into treatment after a 6-month period of anorexia nervosa with no co-morbidity will be better than the 25 year-old anorexic with a history of trauma and substance abuse? Probably--but not absolutely.

I think that many can fully recover from an eating disorder. I just don't how realistic it is to claim that everyone can fully recover. In the last decade, I have had hundreds of interactions with women (not adolescents) who feel that they will be in recovery for the rest of their lives. It doesn't mean that they are imprisoned by an eating disorder and are actively using symptoms. It simply means there is some level of daily maintenance to sustain long-term recovery. Even if one can't be "fully recovered" and are in recovery, is that really such a bad thing???

The Conundrum of Recovery

I remember a therapist, many actually, telling me that for every year I put into my eating disorder, it would take the same amount of time to get to the same level of progression in recovery. 17 years? I didn't want to believe it, but as the years pass, I think to some extent the theory might prove true.

While I've been a longstanding member in the rooms of OA, at present(and for the last 3 years), I don't go. I'm somewhat of the atypical (not in a 'terminally unique' way) OA-er in that I eat anything I want, hence my blog title. Moreover, my abstinence has never been better.

With that said, there are myriad layers of recovery...defining recovery as finding serenity with food and body image.

This is where I am. I don't binge and purge or starve--haven't for a long time (yea!). However, I still have a mild obsession about when and what I will eat. I still look in the mirror to see if my "fat" has shifted or grown in any area. The difference today being that I can still leave the house if I "feel" fat.

What plagues me the most in this part of my recovery is that I still eat to comfort myself on some level. I hate this because, of course, I want to have perfect abstinence. I want never to "need" food. Even people without EDs eat for comfort from time to time.

The conundrum is that while I can let dualistic and distorted thinking impede on my serenity--the same thinking that drove me to the grocery store day after day for nearly 20 years--it is far less emotionally crippling. It's kind of like, so what? Life goes on. I don't know how my mentality has changed, but I can only attribute it to this process of recovery my therapist mentioned years back.

Cliche for the day: Recovery is not a destination. It's a process and a journey.

A Cup of Joe and a Teaspoon of Jibber-Jabber

Greetings All!!

My morning started out practically the same as every morning starts. I got up, took my two golden retrievers, Jack and Emma, out to do their business, and then headed to Starbucks, conveniently located less than 5 minutes from my house, for my usual coffee order--a Venti half-caf Pike's Place coffee with 4 pumps of gingerbread syrup (sugar-free cinnamon dolce when it's not the holiday season).

After I got my coffee, put in a shot of cream, as well as an insane amount of Equal (the number isn't relevant), I decided that I wanted to pay the equally insane $5.35 for the NY Times today. So back in line I went.

To preface, it should be noted that random people--anywhere I go--talk to me. I guess that's why I'm meant to be a therapist.

So...In line now for the second time, I find myself sandwiched between two men. The man behind me, a white-haired, pony-tail-sporting (is that really necessary?) sixty-something looks at this toddler, then turns to me and says, "Ah, isn't that a cute dress?"

I don't know if it's because I'm a social worker, but my automatic thought is, possible sexual predator. Five seconds after his comment, the man in front of me, another blue-collar sixty-something, reaches into his back pocket for his wallet, then turns to me and flashes an out-of-focus picture of his granddaughter.

"What a hit she was last night when grandma and me took her out for a showing at another coffee shop!" he says.

"Oh, what a cute girl she is." This was the only response I could muster. She wasn't cute. I couldn't even tell she was a girl.

Just when I thought our conversation had ended, he decides to speak again.

"Yeah, I'm just a Southern Baptist boy from the Bayou. I work in Tampa and Detroit in the automotive business, have two houses, and teach at the college in Detroit."

"Oh, you teach?"

"Yes, automotive class at the two highest levels."

Just as I'm thinking about asking him if he knows the definition of narcissism, he continues.

"Yeah, my wife gets so mad at me. She says,'I hate you! You do everything right!' Yep, I not only have one master-technician degree, but I'm a double master-technician. I excel at everything I do."

Clearly, he isn't aware of the definition of, or his own, narcissism.

After I stopped thinking about how it was too early in the morning for this type of insignificant discourse, and after I stopped wondering if the possible sexual predator behind me thought as I did, or was I just a rude bitch, a realization came to mind.

I'm not much different than the braggart from the Bayou. I, too, want to tell everyone what I've accomplished and how special I am. While my MO may be less overt than Bayou Boy, I have my ways of getting people to ask about my accomplishments. Of course,I hate when I do this. I guess that I, and perhaps Bayou Boy, need to hear the reinforcements so that maybe one day we won't need to hear how great we are from others. Internally, we will know it ourselves.

Cliche for the day: To know, is to believe.

Amuse Bouche!

So, here I am...starting a blog. Why blog? Well, food affects all of us to some extent. As our societal waistbands stretch and shrink from obesity to anorexia and everything in between, it is obvious that food's intended role--to provide sustenance--has been beefed up to provide much more.

Having struggled with bulimia for, oh, seventeen years, food became my security blanket, my protector, my best friend, my family, and mostly, my enemy. Whenever I felt afraid, sad, angry, excited, happy--any emotion will suffice--I turned to food.

Today, I no longer spend my days looking back at my reflection through the bacteria-infested water in the toilet, running for miles to burn off the saltines and carrots I ate for lunch, or shunning social gatherings because I'd rather cuddle up to a gallon of ice cream than face my social anxiety or feel fat in my dress...but I still have a powerful relationship with food.

Whether one is an extreme dieter who obsesses over calories and exercise or a full fledge food addict, whittling down the attitudes, values, and thoughts that guide our behaviors around food is a process--and I'm here to share my process with you!

I'd love to hear any comments, questions, or concerns about anyone's process with making peace with food.
[amuse bouche!]