An inside story about the hard slog of eating disorder recovery

An inside story about the hard slog of eating disorder recovery

My eating disorder (ED) stipulated that isolating myself was essential for survival. I had no capacity left in my mind or body to function as me. Until I could master self-compassion and self-care, any progress would be skin deep. To trust myself and become part of my treatment team required connection with the darkest layers within, where fear had never permitted me to feel deeply or profoundly. Suppressed events, traumas and emotions scared me most, yet I had to integrate myself with these painful feelings to work towards recovery. The need to sit with my woundedness was overwhelming for I already felt bereft. Ultimately, to find strength and courage within while fighting ED’s vitriol required a willingness and openness to trust others outwardly at the same time. I could feel safe with trusted support by my side, but no one could do the inner work for me. I was responsible for my thoughts, feelings, and experiences. To be surrounded by supportive others, while venturing within, was essential.  

WANTED – Caregiver for 49-year-old female, with severe and enduring Anorexia, complex grief, Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (CPTSD), anxiety, perfectionism, exhaustion, and general life hiccups. You must be caring, empathetic, and kind yet firm, while wrapping her up and making her pain disappear. She will vacillate between wanting to please, being grateful for your care, and being petulant and argumentative. Light housework, meals (not likely to be eaten) to be prepared, and company required at client’s discretion for 24 hours, seven days per week. If you can balance being needed and being pushed away concurrently, this job is for you. Minimum wage with potential for maximum bonuses upon achieving the necessary Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s). Apply within.  

The battle to find someone to fill this caregiver role has been extensive and exhaustive.

I have tried every therapy I can find. Talk therapy, narrative therapy, somatic therapy, gestalt therapy, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR), Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT), inpatient and outpatient care. I am still looking, desperate to find someone who will stay, and who I can trust to be by my side until the day I die, as well as praise my efforts and reassure me I am okay.

The therapists have not turned me away

I attend treatment and feel heard and seen. I leave with the intent to make a change, to live my life to the fullest. I know my team care about me, waiting patiently to find the me that hides inside the eating disorder. The desire to be well, to make a difference in the world, is tied up with making the therapists believe I am worth spending their valuable time on.

I have shed countless tears and the therapists have not turned me away. The trust and love this support has built is slowly melting the ice-cold veneer wrapped around my heart.

Returning home after each appointment or hospital stay, traction is hard to build but each time I am determined to try. I attempt to keep the voices of my therapists alive, but the disordered voice within is without reprieve. The adult buried deep within refuses to appear when needed to care for the part of me that ED has crushed.

A small, unheard voice within strikes fear

I surround myself with others. I seek company, challenge, noise, and chaos. I need to be needed; I do anything to distract myself. As a daughter, I am available; as a mother, I am on call; as a wife, his needs must be balanced with mine; and, as a friend, I am caring and generous with my time. However, through all this, a small and unheard voice within strikes fear.

This small voice becomes more threatening if ignored. This small voice is the little me who does not feel safe to emerge.

The eating disorder is strong and has trained me to feel at one with it. People speak of a divide between healthy self and ED self; however, I am not sure this is true. My eating disorder has hijacked so many years of my life that I wonder if separation is possible. My thinking is rigid, and I am told I protect my eating disorder above all else. This thought horrifies me, yet I suspect it is true.

When the eating disorder became my refuge

As I sit and write or try to connect with my heart and soul, I begin to acknowledge I could not control circumstances that separated my first husband from me when he was killed in a car accident. That’s when the eating disorder became my refuge from the world. I would hide, burying deep within myself, whenever feeling unsettled. Even if I wanted to, I could not reach me. I appreciate ED is protecting me from painful, memories of my husband’s death but, in doing so, when searching for a memory of joy or love, ED also has deleted precious, treasured memories. My access to other reflections, feelings and emotions that belong to me also have been banished, for too long.

Grief is a veil that ED hides behind. I have become comfortable, never digging deeper than becoming a widow at 23, as this event stands out as the major source of my grief and loss.

The small voice within that is not feeling safe to emerge has no chance of protection when the only adult in the room is the ED me.

Also, I am used to not being heard. This is the place I spent my formulative years. My childhood home vacillated between walking on eggshells or in a circus parade. I became accustomed to the cycle of false hope. It was safer to mold myself to be seen as required and keep the peace. I developed a habit to not need.

Looking into my past seemed too painful

The pain of looking further into my past has been too risky to contemplate. Today, ED thoughts are louder than ever. Listening feels risky and leaves me on edge.

Life at home was less erratic and there was less turmoil if everyone else felt good. To this day I struggle to recognize how unhappy I am if my needs do not align with the attention I am given. If the other person is “happy”, I can breathe but when they are not, if I cannot make it better for them, I feel ill. I cannot let the situation go, I have a relentless need to make it better, I need the others to feel better, otherwise I need to shrink or hide.

My job, as firstborn, was to be quiet unless called upon. I felt acceptable only if my behavior and appearance fulfilled my family’s needs. However, there were many moments I read the room incorrectly and “performed” incorrectly, much to my family’s annoyance.  As a result of this embarrassment and shame, there were few places I could call my own. My small voice took refuge within and has stayed there since early in childhood, knowing there was no value in allowing anyone to see the real me.

The intrinsic memories of sitting quietly were etched into my mind early on.  I spent hours in my room, reading, immersing myself in other people’s stories. The shouting I could hear or the silence that froze the house, vanished when I opened the pages and lost myself in them.

If emotions became overwhelming when reading, I could close the page and the problems ceased to exist. It was my choice to open the book and lose myself again. Flowers in the Attic by Virginia Andrews was one book I read many times, allowing my imagination to go wild. The shame of existing and being hidden away felt familiar: I felt safer in the shadows, out of sight.

‘Alone’ is an alias for ED, protecting old wounds

Alone is as familiar to me as my middle name. I feel I have outstayed my welcome in the real world. “Alone” is not people, places, or things. “Alone” is ED, protecting old wounds so well that I feel alone from the inside out. My heart is raw, with no healing in sight and the small voice cannot be heard while there is no adult in place to trust. The real me remains hidden, to protect myself.

Trust is something I crave and seek, yet I test others to see if they will catch the bait I throw. No one can please me as the ache is mine yet, despite many opportunities for change and growth, I focus on the pain outside. I know that while I have no relationship with myself, the pain within will not dissipate.

Food and restriction have become the messenger for the pain that I hold. I no longer recognize the connection between the two. I know ED no longer serves me, it does not soothe me the way it used to and yet, desperation does not allow me to walk away from this self-harming coping mechanism.

From the day I started therapy, the desire to feel better has never wavered but my little voice has hidden behind each life trauma as they evolved. I have wanted my treatment team to take me home. I have wanted them to care for me and make me well. When they say, “I will be here by your side, but I can’t do the work for you; you have to do it for yourself,” my adult mind knows this is true, yet my little voice feels abandoned as she did when young and resents that no one will come and save her now.

Resentment turns to sorrow as I realize I will not find peace until I give space to the small and wounded voice that is hiding, wisely, protectively enabling memories to be suppressed. When I was young such action was necessary to survive in my family home but, as an adult this is no longer true.

I am exhausted and angry at the injustice of needing to be a grown-up. I know there is a long road ahead with this struggle within and perhaps I need to pause and assess who or what I am outrunning.

To survive, I need to know how to care for my little one within while concurrently seeking someone to care for the me on the outside. No matter the care others show, I must become part of my own treatment team.

I need to push past the barriers that I have built to protect myself

I want someone to be there, but no one is coming. I am stuck and seem unwilling to look after myself.

I can only begin where I am. I need to push past the barriers I have built to protect myself from the things I can’t control. When the pain within starts seeping out, I must be kind and attend to the feelings without pushing them aside.

When my small voice within is courageous enough to be heard, there is no “why”. Grief, loss, and fear are not questions and there is nothing to work out or to understand. The why is not my reality and, if I can hear the voice of my pain asking to be held before ED uses it to divert and inflict the pain back into myself, perhaps there will be progress.

Learning to sit with emotions related to truth, fear, and desperation, while holding safe space for the small voice, will be painful. To pause seems the only way to find respite between feeling and what may come next.

There are few places I can let my mind roam but when I walk along the road, trying not to feel, I see a weedgrowing through the tar. I am astounded that it can grow in such a harsh place, and it occurs to me that my small hurt voice may be a weed that is trapped under the power of ED.

I must nurture and heal this grief, from within

As I open my mind, and allow myself to look around, I see a flower, once full of life, vibrant and colourful now hanging by its roots. Its edges are browning, it is wilted towards the ground, and I am drawn to this, knowing this plant will soon die. If I lift my eyes, I may see the other flowers thriving in the light and perhaps allow hope there could be something small inside me, waiting to grow, if I nurture it, and am brave enough to try.

If I take this wilting flower home to try to revive it, I am ensuring its death as it cannot thrive away from home.

The flower will need my attention, as does the wounded voice within. My challenge is to stay strong and focus on the pain within and not be distracted by external pain. The reality is, I want something I might never have. First, I must nurture and heal this grief. From within.

I will make my way home

We come into this world alone and we leave it alone. Those lucky enough to find a special connection with others, will have a hand to hold in times of need. For others, like me, no matter the friends we find, no matter the love we receive, it will never be enough for our desperate and desolate small and wounded voice that screams for more but is never heard. I hope and pray if I do the work, I will feel my heart and never again be alone; I will find my room and make my way home.

WANTED – Caregiver for 49-year-old female, with severe and enduring Anorexia, complex grief, Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (CPTSD), anxiety, perfectionism, exhaustion, and general life hiccups. You must be caring, empathetic, and kind yet firm, while wrapping her up and making her pain disappear. She will vacillate between wanting to please, being grateful for your care, and being petulant and argumentative. Light housework, meals (not likely to be eaten) to be prepared, and company required at client’s discretion for 24 hours, seven days per week.  If you can balance being needed and being pushed away concurrently, this job is for you. Minimum wage with potential for maximum bonuses upon achieving the necessary Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s). Apply within.