What was your very first thought when you woke up this morning? Did you feel ready to embrace the day or were you sucked into a spiral of worrisome thoughts about food and your body? How much time and energy did you expend enacting a line up of rituals to control the outcome (or intake) of the day ahead?
“How you do it? I wish I had the motivation to get up and crank out all of those miles.” Admiration and compliments from others fuel the already obsessive mind of the person with an exercise addiction. The dictator inside of their brain—the one that encourages setting the alarm for 4:30 a.m. to go out and run in the cold—is thrilled.
Having spent the first half of my life trying to lose weight, I decided some time ago that I refuse to spend the second half of my life trying to lose wrinkles. All day long, our bodies work diligently for us, yet most people walk around lost in thought, ignoring, criticizing and often times even despising their bodies.
Longings are hushed and hidden. Along the way, we're taught to tuck away our longing and ignore it. Early in my career as a psychotherapist, I realized that longing and loneliness were universal. In the security and safety of the therapeutic relationship, my clients unpacked their longing slowly while gauging my reaction to the secrets they've held in their hearts.
I was raised by a mom who was extremely dissatisfied with her body. Sadly, and statistically, there is a good chance that you were too. It’s nobody’s fault. Most of our mothers were handed the same bad body image baton that we were, leaving far too many of us competing in the never ending race of trying to eat a certain way, exercise a certain way and look a certain way in order to feel attractive and lovable.
Imagine you had a friend, and 24 hours a day, this friend was working for you, doing all kinds of really important things. Imagine your friend was holding you up, helping you walk, breathe, laugh, sleep, read, see, dream, hear sounds, touch things, feel love, pump blood into your veins, digest food, and countless other miracles.
College football players aren’t exactly who come to mind when thinking of someone with an eating disorder. However, earlier this month Penn State’s kicker Joey Julius publicly shared in a Facebook post that he struggles with Binge Eating Disorder (BED). With support from his coach, Joey missed spring and summer workouts to enter treatment.
Dear Dr. Phil: Oh, how I’ve loved you since your early days on Oprah, but today, I’m writing you with a specific request. I watched this week’s episode, “Identical Twins Starving to Death: Who’s to Blame,” and I haven’t been able to get it out of my mind. So, since we’re both therapists and can appreciate the value of talking things through, I thought I’d start the conversation.
I’ll be honest – I worry about my sweet girl getting sucked into a world where she’s controlled by an eating disorder. Mothers have a fierce protective instinct to shield their children from harm. It is no wonder then, that the illness that consumed my every thought and decision, had damaging effects on my health, and robbed me of opportunities, would cause anxiety.
“My breasts are saggy, my thighs covered in cellulite, my ass is droopy, and my stomach looks like I’m perpetually pregnant.” Seriously, this, THIS, is what women talk about when we’re together? Distress and anguish quickly turn to identifiable solutions - cleanses, detoxes, and workouts that are “sure to be the fix” to this newsworthy conundrum.
Learning how to believe I’m good enough still feels like walking on a tightrope. Each step is calculated and timid. Fearing the fall into the dark abyss of my past, I move cautiously. Breath held, hands shaking, arms outstretched for balance as I try not to look down. When can I relax, breathe, and trust in myself that all will be well? When will I float above the tightrope with the grace of a ballerina, light on her toes?
If comparisons are the thief of joy, I wonder if depression is the thief of hope. Hope. Such a tiny a little word, yet in its absence it leaves such large gaping holes. Sometimes we search for hope, and despite our most valiant efforts, it’s nowhere to be found. And then, almost as mysteriously as when it left, it returns, filling in the gaps as though it had never left.
If someone had asked me what recovery looked like to me when wrapped in the cocoon of my eating disorder, I would have likely told them to leave me alone - Exorcist-style (head spinning and projectile vomiting). However, tucked gently in the folds of that cocoon, was a part of myself who had big plans for my life before I got hijacked by the eating disorder.
Have you ever been hijacked by envy? I created the term, envy hijacking, because apparently the half comatose individual that wrote Webster’s definition was so sedated they hadn’t ever actually truly experienced envy. Webster’s version goes like this (insert British accent): painful or resentful awareness of an advantage enjoyed by another, joined with a desire to possess the same advantage. What? If you didn’t just pop three Xanax, envy feels more like rage, terror, or complete and utter disbelief.
Thanks to Dr. Brene Brown's 2010 TED talk, The Power of Vulnerability, there is a movement in our culture to embrace vulnerability, "whole-heartedly," as Brene would say. Her talk is one of the top five most viewed TED talks in the world. Brene is a brilliant researcher and author of many bestselling books. She has the unique ability to synthesize and share her research findings in a way that is relatable and empowering.
My clients know I'm recovered. Once comfortable enough, some will ask me, "Are you triggered by your clients’ eating disorder behaviors?" It's a good and fair question, and my answer is not normally, or if I am, it is merely so superficial it's just a little blip. I'm not immune to being triggered, but the eating disorder symptoms, as is true for all of us with this illness, were merely ways to protect myself from what was underneath.
“Strong is the new skinny.” “Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels.” “Suck it up now and you won’t have to suck it in later.” Sound familiar? You can’t spend five minutes on Pinterest or any form of social media without seeing these catchy little quotes layered on top of images of whatever the latest absurd mandate is to be considered beautiful or sexy...
