For most people food is a source of enjoyment and socialization. If you are struggling with an Eating Disorder food becomes the enemy and a source of a great deal of anxiety.
In New York the most common way to spend time with friends is going out to dinner or meeting up for drinks. But if food and calories are controlling your life, meeting friends for happy hour is a terrifying prospect. If you start to avoid situations that involve food this will leave you feeling very isolated.
There is a great deal of shame and secrecy in your struggle. No one can imagine how many times you have stepped on that scale today or counted up calories ingested or burned. They don’t know how many times you have stood in front of a mirror and pinched parts of your body you believe is flawed or fat. They haven’t experienced the number of times you have cancelled plans and sat home crying alone because of the self-hatred you feel.
Maybe you have eaten a healthy diet throughout the day only to consume massive amounts of food in the privacy of your own home, in secret. No one would know that to compensate for the shame and guilt you feel for “losing control” you spend hours throwing up the food or consuming large amount of laxatives or exercising to a point that is beyond healthy.
You don’t have to look sick to be sick. People don’t wear signs announcing that they struggle with an eating disorder. Unfortunately this leads to people being dismissed by other which can interfere with the essential and lifesaving treatment needed.
Eating Disorders are very much misunderstood. You are not struggling with a diet or vanity you have a disorder, an illness. And whether you are underweight, “normal weight” or slightly overweight, this disorder can kill you. An eating disorder is so much more than the weight. It involves a distorted and poor body image. It includes a sense of self-loathing. This disease is all consuming.
I want to help you explore where these feeling are coming from and what they are connected to. You can lose all your weight until you are skin and bones but that won’t take away the emotional pain.
I want to help you get to a place where intimacy is not scary. You feel connected to others and connected to your life. Most importantly I want you to embrace a place of self-love and self-acceptance.
