The Weight of Me
By Katie
What do I weigh?
I am the weight of my unmet needs, my suppressed feelings and my hidden resentments. My weight is not a number on a scale but a feeling in my soul.
When I was 17 and at an all-girls boarding school In England, I began to diet in response to deeply distressing feelings of attachment to the school counsellor. I had no idea what was wrong, but I knew that I wanted her to care for me, to hold me and to be a motherly figure in my life. As far as I was concerned though these feelings had no legitimacy because my parents loved me and did their best for me. The desperate need I felt inside me had no right to be there, so I believed, and I began to restrict my food to shrink my body to legitimise what I felt inside. The more I craved the inner me to be seen and heard the less I wanted a healthy looking body in the way of that. How could people see that I needed fixing when I didn’t look broken? How can you weigh nothing and everything both at the same time? The answer is anorexia. In the depths of my eating disorder I have wanted to weigh nothing, yet I have wanted to be a burden. I have wanted people to fix me, to look after me, to take away my responsibilities and care for me.
I am now 46 and in what I hope is real recovery for the first time and not, as at other times just weight restored but still in a disordered relationship with food, my body and myself.
In her book Eating in the light of the Moon, Dr Anita Johnston uses the analogy of a labyrinth to describe eating disorder recovery. The metaphor depicts the way the sufferer has to go right into themselves to the very core of their being, discover what is there and then make their way out into the world transformed by what they met.
In the times that I have been unwell with restricted eating I have journeyed to the centre of myself and met my inner child. The one who is angry and sad and disturbed. The one who is hidden yet in these times of restricted eating very visible. The irony is that as I shrink my body, I reveal her. In the past I have been so ashamed of her that I have left her in the heart of the labyrinth and carried on out without her. This time is different.
After six months of psychotherapy and dealing with the same distressing attachment issues as from my teenage years I have been able to give myself permission to feel the pain of the inner child and value it. I have accepted that I have to be my own parent and give myself the care and attention I have been wanting.
As I journeyed into the heart of the labyrinth, I also have found prejudice and judgment. I did not know this was there and it took me by surprise. What I am doing differently in this period of recovery is seeking support in all different places. This led me to Instagram and the eating disorder recovery community, to all in recovery and unrestricted eating.
Now I am trying to recover but not by swinging into orthorexia which has allowed me to retain the sense of superiority and difference that anorexia also gives. I realise that true recovery is giving myself permission to eat whatever I want without judgment or fear. Foods are not “naughty” as I was brought up to believe.
I have given up weighing myself. I have given up exercise. I have given up clean eating and I am trying to honour my hunger and listen to and respect my body. Gaining weight is scary. Scary because of what it represents. For me it represents leaving behind the illness and therefore the permission to get care. It represents moving forward into a place where I meet my own needs and am responsible for my own feelings. This is scary . Scary but exciting because this time the child is coming with me out of the labyrinth and together, I hope we will find true freedom.
World Eating Disorders Action Day
World Eating Disorders Action Day is taking place across the world on June 2, 2020. For the 5th year running, this grassroots campaign brings together ALL OF YOU from more than 50 countries and over 250 organizations around the globe to increase awareness about EDs and evidence-based treatment. EDs are life threatening, brain-based disorders, with genetic linkages and metabolic factors. They are also possible to treat, especially when identified and treated EARLY.
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