Eating disorders are isolating
When I was in my eating disorder I felt so overwhelmingly alone. I had no concept that this is a pretty universal feeling for anyone who suffers from an Eating Disorder. Now that I am recovered coach other people who have eating disorders it is striking how many of them complain of the same aching isolation and loneliness and lack of connection. This is because eating disorders thrive in isolation and so it is advantageous to the eating disorder to work as hard as possible to keep us disconnected and convinced that nobody could ever understand or help. It is also incredibly hard to have any type of real connection to others when your mind is consumed with the noise that an eating disorder generates.
This lack of connection and feeling of isolation is precisely why key 8 in Carolyn Costing’s book “8 Keys to Recovery from an eating disorder” is so very powerful. The key is dedicated to the idea of turning to other people in your eating disorder recovery as a means of putting the eating disorder out of a job.
How it works
At a basic level turning to other people in your recovery can work as a distraction, or at least a delay from engaging in eating disorder behaviours. The more you learn to turn to someone else the more you start to strengthen the healthy part of you and you break the pattern of automatically engaging in an eating disorder behaviour.
On a more powerful level there is evidence that shows that the simple act of talking about an intense emotion (name it) has a direct impact on both the brain and body of reducing the stress (tame it) caused by that emotion.
This is important because the honest truth about recovery is that for a while you are going to feel worse before you feel better In recovery we are asking you to do the thing which scares you the most, while removing your go- to coping mechanism. Inevitably your anxiety is going to increase exponentially because you will be having to challenge your food rules and as a consequence your body may change. Additionally your usual mechanisms for coping with discomfort such as restricting, over exercising, bingeing are not an option.
All human beings need and thrive on connection which is why there is so much power in turning to other people in your recovery. Eating disorders shrink worlds very small and connection is a way to grow your world bigger again.
Eating disorders know that if there is an alternative to them which meets you with empathy and compassion then it will lose power. It will scream and shout and do it’s utmost to convince you otherwise.
4 reasons that stop you from turning to other people in your eating disorder recovery
- I am ashamed of my behaviours
Firstly I want you to know that shame is a common feeling. Everyone who has an Eating Disorder feels shame – be it shame about their behaviours, shame about eating, shame about their bodies, shame for the pain they may have caused loved ones, shame for not having recovered. Have you read or seen any Brene Brown? If not I highly recommend you do especially a Ted talk that she does on shame. She talks a lot about how shame is such a crippling emotion that holds us back from changing and which makes us feel as if we are never good enough. She has a great quote which says: “ If you put shame in a petri dish it needs 3 ingredients to grow exponentially: secrecy, silence and judgement” Does that sound familiar to you? Secrecy, silence, judgement –oh my goodness aren’t those words the very heart of an ED?
I know it seems incredibly frightening but the only way to move on with your recovery is to take the power away from that shame by bringing it out in the open – taking away the secrecy and silence by making yourself vulnerable and talking to people. I know you probably have so many doubts running through your head at the moment. If it helps I can tell you that I wore my ED like a suit of armour never talking or letting anyone anywhere near me and riddled with shame but when I plucked up the courage to talk to people it was such not only a relief but a surprise as I found that being vulnerable was actually a much greater source of strength than pushing people away. Brene Brown says “ If we share our story with someone who responds with empathy shame can’t survive”. Personally I think that just the fact of sharing your story takes much of the shame away but having someone who listens with empathy is even more powerful.
Also please be aware turning to other people doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to tell them the full story. It can be as simple as when you are feeling anxious/ consumed by an urge / overwhelmed that you simply call or text someone and ask them for a chat. The power of distraction should not be underestimated.
- People have not been there for me in the past.
Firstly I am sorry that you feel that – it must have been hurtful and disappointing for you to feel unsupported. Nevertheless there may be a few reasons for why that happened –maybe you picked the wrong person to talk to, unfortunately not everyone is going to be our cheerleader. It is also possible that when you were very entrenched in your eating disorder then you will have been pushing people away at every level and looking for reasons to isolate yourself so maybe your ED was looking for negative bias.
Either way I think you should try again. Most people fail on their first attempt at trying something new but they find that the more they practice they work out how to do it and eventually it becomes easy. This is no different. You tried (unsuccessfully) before but now you put that behind you and have another go.
I think it is a good impetus to find out who are the people who will be there for you- and I can assure you that there will be people. It may be that you need to guide them in what you need from them but ultimately the most important thing is not what they say but the fact that you have reached out. It is your healthy self that reaches out and it’s like a muscle that needs flexing, the more you do it the stronger it will become. If you truly cannot find someone in your inner circle then there are online recovery groups to consider or a you could consider hiring a recovery coach ( like me!)
- Nobody has ever said anything to me about my Eating Disorder so it means its not that serious and they probably don’t know i have one
Firstly can I say that it is a fairly common cognitive distortion of an ED to think that other people really cant see it. Sometimes this is indeed the case but more often than not the people closest to us are more than aware that there is something going on.
Eating Disorders are very isolating – our ED voice makes us push people away so that we can engage in its behaviours unchallenged. Over time the more we push people away the more our sole relationship becomes with our ED. I wonder if there are people who may have wanted o speak to you but haven’t because they see how defensive you are around food. Or perhaps quite simply they are scared of the eating disorder or of how you might react, Perhaps it is possible that they have been trying to connect with you but just don’t know how to do so.
How an Eating Disorder Recovery Coach can help
Having a coach is a great way to start to learn to reach out to other people. Knowing that you have a safe space where you can trust someone to be reliably be there for you is a great way to gain some confidence. Also having a coach with lived experience is so powerful as it means you will be speaking to someone who has had a similar experience to yourself and who can truly relate empathically to you.
A coach can also help to pin- point people in your life you would like to talk to and who you think will be supportive. They can help with your expectations of other people because nobody can be there for us or be relied upon to say the right thing all the time. However that does not mean that it is a direct rejection of you, rather a reflection that they are human.
As you get better hopefully you can replace your coach with other people in your life.
I hope that I have convinced you at the very least that there is so much healing power in turning to other people in eating disorder recovery. I think if you try it you will find just how pivotal it can be to your recovery.
