"I sometimes think of victims of eating disorders as willow wands who bend whichever way the wind blows...I have heard many people describe eating disorders as a consequence of low self-esteem...I believe the problem goes far deeper. In fact, I find that individuals with eating disorders have no sense of self or identity except for the fulfillment of their extremely subjective perception of others' expectations" The Secret Language of Eating Disorders by Peggy Claude-Pierre p. 42-43
"I broke free from Ed, my eating disorder, through a therapeutic approach I learned from psychotherapist Thom Rutledge, which involves thinking of the eating disorder as a distinct being with unique thoughts and a personality separate from my own...In order to change my relationship with Ed, I had to learn to stand back and separate myself from him. I had to make room for my own opinion, which created the opportunity for me to disagree with Ed. I realized that my food obsessions and my condemnation of my own body were coming from Ed, not me. To this day, recovery is about making room for the real me to exist." Life Without Ed by Jenni Schaefer Introduction xix, xxi, xxii
http://www.amazon.com/Life-Without-Ed-Declared-Independence/dp/0071422986/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1376692781&sr=1-1&keywords=life+without+ed+by+jenni+schaefer
I read both of these books and have revisited them at different points during my recovery journey. They are great resources to help understand and treat eating disorders.
But while I found both of these books to be helpful resources for myself and for loved ones in my life helping me with recovery, I also found both of them to be lacking something necessary for my recovery.
It wasn't enough for me to be able to discover my identity and things I value and enjoy. It wasn't enough for me to no longer base my life on what I thought about other people's views of me. It wasn't enough for me to be unconditionally loved by people in my life.
I thought my life's purpose was to do something "meaningful", which for me meant helping people who were suffering. Along the way, I suffered with a dangerous mental illness, anorexia nervosa and wasn't able to do anything to end my own suffering. I thought if I could just work hard enough to end other people's and my own suffering, that would be enough to help me recover.
But I realized somewhere along that journey that the purpose of life (yes, I am making the bold declaration that I may have discovered the purpose of life!) is not to end suffering. That in itself is not enough.
When I read Dorothy Day's book The Long Loneliness last year, it was life-changing for me. She writes about her early years starting the Catholic Workers' Movement, and the line that captivated my heart and mind was Day explaining that life is about "human flourishing".
I had assumed that life was about the absence of suffering, restricting my enjoyment so that others might not suffer as much. And that was the attitude I brought to my first encounter with More-with-Less by Longacre. If I can just limit my food a little more, than other people will not suffer as much.
But I missed the point. As Longacre writes, "There is a way, I discovered of wasting less, eating less, and spending less that gives not less, but more." p. 18
She also points out Jesus "entering wholeheartedly into times of joy and feasting". p. 26.
It's not enough for me to work hard to end suffering, be that world hunger or my own hunger imposed by an eating disorder.
Dorothy Day writes in The Long Loneliness, "What we (The Catholic Workers' Movement) would like to do is change the world--make it a little simpler for people to feed, clothe, and shelter themselves as God intended them to do. And, by fighting for better conditions, by crying out unceasingly for the rights of the workers, the poor, of the destitute--the rights of the worthy and the unworthy poor, in other words--we can, to a certain extent, change the world; we can work for the oasis, the little cell of joy and peace in a harried world."
I must remember that this cell of joy and peace that Day refers to is the redemptive love of God lived out through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. God intends for us to live lives of joy and human flourishing.
Beautiful post!
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