Anything we become addicted to requires consent.

This isn’t another blog dedicated to giving in depth explanations on what each of the “disorders” are. This is a brief overview that offers insight and perspective.

Often I’ve met with clueless parents, dumbfounded fathers and bewildered family members and friends that have a genuine desire to help someone plagued by this oddity of oppression. I have worked with countless women that battle body dysmorphia, bulimia, anorexia or “fast” for “religious purposes. Some are in the stages of full blown denial and justification, others want to be done with it altogether but aren’t ready to recover. Some have been battling for over a decade. It became so deeply ingrained into their identity that it seems like to give up the disorder would be to give up their life.

Here’s the truth, there is no rational way to explain an “eating disorder” because it is irrational. There are the definitions listed in the DSM-V and obviously on-line. There are several blogs and pages devoted primarily to this area alone. Most are helpful descriptions of what the person suffering, is experiencing; However, what is it?

Now in all honesty. To meet with someone battling this is to actually meet with one in the throes of bondage, a possible undercurrent of wanting to be free but also an unwillingness to change. There is a protectiveness, of “this is mine”, holding it close to the chest and refusal to surrender it, to let it go, to release it. As most addictions go, it becomes interwoven into what is perceived to personal identity. What would life apart from it look like? Life before without it a distant memory. The ugly truth is an eating disorder is another way to rename addiction. Eating disorders don’t materialize out of thin air and attach itself to an unwilling victim. It took root because the person came into agreement with a distortion. This is not a blaming statement, this is a personal responsibility truth.

Why?

To justify it, to hide it, to protect it, to sacrifice to it, to bow to it, to say that there is no control, that it serves while it destroys, to say that everything revolves around it, to sacrifice, to no matter the mounting consequences, to weaken the heart, to experience starvation, to only think of how to control, how to starve, how to overeat, when to purge. Is it really about starving? Is it really about food? Is it really about the number on the scale?

Eating disorders are a special kind of beast. For the bulimic its learning the tips of trade to become really “good” at purging there are ways to do this so all the food comes up, to make sure no calorie or bit of nourishment is left. The lie is that eating must happen but at the same time must not be allowed to be kept down. There is an urgency to binge, as they are hungry but terrified to “keep it down.” It is a hurry to eat all the foods that they have believed they are “not allowed” to have. They consume all of it, sometimes in a hurried state, trying to get all of it down. Then once it’s down, the guilt, the panic sets in and they feel the strong compulsion to “Get rid of it.” By all means necessary. And life begins to evolve around this. When they will eat, when they will purge. What if people are around? How will they hide it? I worked with a young lady who would binge at home, when her parents unexpectedly returned, she walked off into the wounds to purge. Sometimes it’s not just once a day, it’s three times, or every time they eat. Depending on the level of fear and attachment to the addiction, it varies from person to person.

Cognitive dissonance will always cost more than anyone is willing to pay. If faced with the entirety of any addiction, that it could cost us our very lives, we would avoid it all costs. But there was something about it that drew that person in. Just as there is a reason to continue doing something that is obviously harmful. If the tables were turned, if the person suffering saw an innocent child hurting, the last thing they would do would be to recommend they turn to self harm and an eating disorder to cope. There is a fracture of the mind that exists.

The same as smoking, how an adult goes outside to smoke because they wouldn’t want their children or an elderly person to consume the cancerous smoke…..so why are they?

Just as snorting a line of cocaine is obviously unhealthy so we wouldn’t want a child to do it, why do adults do it, as being older makes it any safer?

When someone struggles with bulimia, there is a fracture of truth and consequence.

Why? Throwing up by all intents and purposes of the body is to get rid of foreign substances, stomach viruses.

Bulimia by it’s nature is malicious. It is a willful choice to rid the body of nutrients at all costs because….why? It has a punitive tone, as if the person suffering decides to commit to a very slow death. But there is also the refusal to believe that the cost could be that high. That they aren’t risking anything, they are achieving something. Gaining something by sacrificing so much.

There isn’t an explanation on the planet that makes any sense. That justifies what chronic vomiting does to the heart, to the throat, to the body. Even if the capillaries are busted in the eyes, the esophagus torn, thrown up blood. Why?

Anorexia…starvation. The desire to be skinny and skeletal? To starve to death is a slow way to go. It’s about being skinny but it’s not about being skinny.

And to anyone battling an eating disorder of any kind, no matter what is said if you don’t want to hear it, it won’t land. If you want to continue down that path, you have free will.

But the truth is when a life is consumed by starvation, purging, bingeing and purging, overeating, when life revolves not just about control but about food? “Eating disorder” might sound some type of way but at the heart, it’s really addiction; “it serves while it destroys.”

There is a time and place for exploration, validation and real need. The truth is, it’s a distraction. It goes against the core of humanity. We were designed, to eat, to grow, to thrive.

Eating disorders are non sensical.

Often disorders are of a physical nature. Something going on inside the brain. Most psychology experts even say that a chemical imbalance isn’t real. Some say that you can see it on a scan. Interesting how the professionals can’t seem to agree on what people are struggling with. But most of the time, it is an internal issue of the brain.
Eating disorders most of the time are associated with depression and trauma and are more a the symptom of the problem, that seems to be the only problem.

That’s not the root of it. Not really.

At the root of it is control. It is “I believed I was unacceptable and so I found what’s really a distortion, but a disappearance, that something is wrong, that life is wrong. That this is all wrong, that I’m not okay and in cognitive dissonance, I’m not okay. I am willfully choosing self destruction even though I feel victimized by it, like I must submit to it, that it controls me and that I am not in control of it. That I was victimized and so I became the victim at the mercy of this “thing”.

There is no sugar coating self destruction.

Nothing was ever “wrong” with you to begin with.

The brain on trauma cannot be expected to make informed decisions. Not until the truth is present and it is fact, “the truth will set you free.”

Even if we live in a world where “skinny” or “fit” is a thing, why do we care? And the number on the scale? We all know that number will change with time, with age, with genetics. We know it’s not really about that.

And honestly, is it worth your life?

There are those that look in the mirror and see a distortion, focusing every place that is considered flawed. Because being thin was the only way that they were going to be “perfect”, something internally has been marred and corrupted. On a spiritual level the mind, the soul, the body all recognize that something has happened that wasn’t natural. Sometimes the reason began from shame, from being betrayed in some way. The lie was that for this to have happened the fault lies within the person. That chasing being thin is even a means to “starve it out”.

Unfortunately in society today we have become saturated into the holy grail of self seeking validation and a want to be pampered and loved unconditionally, even at the cost of being accepted with self destruction.

We went from burying everything now to becoming grave diggers and laying out the corpses from our past.

Even going as far to be make ourselves look perfect on social media. Validation from the masses will forever fall on deaf ears if you drown out the truth from within.

I recognize that any of these words might sound insensitive. I wasn’t born and called to be a counselor to pamper addictions. I am here for freedom, to see people set free.

The truth is, no matter what you name it, it’s a thief. It’s taking years off your life for what? No one simply becomes entrapped into bondage and struggle because they want to be. How did it even come to us anyway?

The origin story is unique unto the person battling, but the truth is it is more than just a “disorder”.

We are more than just a brain. We are more than mindless creatures at the mercy of whatever forces come our way.

Anything we become addicted to requires consent.

There is a reason that we end up being drug into some awful form of hell. We can spin the wheel of addictions and pick one. We have free will.

In working over the last 16 years with women that have been honest about their struggle, they had suffered trauma. The type may have been different, but the damage had been done. An eating disorder was a way to control but simultaneously was a way to cope with shame.

There is a strange cycle that exists in the realm of humans. We experience “the reason” for why we feel something is wrong. Most commonly the trauma takes place, then there is a desperate attempt to cope with it because we think we are fixing it but we are actually making it worse.

For example: Avery* (name changed for privacy) who had gone through extensive sexual abuse during childhood, several months from a family member. The parents weren’t aware but saw signs, there was nothing done. During this time the abuse continued, her attacker, included her in the guilt by teaching her to lie about what was going on. She then began to take ownership and blame for the abuse, she was 6 years old. When it was finally discovered that the abuse was going on, the family member was removed from the home. The police were not contacted, the attacker not punished and the family refused to speak about it. Avery was never asked if she was okay, the parents felt too much shame and did not check in on her well being. It was easier for them to pretend it never happened, that she was “fine”, they had been forced to be resilient when they were growing up. Avery was never taken to the doctor even though she had an infection. She felt the physical disgust and shame in her body. She felt out of control, she felt trapped. Her memory filled with sexual acts that should have never been done, the memories stayed fresh no matter the time that went by. Years passed of the trauma being unaddressed. The nightmares continued, the chronic physical sickness, the inability to focus in school was considered ADD. She stopped speaking to people but was called a “good girl”, “mom’s best friend” and a “quiet child.” After years of silent suffering and being unable to have boundaries as they had been violated and feeling out of control; by age 15, Avery sat alone in her room and the idea of purging came to her. She would later say she had never seen it in movies or read about it. It just came to her, it seemed like it would make her “feel better”. She also started to engage in self harm and floated between starving and binging and purging. Her parents acted shocked and bewildered that their child that always acted “perfect” had lost 50 pounds in a month and had open wounds under her long sleeves. What had been festering under the surface, the feeling of being out of control, finally appeared.

Avery communicated that this was the only time that she ever felt in control of something that her enmeshed, controlling parents weren’t. That it was a way to purge out the pain she felt everyday. That whenever she hurt herself there was a rush, a euphoric release.

Avery: “When I do this, I know it’s wrong. I know it’s really bad. I know it’s not normal to do what I do with cutting and the whole eating disorder thing. It was weird though. It was like it was what I felt like inside, just started showing on the outside. Like all these years after what happened to me when I was little never left me. I still remember the handprints and what they did to me. I have never felt loved. Like the only reason I was wanted was to be used like a human garbage dump. A object for abuse. Like I had a target painted on my back or something. And my parents didn’t do anything. They let that person in the home. They didn’t even tell the police what had been done to me. I stopped believing that the loved me all those years ago.

You can’t tell your child that you love them when you let them get raped over and over and did nothing. I hate them for what they never did and what they let happen. And I know that’s wrong too. I hate them and I hate the person that raped me over and over. And now this is me and every day I look in the mirror, even though I look like askeletal I still see that little girl. I guess I’m trying to starve her out, to bleed it out. I guess even though I know its all wrong. somehow this is what I came up with to deal with it. And whenever I feel like I have to do this, guilt and more shame come. Like some kind of bait and switch. Like the devil comes for me and tells me this is what will work. This is how I will feel better. But I…I think this is going to kill me. I threw up blood this week. I cut too deep, I should gotten stitches but if I did my parents would know what I did and the hospital would try to send me to some shelter.

It’s like a lie. I do this to feel good but then it’s like I feel nothing but even worse that I did it. Like those things, those people did those things then, but now I’m the monster. I’m the one hurting me and I don’t know what to do. I guess being this way isn’t right or good. But nothing has been for a long time. I want a better life but I feel like, unworthy. Like this is all my fault. Like where was God when I needed Him? Like I was just a kid…I still am. But I feel like there isn’t anything anymore. Like what kind of life is this? I don’t know how to stop destroying myself.”

Avery went through counseling and processing. It was a matter of exploring what happened in the past without reliving it. Looking at her relationship to the self harm and bulimia. It was a reframing, a reconsideration. It was a looking at things honestly, about seeking health, embracing hope and having a commitment to setting healthy boundaries. Over time, Avery was 100% recovered and completely healthy.

She said later: “I remember that life, the way it consumed me. I remember feeling so much shame. So much guilt. I thought I hated what I saw in the mirror, the number on the scale. But what I hated was how I felt. What had been done to me. I remember feeling so worthless. Like I was forsaken and abandoned. I know how some people say religion is a crutch. But I really did think God had left me to die. But the truth was, He had been with me the whole time. I used to hurt myself so bad I almost severed an artery. I overdosed and survived. The fact that I’m still alive is a miracle. All those years I was punishing myself because no one punished the people that hurt me and I just lived with what had been done to me. But I don’t anymore. That life, I remember that. But it doesn’t hurt anymore. It’s memory. I see it all for what it was. Pain causes pain until you deal with the pain. I was so trapped but I’m not anymore. I thought I’d never be able to get out of all that. Everything seemed impossible. too far gone. But really it was just me needing healing. I’m better than I’ve ever been. My past is over.”

No matter what has consumed you it doesn’t have to. When someone commits to recovery, I have seen a 100% recovery. Avery’s story is one of many. I have seen people break the chains of this awful hold that has tried to imprison them. It isn’t impossible. It takes willingness, honesty and a commitment. Which really means, just show up and be present, be ready.

There is hope, there is healing. There is a life without being trauma bound.

Trauma is much like when a bone is broken. Something happened. And until that bone is reset, healed and recovered, nothing will ever get rid of it.

We can’t drown it out, ignore it, pacify it, postpone it, pretend it isn’t there. It will remain until it’s healed.

We can ignore things, stuff them down, use addictions and disorders to cope.

It will never leave us. Not until we heal it.

If you’re ready to let it go, you can and have help available to do so. If you feel discouraged, you can be encouraged. If you feel defeated, victory is still available. There is no weakness in confessing where you’re at and what you need help with.

Stay the same, remain the same, as they say. But seek the change, pursue the peace and you will find it.

Don’t give up.

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Call me at (936) 645-6051 to schedule a counseling appointment.

Amy Smith