when being weak is strong.

Dear Bee, 

Before my clinical training, I wondered how difficult it would be to be present with my clients. With a compulsive-anxious-hyperactive-multitasking mindset, it’s not always easy for me to focus. Fortunately, staying in the moment with them is easy. It is as natural as the words I speak and as natural as the empathy I provide.

It is so easy for me to reframe my clients’ distress. So easy to provide unwavering support and guidance. So easy to point out the dichotomous thinking and negative self-talk. So easy to offer alternative perspectives, and consequently, alternative ways of living and being. We see people differently than we see ourselves. We are kinder on them. We are more loving and generous. We often accept their shame and secrets. In fact, I feel a tremendous sense of gratitude when my clients are able to expose their darkest secrets to me. The ugly ones, the ones that make them panic and cry, the ones that take them to the scariest places. It shows they feel safe with me. It shows a willingness to heal. 

I can help them when I know them. The vulnerable parts of them. 

Honesty is a tough pill to swallow, and those with eating disorders are conditioned to lie. Our disorder, in fact, tells us to lie. Whether we are suppressing our feelings, denying what we ate or did not eat, minimizing or exaggerating our behaviors, we are lying. And God, I used to lie. I lied about my lowest weight (to seem more credible for seeking help). I lied about how little I used to eat (I’ve never purposely starved myself for an entire day). I lied about the quantity of my binges (they were ALWAYS much bigger than I made them out to be). I lied about my feelings, thoughts, and behaviors. I wanted to be the eating-disordered client without the eating disorder. I wanted to be perfect in recovery…and, then, of course, when I was struggling, I wanted to be the most hopeless, impossible case EVER. Had to perfect. Had to memorable. 

When you lie to yourself enough times, it becomes reality. In turn, the truth becomes a terrifying, impossible plague. Lies, on the other hand keep us protected and safe in our own eating disordered cocoons, in our own predictable realities. Lies are controllable; we can be whoever we want to be and do whatever we want to do.

We can live in our constructed fantasy…until we get caught.

I cannot tell which clients lie to me, as I am still building rapport with each of them. I am still getting to know their individual histories and struggles. At this stage, I gather information, come up with therapeutic goals, and begin mapping out our treatment together.

I suspect omission is worse than outright lying. Not telling me pivotal information. Not disclosing something of significance. But that is their right, just as it is mine. Transparency, however, is a strength. A fucking, incredible strength. The ability to be absolutely raw and genuine with another human being takes incredible resilience and courage. It says, I love myself enough to expose this part of me to you…knowing you may or may not accept it. To be honest is to be accepting of one’s self: the good, the bad, the ugly. And let’s face it. We all have ugly. Just as we all have beauty. 

I have therapy tomorrow. I am going to sit my butt on that couch and just be honest. Honest that I spent the weekend feeling triggered. Honest that I’ve experienced some discomfort over my appearance. Honest that my eating hasn’t been regular or appropriate. Why else would I be spending my time and money just to pretend to be okay? Just to try and fool someone who wants to help me?

I would never want that of my clients. 

Today, I did good things for my recovery. This makes me very happy. I treated myself with kindness. I ate nourishing food. I exercised. I stretched. I read. I talked to people I loved. I kicked ass with all my clients, and it felt amazing. I’m signing up to run a group for trauma survivors soon, and I’m excited for that. I told my boyfriend how much I loved him and made wonderful plans for this weekend. I expressed my gratitude to my amazing friends. 

I am feeling good because I want to feel good. 

Changes in Attitude: A Then-Now Analysis

To explore the progression of my attitude towards recovery and mental stability, as opposed to just my food or behaviors, over the past few months, I composed a then-now comparison of the characteristics (honesty, hope, faith, courage, integrity, willingness, humility, self-discipline, love, perseverance, spiritual awareness, service, unity, trust, open-mindedness, responsibility, acceptance, equality, and fellowship) talked about in Tradition Five of Overeaters Anonymous. We read this tradition aloud in my meeting this morning, and in light of my recent slips, I felt inspired to compare how my definitions of these core principles have changed since starting recovery.

This is lengthy, and I did not  intend to publicly post it, but in doing so, I am hoping it will inspire, help, or possibly enlighten one of my amazing readers who may feel ambivalent, resistant, or afraid of the joy and freedom the journey recovery offers. 

Honesty

Then: I had no real concept of honesty. Rather than assert my feelings or needs, I used passive-aggression or non-assertiveness. I was absolutely out-of-touch with my feelings. I kept secrets; I used deceit; I became the person people wanted me to be, meaning I was essentially a different person depending on the context. 

Now: I have realized just how much my eating disorder made me a liar, and not just with the food. I have learned how to be assertive with my needs and I try my best to express my genuine emotions. I try to stay accountable by regularly engaging in my support system, be it through my treatment team, friends and family, or anonymous blog community. I realize that omitting information is just as detrimental as distorting it. I am not always honest, but I am better than I once was. 

Hope

Then: I felt my situation was hopeless. I thought I was the “special snowflake” who could never get better. I just “hoped” I could wish away this problem. 

Now: I have underlying hope everyday in my recovery journey, even through the slips. I may be a special snowflake, but that’s because nobody else is the same as me. My disorder, on the other hand, is not special or different, and I can get help the same way others can. However, I cannot recover by “wishing” alone.

Faith

Then: I thought faith meant exclusively having faith in yourself, and because I didn’t have much of that, I had no real concept of what this meant.

Now: Faith, to me, represents simply letting go and trusting that the universe and all of its glory will fall into place. That everything will be okay. Faith means knowing that my life can be a happy existence and that my world can be a serene place. 

Courage

Then: I had little courage concerning my eating disorder. I was afraid of telling people; I was afraid of people “finding out”; I feared judgment, ridicule, disbelief, and criticism. I wanted to be strong for myself and for everyone else.

Now: I feel so brave, because I have been able to disclose and talk about my eating disorder to so many people. I am no longer so afraid of their reactions. Finally, I know that courage means being able to identify and work through weakness, rather than just focusing and honing in on strength. 

Integrity

Then: I just thought I was a good person with good intentions and a good personality. I didn’t think I had to change anything about myself. 

Now: I know I am a good person with good intentions and a good personality. I now realize I don’t HAVE to change things about myself, because I am worthy just as I am…however, I can CHOOSE to change things about myself in order to heighten my own happiness, sanity, and meaning in life. 

Willingness

Then: I was willing to try any new diet, exercise regime, self-help book, or quick fix to heal myself and recover from my eating disorder. I was willing to lose weight. I was willing to absolutely fix myself on my own!

Now: I am willing to work recovery every single day. I am willing to own up to my mistakes and continuously accept that where I am is the right place to be. I don’t care if I lose weight. I know willingness is more than just the desire to eat (or not eat) this food. I am willing to fix myself through the means of the support and faith I now have in my life. 

Humility 

Then: Humility scared me. I didn’t like being vulnerable. I didn’t think it was okay. I thought mistakes made me a bad or unworthy person.

Now: Humility still scares me, and I still don’t like being vulnerable, but I do know it’s okay, and I do know mistakes don’t make me a bad or unworthy person.

Self-discipline

Then: Self-discipline referred to “willpower,” in that I just had to control myself and get my act together. Self-discipline meant pushing myself, meant over-achieving, meant striving to be the very best I could be. It meant hard work, perseverance, and often overextending myself.

Now: Self-discipline is so much less than just willpower. Self-discipline means learning how to prioritize what matters and focusing my attention on those things. It means learning how to work to the best of my ability, but also, to know how and when to give myself a break. Self-discipline still means hard work, perseverance, but NOT overextending myself.

Love

Then: Love meant sacrifice and a willingness to work hard at it everyday. It meant great compromise. It meant learning how to trust another individual; it meant deepening a strong friendship; it meant unadulterated happiness and security. True love meant complexity, passion, and absolute acceptance of each other.

Now: Love means sacrifice and a willingness to work at it everyday, but it shouldn’t feel like hard work. It means compromise, to an extent. It does mean trust; it does mean deepening a strong friendship; it provides security and happiness, but one must first feel safe and happy on his or her own terms. Love does not have to be a complex mystery, although it does involve passion. Acceptance of another does not mean you have to feel guilty for not liking one feature or characteristic of another; rather, it means you can accept your feelings for what they are and remember that you can only control your own life. 

Perseverance

Then: Perseverance meant “never giving up.” It meant never quitting and never surrendering. It meant having a goal and doing everything in one’s nature to achieve it.

Now: Perseverance means “never giving up,” but in doing that, we may have to quit the people, places, or things that no longer serve us. Perseverance is about surrender; surrender to do what we can, try our best, and continue chipping at it without judgment. 

Spiritual awareness

Then: I had no concept of spirituality, and I looked down on people when they started with their religious babble, as I considered most of them narrow-minded or ignorant.

Now: I am learning what spirituality means, and I absolutely embrace those with deep religious convictions. Spiritual awareness means learning how to find faith in something greater than myself and channeling that faith into freedom and happiness.

Service

Then: I had no concept of what this meant.

Now: Service means giving back what I have received, be it through reaching out to another individual who may be suffering, using this blog to openly talk about my struggles, sharing and volunteering at meetings, and raising eating disorder awareness. Service simply means willing to help someone else.

Unity

Then: I understood unity with regards to feeling a sense of belongingness in a greater group setting. Unity meant feeling safe, reassured, understood, and accepted. I had experienced this with many friends and groups of people. However, I had never associated with other people recovering or in recovery from eating disorders, so I felt alone in my suffering.

Now: Unity means all those feelings: safety, reassurance, understanding, and acceptance. Now having associated with others recovering or in recovery from eating disorders, I no longer feel alone in my struggles. I have experienced an overwhelming sense of unity with people similar to me, and I know now that I do not have to feel strange, abnormal, or inferior for having what I have or doing what I do. 

Trust

Then: I thought I trusted people too easily, and that is why I often got hurt or disappointed. I figured trust could be broken, but I assumed forgiveness was the automatic, “right” response   when this happened.

Now: I realize that I don’t easily trust people. I have had many one-sided friendships and relationships, in which people have expressed their deepest fears, exposed their greatest vulnerabilities, and shared their darkest secrets with me, but that has not always been mutual. I now understand trust is a two-way street, and that it takes time to develop and evolve. Trust does not have to be freely handed out. It is sacred and delicate; breaking it can be detrimental. 

Open-mindedness

Then: Open-mindedness was an abstract term for me, in the sense that I have a tolerant understanding and willingness to learn and absorb new information and ideas. I considered myself a brave risk-taker and warrior who loved and thrived on constant change.

Now: I still have a tolerant understanding and willingness to learn, absorb, and grow. I realize now that I wanted to consider myself a brave risk-taker, when really, I have struggled with deep apprehension and fear when actually taking risks. Likewise, I wanted to believe I thrived in changing environments, but in actuality, it has been hard for me to embrace the unknown and accept each moment for what it is, without worrying about the potential outcomes.

Responsibility

Then: Responsibility meant being a good girl, following directions, making the right choices, and avoiding disappointing or hurting others. Responsibility meant taking care of others in the best way I knew how.

Now: Responsibility means doing what is good for me, following directions in the best way suitable, making the right choices for me, and avoid disappointing or hurting myself. Responsibility means taking care of my own needs before others. 

Acceptance

Then: Foreign to me. I couldn’t accept anything in my life. I equated acceptance with laziness, with a Type-B personality, with a general lack of effort to make your life better. People who were content with “just being” confused me, as I was constantly seeking how to enhance, heighten, change, or challenge myself, others, or the world. I lived in a chronic and chaotic state of anxiety and fear. 

Now: Acceptance means the serenity prayer: accepting the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. Acceptance means knowing that when I am disturbed, it is because I find some person, place, thing, or situation-some fact of my life-unacceptable to me, and I can find no serenity until I accept that person, place, or thing, or situation as being exactly the way it is supposed to be at this moment. Acceptance means knowing my life is how it needs to be for right now. Acceptance means knowing that for right now is all I truly need to concern myself with.

Equality

Then: Equality meant we were all the same; we were all on an equal playing field, and thus, we needed to embrace each other wholeheartedly.

Now: Equality means we are not the same, and we are not an equal playing field, but in spite of those differences, we still need to embrace each other wholeheartedly. We are equal in the sense that we are all one universal race: human beings. Anything less is ignorance.

Fellowship

Then: I had no concept of this term.

Now: Fellowship means the unity, likemindedness, and stability seen within a group of people. Fellowship, in it of itself, can be a saving grace, as it provides a safe haven for exploration, disclosure, honesty, and a genuine exchange of love and acceptance. 

the laundry list: confessions of a binge eater

I don’t want anyone to put me on a pedestal in the wonderful blogosphere world. I have received a lot of emails asking for help/advice/feedback, and I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE helping others as much as I can. In fact, it makes me wish I had reached out sooner. To everyone asking do you know what I mean? or does this make sense to you? or telling me that they feel so alone or believe that nobody understands.

I want to tell you this: You are not alone. I get it. I do understand. It does make sense. And I have probably experienced it. 

Here is my own laundry list, my own painfully detailed confessions of some of my own bingeing experiences. Some of this content may be triggering, but I want to honestly portray the heightened, emotionally-charged “out-of-control” moments (that I still have!) to my amazing readers:

-When I binge, I get lazy with utensils. Most of the time, I don’t even like taking that extra step of putting food on a plate, as it makes my abominable act of overeating appear too real. 

-Lately, when I’m binge, I’m look up pro-recovery material at the same time, be it blogs, texts or encouraging words from my sponsor or therapist, OA literature, websites, or even positive affirmations. Sad!

-I have no problem grazing on nearly everything in sight, but I don’t usually finish one whole thing, because I worry people be more likely to notice its absence.

-While the number of my binges have significantly reduced since starting recovery, the content of the binges have gotten progressively worse. 

-I don’t think I’ve ever come clean about the exact inventory of a specific binge to anyone, including my therapist and my sponsor. I always minimize what I eat or forget to include certain items. People would be shocked if they knew how much how I could really pack it in.

-With that being said, I don’t even always tell my therapist about my binges. Sometimes, I want my sessions to focus just on my eating disorder, so in this case, I will tell her that I’ve been struggling or that I’ve been slipping. Other times, I want to focus on other issues, so I avoid bringing up my setbacks (eating disorders typically represent crisis management because they are a drastic and dangerous form of self-harm, meaning trained professionals tend to give precedence to these behaviors over other problems. This is obviously for good reason).

-Even though my therapist suffered from an extremely deliberating eating disorder for twenty years and can relate to everything I tell her about bingeing, I am not always sure if she really understands me, because she comes from an anorectic mindset. I don’t think she has ever struggled with a weight issue, as she is very thin. I do feel uncomfortable telling her how much I eat because I know that even my normal intake must be higher than hers.

-On the other hand, I feel superior to my sponsor, because even though she has never had a bingeing problem (just overeating tendencies), she is obese and I am not. Therefore, I feel like I am “better” in my disorder than she is, regardless of her admirable mental stability, ability to surrender, and mind-body balance. I feel far more comfortable telling her whatever I eat, because I know it is less than what she is eating.

-I have found that my latest binges have been more of “double” binges, where I binge once in the afternoon, ride it out, then binge later in the evening, as if I desperately need to get the last taste of my forbidden food.

-I recently told myself that the next time I binge on sugar, I will force myself to eat meat as punishment (I have been a vegetarian for almost seven years). It saddens me that I wanted to punish myself this way (I’m not going to actually go through with this).

-I have taken angle pictures of my stomach after a binge as a way to punish myself. I used to weigh myself just to see that number skyrocket, but I no longer do this.

-The food I tend to binge on is food I usually avoid, not because it’s “unsafe”, but because it’s food I don’t really like (store-bought cookies, frozen waffles, frozen pizza, cheap chocolate, etc.)

-Since developing my disorder, I have binged on nearly every holiday, ranging from Thanksgiving to Halloween to Valentine’s Day to my birthday to Fourth of July.

-Almost 100% of my binges start and end in my own kitchen.

-I rarely succeed in treating myself with kindness or doing anything remotely productive after bingeing (as much as I try!!!! This is a work in progress)

-I don’t usually make food to binge on, because I hate waiting for it to cook or bake. Talk about some great patience.

-I am guilty of wishing I could restrict as easily as I once could. This is a distorted wish. I do not actually want this, as I remember this phase symbolized an extremely dark and miserable time in my life. Anybody who “wants” to have an anorectic mindset clearly doesn’t understand the torturous throes of that vicious disease. But sometimes, in the midst of a binge, the idea of being able to just “not eat” seems much more satisfying.

-I have thought about bingeing during sex. 

-Although I’ve only done it a couple times, I have participated in those “multiple, drive-thru” binges before.

-I have binged on sugar-free gum to the point where my intestines were literally screaming and I suffered from terrible bloating and a rotation of constipation of diarrhea. 

-Even though most of my friends know I have an eating disorder, I do not typically disclose my bingeing to them. Because they wouldn’t get it.

-Whenever I binge, I think of how my future clients would perceive me. Would they be embarrassed? Ashamed? Think of me as inferior? 

-I have binged on vegetables.

-I compare my binges to others. 

-I have made excuses to leave places, get away from people, or change situations in order to binge. 

-I used to binge with one of my friends, and to this day, I wonder if she has an underlying eating disorder (this was before I had come to terms with the severity of my own).

-I have binged just moments after leaving a support group meeting.

-I have tried making myself vomit after a binge. I actually tried to do this recently. Fortunately, I have never been successful in this method of purging, and I am SO, SO grateful for that.

-At the time, I felt more accepting of myself when a former therapist diagnosed me with bulimia non-purging type, because I believed I had more restraint and self-control for at least trying to “burn off” the calories I had consumed. I am not sure if I actually ever met the diagnostic criteria for this diagnosis, but I know I no longer meet it today. I fit more into the EDNOS category. I once met the Anorexia Nervosa and then, subsequently, the Binge Eating Disorder (as listed in the DSM-V) criteria. 

-My last binge consisted of raw cookie dough (among many other things) and my stomach hurt SO BADLY.

-At times, I have fantasized about doing a dozen-donut binge, but truth be told, I’m not actually sure I could stomach it (though it’s not something I particularly want to test trying out).

-I think bingeing is one of the most shameful acts we have in society. Of all the gluttonous addictions including alcoholism, drugs, and gambling, I think we are the LEAST TOLERANT of overeating.

-I have rationalized getting drunk because it prevented a binge.

-Even though I had an eating disorder the entire time I was with my ex-boyfriend, I LOVED that he and his entire family (most of them were struggling with their own weight issues) thought I was this epitome of physical finesse, nutrition, and health. 

-My mom once confided that she ate an entire pound of M&Ms during her finals week in college. When she told me (this was long before I had an eating disorder), I remember feeling appalled and amazed and shocked someone could do such a thing….oh, how I wish that would be my worst eating vice.

-I once set “eat an entire pizza” as a bucket list goal (why, I don’t know), and I actually completed it. At the time, it was SUCH a challenge. Nowadays, I feel like it could just be the precursor to a binge.

-As much as it pains me, I think I have an advantage of over 95% of the people I meet in OA because I am younger and skinnier (Thank goodness for anonymity on this blog and in those rooms). I absolutely know I am not better than any of them and that mindset is a clear indicator of how this disorder completely impairs my judgment. 

-I love listening to depressing heartbreak music after a binge.

-I really want to work with eating disordered clients, but sometimes I wonder if I will be secure enough in my recovery to actually start in that field after obtaining my therapist licensure. 

 

Those are all the dirty secrets I can think of right now…so just know that I DO KNOW EXACTLY WHERE YOU ARE COMING FROM. Even though this post invoked a lot of shame, anger, frustration, and humiliation for me, I am trying to work on being brutally honest with myself in my recovery process. I know I need to feel these emotions in order to feel the motivation to keep going!

PS: feel free to keep emailing me. I always try to respond as soon as I can and absolutely help to the best of my ability. Do not ever feel as if you are alone in your disorder ❤

update to last post

Dear Bee,

In response to the last post I wrote about an hour ago, I did end up calling my sponsor, and it went really well. We’re two completely different people, but she knew exactly how I was feeling, and wow…I fully believe strength comes in numbers. I feel so relieved.

One thing that’s really challenging for me to do is be honest. Okay, I’ve come clean about my eating disorder to most people. That’s a huge step, and I’m proud of myself for it. However, I still lie about the dumbest, smallest details.

She asked me what I binged on…and I hesitated. Because, yes, that’s where most of the shame comes from. I hate people knowing how much I eat (or what I eat), because I rarely feel like it’s an acceptable amount…this is why texting her my food has been so eye-opening. I’ve realized that, at the end of the day, it’s JUST FUCKING FOOD…and everyone with an eating disorder has their own weird habits and rigid routines. That’s why we have a disorder to begin with. In other words, perfectly normal in my own abnormal existence.

I told her what I mini-binged on. Yes, I hated doing it. Yes, I was humiliated.

And, yes, I felt much better afterwards. 

She also asked me how I felt when I texted her about my eating episode. I admitted my shame and guilt. I told her I felt dumb texting her an hour after I had started enthusiastically working the first step. She explained that digging up my eating disordered past will bring up a lot of repressed feelings and subdued pains…I anticipated that, yes, but you know, it’s always a learning experience. Good thing I love school, right?

Before hanging up, she told me to hug myself. She told me to be proud of myself for reaching out and pinpointing my triggers. She told me to find some affirmations and repeat the serenity prayer (or whatever mantra I like) if needed. I think I’ll just do that.

Back to the positive vibes.