This Is What An Eating Disorder Looks Like In A Disordered Time
by Katie Pace
Warning: This article contains details about eating disorders.
“Fat is not a feeling.” That’s what they always used to tell us when I was in treatment for an eating disorder. It used to drive me even crazier than I already felt. And while I consider myself on the healthy side of the illness now with the power to verbalize my real emotions, I still would love to argue that statement, because the last few weeks in quarantine have left me feeling that way. For those of us who struggle, or have struggled, with disordered eating, big life changes can sure stir our pot a bit – that big ol’ pot of carbohydratey feelings. Or the real ones.
So here we are. In the midst of an unprecedented time where we are trapped inside of our homes, bodies and minds. With our work stress, our families, our food and our feelings. All this time we thought the holidays were what we had to get through and then we get thrown a global pandemic. And no one warned us that during an outbreak you don’t just worry about catching a virus; you also have to worry about food.
I’ll preface this with saying that it seems that everyone is besieged with the food stress of a quarantine. It is not just those of us with food issues. (I have confirmed.) Out of necessity, there is a lot of meal planning, buying in bulk, food shortages, hoarding of supplies and storing it at home. But it all can be incredibly triggering and seems counterintuitive to the healthy food habits that some of us have developed to keep ourselves safe. And it can do more than put us off track. It can completely derail us and send us on a collision course with calorie counting.
I have been in full recovery from anorexia for about seven years now. The illness once took my friends and relationships, my career, my personality, my dreams, my fun, my health and almost my life. But since then I have made it through big events (and holidays), shitty weeks and setbacks without spiraling. My mind feels normal-ish and I now consider myself to have a healthy relationship with food and a mediocre rapport with my body. I understand wholly what qualifies as disordered eating and where it’s just life and the normal ebb and flow of food fluctuations. But the other day, I suddenly found myself doing some old body checking behaviors and feeling the need to over-exercise. I was wondering if this was normal quarantine behavior or just something people *like me* do. But I was obsessing over what I put into my mouth with more than just some basic sugar regret. Was this just a little bump? Perhaps. But a couple days later my brain and mood were feeling frighteningly familiar. It went something like this:
“What do I eat for breakfast that won’t have too many carbs? Maybe I should just do egg whites, but how many calories are in this brand of tortilla?! **Measures arms with fingers to see if they are the same size** Just add more greens. Greens are the answer. They’ll fill me up without adding anything I have to burn off. Shit, take these chips away from me, I didn’t want to eat them today. I ate too many yesterday and I haven’t moved enough because I’m SITTING IN THIS DAMN HOUSE ALL DAY. I mean how many times a day can one walk back and forth for snacks?! I sure wish someone would put a lockdown on my snack cabinet! (I jokingly say this aloud, but I mean it.) Now I should probably skip lunch because I’ve done too much damage today. **Touches hips to see if they feel differently** Oh my god I can already see it in my stomach. That’s it. No lunch. But maybe just one of these chocolate-covered almonds to balance out the salty. WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH ME?! Put the almond down. STOP EATING! Okay I’ll just go outside and do some burpees. Take a walk maybe. Okay a long walk. With some lunges. Then I’ll be back on track tomorrow. Tonight we eat salad! Nothing til then.”
“my eating disorder tries to kill me.”
Now some of you are probably thinking this is what most women think about food. It’s “normal.” But since recovering, I know that while yes, there is a VERY wide spectrum of disordered eating, that’s not true and you definitely don’t HAVE to think this way. I also know well enough now that this isn’t me “thinking.” However, some of you may not be there yet. So please listen to me when I say, this is not my gut, nor my rational side, or a piece of me that’s there to keep me “in check.” It’s not for you either. And neither is The Voice that tells you to fuck it and just eat that tub of cookie dough because that will make you feel better. This is my Eating Disorder and It tries to kill me. I learned to identify it thanks to treatment and this book, but It’s its own entity and It lives inside me forever. And while I thought It had left me, I guess It was just taking a long nap. Or maybe hiding there behind my happiness, silently planning a sneak attack. SOME of Its cohorts are Anxiety, Depression, Stress, Fear, Grief and Loss of Control. It doesn’t really survive without them. And guess what feeds those? A fuckin’ pandemic.
“Food issues” are called food issues because we’ve learned to handle our emotions with (or without) food. But deep down what we actually have are just issues. Life’s issues. Like everyone else. And right now, there are some ISSUES. Fear is a big one. And fear of contracting a deadly illness is only the tip of the iceberg. We are scared about secondary effects like the long-term mental health of our children or the financial implosion that is barreling toward us. We have smaller worries that we can’t successfully balance completing our work, teaching our kids and caring for our families. Dreads of our marriage crumbling beneath us as we face the real state of our relationship while being stuck at home together. And some of us are terrified of being unable to escape abusive relationships, being unable to help children who need more services or support or being unable to keep our homes. The angst is palpable. The discomfort can be unbearable. But when calamity hits and distress takes over, we turn to the place where we learned to soothe ourselves and regulate our feelings. The Place Where Things Feel Better.
F O O D.
It's not all gumdrops and lollipops in this place. The Voice thunders here. It used to be so dominant for me that it didn’t even feel like a voice. It felt like I was It and It was Me. And that may be how it is for you right now. Because as we isolate in our homes with less and less to feel good about, both with the world and with ourselves, with fewer real-life voices to fill our voids, It can become much louder. If we yell at our kids or partner because we are overwhelmed, it may yell back at us. And it may sound something like this:
“Don’t you dare eat that x. (One of my previously “dangerous” foods is hidden here so it doesn’t give your Voice any ideas.) They may tell you it’s healthy, but it’s pure fat. And so are you. Do you want to be fatter? Do you want to be a horrible mom that’s fat too? Just stick to the foods you’re allowed! This isn’t one of them. Vegetables are fine. So make yourself a salad, but don’t use salad dressing. Way too many calories. Just pour some vinegar or a lemon on it and you can burn it off with a walk later.”
This is Its sneaky way of making us feel better about what we said to our family. It allows us to control the areas we can’t – or don’t think we can - control. It puts blinders on our true emotional state so we don’t completely explode – or IMplode. And It can’t make up its mind.
Sometimes It flip flops and says, “Just eat it. You earned it. You deserve some semblance of happiness and enjoyment. Everything else sucks but at least you’ll have that box of cookies and what a treat that will be. It’s going to taste amazing.”
But if you obey, you could face Its wrath. Its cold retort to your behavior could be, “Wow. You just had to take it to the extreme. You couldn’t just have a bite. You have no self-control. You’d feel better if you just threw it up. Check the size of your stomach right now. Everyone is going to talk about you behind your back, because you’re going to be even more disgusting than you already are.”
And sometimes It tricks you by even praising you. “Look you’re currently the thinnest one in your group of friends. Don’t fuck it up. You’d hate to come out of this quarantine as the fat one and have everyone wonder what happened. In fact! Come out of this even skinnier! Be the one who accomplished something worthwhile during this time. Don’t waste this opportunity by stuffing your face and being lazy.”
But no matter what It says, even if it’s just whispering to you here and there, it can become a vicious cycle of you listening, then self-loathing, and then listening again to make yourself feel better. It may be shaming and screaming at you right now during this pandemic because you are in crisis mode. Years ago, as my life crumbled around me, It even told me that the gum I was chewing was too much for me. It was only a special treat and I usually wasn’t worthy of it because I wasn’t thin enough yet. It would yell numbers at me over and over. How much I weighed, how many calories I’d eaten, how many I’d burned, and how many inches my body measured. And if I broke from the rules than I had to pay for it. It judged other women harshly and compared me to them. It made me fantasize about cutting off chunks of my thighs with sharp objects. It lied to me and told me that I was finally going to get the approval I desperately needed. It made me repeat phrases I’d heard like “Nothing tastes as good as thin feels.” This was my detached reality every second of every day. But during times of disaster, I plunged deeper in.
“when the world becomes dysfunctional, our addiction can too.”
I want to be clear that this isn’t just about restricting with food. It could be about overeating. Binging. Binging and purging. Over exercising. Or being a perfectionist about “healthy” eating (orthorexia). Or all of the above. There is also such a range of severity. And there is a big difference in making healthy choices and having disordered eating. Whether we’ve lived in treatment and recovery centers, had some therapy, or have “just” suffered silently at home with food and body image issues that are all over the place– when the world becomes dysfunctional, our addiction can too. Being forced out of the routine, made to sit at home with our food and our families and no respite from the mundane, with little amusement and no end in sight gives us very few tools to adapt.
BUT! There is a big but here. One T.
This can be our time. It can be the time that we break apart the systems that allows this disease to exist. Whether you’re an alcoholic, an addict or an anorexic, our systems thrive on secrets and lies – with our people and ourselves. But now our system is being disrupted. There’s nowhere to hide and our usual cycle can’t continue. So, we have the ability to give up all the deception and face the behaviors. We have the opportunity to break from “safe” foods or “binge” foods (the grocery supply chain is giving us that gift). To identify The Voice. To relieve ourselves from the pressures of the gym. To get a reprieve from the usual. To embrace the social isolation and get to know ourselves. To trust our bodies. To sit with feelings. To figure out what we’re hungry for. And maybe even heal.
Or maybe we don’t. Maybe this is just a time where we don’t have to do anything except find some compassion for ourselves. Maybe we don’t have to come out of this better or worse with food, in the same way that we aren’t good or bad because we eat or don’t eat. Our actions around food aren’t who we are, and they certainly aren’t during a worldwide crisis. So, let’s try to forgive ourselves and be sure to note the difference between granting permission and forgiveness. Remember that we are only humans looking for comfort during a time of collective trauma and that’s nothing to be ashamed of.
“we are only humans looking for comfort during a time of collective trauma.”
Right now, you might be already in the throes of it or headed towards a full-blown relapse. Or maybe you just have some things bubbling up for you that are making you turn to the fridge. But let’s just take a breath. The deep kind that expands our whole bellies that have been sucking in for far too long. Now let it out. And do whatever we need to do to gently start again. I usually start with something like this.
“Dear God. Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. Like a quarantine. What’s the rest of this prayer again? Give us this day our daily bread? Mmmm…bread. God dammit! Don’t think about food! This isn’t about food! Great, now I cursed during a prayer. It’s okay. Focus. Go into yourself. Your REAL self. You are strong. You are smart. You are courageous. You can be vulnerable. And you can get through this. Just give yourself some grace. Now take a deep breath and remember, fat isn’t a feeling. It’s just a really bad word.”
Katie Pace is an LA based ex-ad creative who is now a writer by day and everything-elser by night. You can find more of her articles here.
