Knowledge drop day 4 for National Eating Disorder Awareness week! As someone who struggled with anorexia for years, and who is currently happily in recovery (shout out to my therapist), the discussion around eating disorders and our compassion for those fighting them is something that is near and dear to my heart.
Content Warning: Suicide
Big sis talk coming in hot: Many of the beliefs you may hold about yourself, your body, and “health” is utter bullshit that diet culture has instilled in you. And, that isn’t your fault! Diet culture is the water we little fishies are swimming in. However, I’m here to say that these bullshit beliefs are dangerous, predatory, and can lead to your untimely death after years of suffering. In the depths of the woods of Anorexia, I knew I was suffering but I didn’t and couldn’t imagine living any other way. There was no way out other than to unlearn the years and years of bullshit I had absorbed. I’m going to share a belief, the countering fact, and then a personal touch because people don’t remember facts. They remember relating, and that is where change can happen. So please, have a read thru my personal baggage and if you can relate, then perhaps those facts will stick with you.
Belief: “I don’t have a problem – I’m just naturally a fat person and I need to watch what I eat. I’m being healthy”
Fact: 2/3 people don’t believe the have a real condition (Griffiths et al (2015); International Journal of Eating Disorders; 48 (6), 764).
This belief led me to do upwards of 24 different diet attempts. I kept track because I’m neurotic AF. In the end, I was convincing myself I didn’t have a problem even though I was living on 1150 cals a day, and doing “intermittent fasting” so I only ate above 500 cals on Tues/Thurs and weekends. And I was able to find dogshit media articles about how all of these habits were health promoting from the diet culture vultures I followed (health and fitness magazines, @strongerU, @eattoperform and other dementors that were promoted out of Azkaban). But, if you take a step back and think about it, I was starving myself and my body was shutting down. I’m talking terribly painful digestion, fainting, dizziness when standing, a scary low heart rate and blood pressure, hair that won’t grow, nails that chip, cold constantly to the point where I would go to the bathroom during the day just to dunk my hands in the hot water, and I was TERRIFIED of food. THIS IS NOT HEALTH PROMOTING.
Belief: “I’m not thin enough to have Anorexia” – FUCK THIS
Fact: Less than 5% of people with eating Disorders are medically underweight (https://anad.org/get-informed/about-eating-disorders/eating-disorders-statistics/)
This. This lesson right here was and is still painful for me. I started struggling with anorexia in my teens, and my mother thankfully noticed and helped me. But then, I ran away to a nightmare of a college where I didn’t get the support I needed (when Cass is Prime Minister we will be closing/torching the Royal Military College immediately and paying students for their pain and suffering). I have lost out on countless moments and joy in my life because I didn’t think I was sick as I was never emaciated. This bullshit myth is preventing an extraordinary amount of people from getting help and living the life the deserve. When you think of Anorexia we think of a “rich, white, thin, able bodied, sad, young, woman” and this is SO WRONG. 95% of the people who are suffering from eating disorders do not present as emaciated and yet their insides are ravaged! Save yourself the pain and don’t wait or aspire to be “thin enough”
Belief: I don’t want to be dramatic and get help. I can do this on my own.
Fact: 95% of people with an eating disorder believe they should be able to “pull themselves together” (Griffiths et al (2015); International Journal of Eating Disorders; 48 (6), 764).
This is where my privilege really played a part, because I had the access to professionals, ability, time, money to put towards getting better. And even then, it was and is a difficult path to be on. Nobody deserves the pain and isolation that restriction can create, and you do not need to walk that path alone. In fact, having the assistance of professionals will expedite and ease the recovery process. If you are not in a position to find professional assistance, hit me up in a DM or private message and I will shower you in resources I have saved for myself. Free ones.
Belief: This is my bed, and I should be lying in it. I did this to myself and I should find my own damn way out of this
Facts: 9/10 people with an eating disorder feel personally responsible for their condition. (Griffiths et al (2015); International Journal of Eating Disorders; 48 (6), 767).
Genetics account for more than 60% of the variance in eating disorder onset (Griffiths et al (2015); International Journal of Eating Disorders; 48 (6), 767).
After my diagnosis, and the commencement of my professionally assisted weight restoration plan, I felt guilty. Like I was taking up time from professionals that could be helping “sicker” (aka thinner) than me. This couldn’t be further from the truth. I spent a few months delaying my recovery because I felt like I needed to punish myself. I was the one that dieted. I was the one that got the macro “coaches” aka vultures. I was the one that did intermittent fasting. Nobody had a gun to my head forcing me to do these things. I WAS FULL OF SHIT. The diet and fitness cultures I subscribed to taught me that thinness = health and restriction = moral superiority. Those garbage messages seeped in and made my little perfectionist heart want to be good, moral, and frankly attractive. So, when I was sitting in that Cardiologists office hearing that my heart was affected and I needed to seek help for my restriction, it felt like I deserved it. Now, my heart breaks for past me and I hope that these cripplingly vulnerable posts stop another person from feeling like they deserved it.
Belief: “I’m fine. This is fine. I’d rather be numb than fat”
Fact: IT AIN’T FINE. 25% of people with an ED attempt suicide (Arcelus et al. “Mortality rates in patients with Anorexia Nervosa and other eating disorders. A meta-analysis of 36 studies” 68,7 (2011): 724-31)
As someone who is pretty open about having bouts of depression (which can result from fucked up eating by the way because Serotonin is created in your belly – little free fact for you), I have a fear of suicide. I’ve been pretty dark n twisty at times in my life, but the fear of killing myself has always been there. I don’t want to die! In fact, I’m terrified of it. So, when I realized the fatality rates with eating disorders I just about shat my pantaloons. Let this fact motivate you to find the help you deserve. The world is better with you and your thick thighs in it.
Mad love homies