"You also probably know that control issues are big when you have an eating disorder. But if your emotions are limited and your thinking is distorted then your control issues may be unknown to you. You may feel that you need to be in charge of something not because you want power but because you believe your position is accurate and the best of all possible choices."
First of all, this is a very powerful post, and quite timely for me. I have been in the above scenerio many times. Right now, though, I KNOW that my position is not accurate and the best choice. I'm struggling partly because I know I'm not making the best choices. I'm just deathly afraid to make the right choices. The right choices will make me gain weight secondary to how I've lost it. It's simple biology. I'm not going into detail for obvious reasons, but knowing that I know I'm making the wrong decisions actually makes me feel worse.
I will admit that my thinking is distorted right now. I acknowledge that if I were to make the healthy decision that eventually I would get on track. But what I have to go through to get on track scares me because I know that I will gain weight immediately and will have to wait for my body to accept the healthy changes to eventually even out. I hope this makes sense.
Its amazing and scary how a person can go from working a solid recovery to being on the fast track to irreversible damage to ones body. Eating disordered thinking is very sneaky. I think sometimes that it's not just about trying not to have an eating disorder. It's not that easy. If you don't have a safety net in place, if you don't have some modicum of a sturdy self worth, then it's so easy to get off track.
If you let the world define your worth or if you hide behind your eating disorder because you are so damn scared of your past and so scared to make changes because making changes hurts sometimes, then you are bound to have confusion and distorted thoughts.
Its interesting how joanna spoke of the body as an "it". That's exactly how I think of my body most of the time. Like it's a separate extension of my brain and my heart. I think that is what causes the cloudy thinking- the dissiciation. it makes it easier to stay ingrained in unhealthy ED patterns if I treat it separate. Because I know what's rIght and what's wrong. I know what I should do. Keeping my body separate cuts down on the guilt of the wrong decisions I am making. I don't know. Perhaps I'm making no sense. I realize that I'm punishing my body for the things that were done to it. I'm seriously trying to work this out in therapy. But stuff is so painful right now. I can't begin to explain how painful. So I tell myself that it doesn't matter. It's less about control right now than about just not wanting to take up space and be vulnerable to getting hurt again.
Or maybe be it IS all about control and I just can't see it???
good article.
tracy
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Joanna Poppink, MFT
Eating Disorder Recovery Psychotherapist
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