Sometimes what happens in recovery is that we experience a ‘lag-time’ – we literally have to ‘catch up’ with ourselves mentally. I suspect you have spent many months or even years being very afraid of feeling. So now, even though you are feeling your feelings, expressing them to others, and effectively moving through the emotional layers that have kept your eating disorder in action, you are not yet aware of doing this. You are stuck in your own past. Bring your awareness of the work you are doing and the achievements you have made in recovery to the forefront of your awareness, and you will no longer let your past fear of e-moting run your current life.

Another element that sings through loud and clear in your letter is IMPATIENCE. Oh my goodness are we impatient for recovery to end almost from the moment it begins! This is a common phenomenon, especially in recovery from eating disorders. Why? Because the personality profile of someone at-risk of developing an eating disorder lends itself naturally to experiencing impatience. One thing I ask every new woman I mentor is this – Do you know who you are? Do you know the personality profile of someone with an eating disorder?

If not, you must get to know yourself, deeply and intimately, so that you can learn to work WITH yourself rather than against yourself in your own recovery process. If you struggle with an eating disorder, there is almost a 100% certainty that you also possess the following characteristics:

• You have a Type AAA personality – what I call the ‘Energizer Bunny’ personality type. Achieve, accomplish, perform. Perfectly. These are the requirements you have for yourself – they come as naturally to you as breathing, and you probably have never even given them much thought. They are simply expected. (That other people may not hold themselves to the same stringent standards has probably also never crossed your mind.)
• You are highly intelligent with an over-active brain that never turns off. You have the capacity to mentally comprehend the world around you at a level few others have access to. Conversely, you are in danger of quite literally thinking yourself to death.
• You are highly socially conscious. You have a strong drive towards equality – for others, for yourself. You want to make a difference in your achievements – you want your life to count for something. You have never believed you are just here to take up space till you die, yet you fear just that more than most, and more than anything else you fear.
• You are emotionally oversensitive and hyper-aware of your surroundings and other people, often to the exclusion of all else, including yourself. You may also possess poor boundaries and inadequate coping mechanisms to protect yourself from the strong emotional lives of those around you. Hence the entrance of your eating disorder.

Once you know your personality profile, you are less likely to intimidate yourself, bully yourself, guilt or shame yourself right out of what you want and value most. You are less likely to behave as your own worst enemy because you are a fast learner who applies what you learn on the spot. Because of this, impatience is your worst nightmare – your worst enemy. Of course your eating disorder ‘does not want to leave’. But this is only because parts of you aren’t READY for it to leave! So instead of getting terminally frustrated with what you perceive as ‘its’ refusal to leave, identify which parts of YOU feel frightened of life without the eating disorder for a companion. List out those parts and then brainstorm ideas for other coping mechanisms you can gradually build in to replace the eating disorder.

Next, grieve for what your eating disorder has been to you – a toxic presence in the end, yes, but nevertheless a ‘best friend’ in the beginning, back when you had no other idea of how to cope with life. Go through all five stages of the Kubler-Ross Grief Process around letting your eating disorder go – denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. So you say you ‘can not and will not live like this any longer’ – then it becomes clear what you must do. You must thoroughly replace your current unhealthy coping mechanisms with newer, life-affirming skills, one memory at a time, one emotion at a time, one challenge at a time, one relationship at a time, one circumstance at a time. You must build a new foundation for yourself, FROM THE GROUND UP. This takes courage, perseverance, discipline, self-effort and support from others, but more than anything else, this process requires TIME. Without adequate time to lay the groundwork for change, even the best-laid plans will fail to properly coalesce. Rush through the process and risk leaving essential pieces unaddressed. Rush through, and expect to fail. Take your time, recognizing that no thing truly worth having ever comes overnight, and expect brilliant success.

It is important as well to recognize that your past actions have current, but temporary, consequences. So you made a past choice to use prune juice and laxatives? Well, then it comes as no surprise to yourself, your treatment team or me that you currently experience bloating and so-called ‘weight gain’ that is really just water weight that needs to be discharged. But recognize that as you make a current choice NOT to use prune juice and laxatives, then in the future you will reap the positive results of this choice as well. You are building a different future through the choices you make NOW, just as you have built your present by the choices you made in your past. Every day you should wake up and strive to live in the moment, but also envisioning and expecting a brighter tomorrow from the fruits of the good choices you are learning to make today. Your motivation and enthusiasm for tackling the challenges of recovery will grow exponentially as you work to hold this awareness in your mind at all times. Understand as well that if you make the same life-negating choices you have already made in the past, you will once again experience the same unwanted results in your future as you are experiencing now. Have you ever heard that the definition of insanity is ‘doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results’? How can you take this phrase and apply it to the choices and decisions you are setting up for yourself right now?

This is a very adult process you are choosing to embark upon now. Recovery is not for the immature. Your choices have consequences. No one else can fix your life but you. No one else can stay your course. Nor can you do anyone else’s hard work for them. And even the Higher Power/God of your own understanding will not experience the sting of disappointment and self-hatred that you will feel if you knowingly act against your highest wellbeing. In ignorance you may find some protection from the consequences of what Twelve Step circles call ‘self-will run riot’. But with awareness there is nowhere left where you can hide. So instead, turn within. Take this rare and precious opportunity to get to know yourself – really know yourself – in a way that no other human being will ever know ‘unrepeatable you’ in this lifetime. Become your own best friend. Find out what you are really made of and grow into a deep feeling of self-love that allows you to be proud of your progress even as you respectfully acknowledge that you have further yet to go.

The process of nutritionally providing for your body’s needs must be, at this point at least, unrelated to actual physical feelings of hunger. It is very clear after reading your letter that you are far and away intelligent enough to recognize for yourself that your feelings of ‘hunger’ are skewed by the eating disorder’s demands, not to mention repeated applications of what I call ‘using food for purposes other than that for which it was intended.’ Food has one purpose, and one purpose only, and that is to provide fuel for the body. When I began learning to re-feed myself, I drew up my own nutritional requirements accordingly. I knew I needed so much protein, vitamins and minerals, fruits and vegetables, liquids for hydration, etc. I knew that smaller snack-meals more frequently worked better for me and stressed me out less than three larger meals. I knew that eating every 2-3 hours kept my metabolism and blood sugar functioning at levels that allowed me to feel more consistent energy and mental wellbeing. I knew that I was committed to keeping my physical body around for awhile, because without it I would not experience a quality of life that motivated me to want to stick around. I knew that I couldn’t have both – the eating disorder AND the rest of my life, and I knew this at a level that brooked no argument for what the right decision would be when mealtime came around again.

And I came to crave the intense feelings of self-respect that were generated every time I responsibly fed myself healthily. You must learn from your doctor and dietician what your calorie and nutrient requirements are for your age, gender, height/weight ratio, and current deficiencies. Then, just like a loving parent would, you must consistently require yourself to ‘do the difficult thing’ and ingest sufficient quantities of nutrients each day at appropriate times to meet your physical body’s nutritional requirements. It really is that simple. And it must be done. All recovery work starts here. You address this first, and then move on to address your recovery needs emotionally, mentally and spiritually.

My wish for you is that you embrace the life you have so obviously chosen to live. Your choice is obvious through the stark, vulnerable honesty in your letter. Do you realize how much courage it takes for a human being to admit that she sometimes wishes she had never been born? Do you realize how much potential that unlocks within you to reach for and eventually grasp the fullness of your own life? Your current struggle has given you the secret access code to the secret of life itself. You know this – in a place beyond your mind, you are aware of how profound the questions and choices you are faced with really are. You are, as Nelson Mandela once stated (and I paraphrase), not so much afraid of your inadequacy as you are deeply afraid of your power, your light, your ability to ability to tap into and make manifest the essence of what makes you and those around you so precious and irreplaceable.

Don’t waste any more of your own precious time stamping your foot like a little child and playing childish games with yourself and your support team. Don’t tell yourself you are ‘doing your best’ when you are planning to self-starve again, and whatever you do, don’t allow yourself to believe your own carelessly constructed lies. You know better. You know your best is better than that – you have already proven that to yourself, and whenever you doubt, your support team will back you up on that. You deserve better, you know it now, and you are capable of so much more. Respect yourself for your honest doubts and fears, respect your right to revisit your past one more time to solidify your decision to make a new choice now. Then pick yourself up, dust yourself off, remind yourself that if others like myself have healed then you can too, and KEEP GOING.

You can do it. I believe in you.

Warmly,

Shannon

Do you have a related question you would like to submit for future editions of Good News?

Would you like to send a message of encouragement and support to the person who asked this question? (NOTE: all messages of support will be received and published anonymously in future editions of Good News)

If you would like to submit a question or send a message of support please send it to Shannon c/o Good News HERE