Thin and Defensive

In early April, I got into another argument with my daughter. ‘Argument’ is a bit of a misnomer – it was more in line with a harangue by her towards me. It caused me a fair bit of mental distress, and I’ve come to realize that we can’t live together again. It’s not good for me. It’s not good for either of us.

One of the effects was that after six years of recovery, my eating disorder noted my state of prolonged distress and decided to test the waters. After all, when I’m despairing – and I’ve been hanging around the edge of that for more than a year now – my recovery armour starts to weaken.

I didn’t relapse into purging behaviours, but it was close, and I realized that I have to prioritize my recovery, even half a decade plus on. No one else will do it for me. No one else has the same kind of skin in the game.

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I’ve drifted into some other problematic behaviours as well, from bingeing and subsequently skipping meals to exercise compensation and size obsession. My daily caloric content is shrinking for all that I pretend it isn’t, and I’m a little too happy when I note I’ve lost a bit of flesh.

I don’t weigh myself, but getting the number at my new doctor’s eight or so months back remains a mistake. I was not ready to hear a number.

I’m frightened enough by the softening recovery, however, to gird my loins and gut up. Heading back into the hellscape of a full-blown eating disorder is not on my agenda. I’d start smoking again first, not that I want that, either.

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Of course, relapse doesn’t start with me bent over a toilet again. It’s sneakier than that. It starts with a growing sense of dissatisfaction with my body. It moves on to constant thoughts about caloric restriction and increased exercise. Relapse is a lot of small things, rather than one big jump. Mostly.

It’s letting go of the ease I was starting to feel regarding my body – admittedly imperfect, but I was learning to not only be okay with that, but to separate ideas about my body from my sense of worth.

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Alarms are blaring when the food available for me to eat starts shrinking: at the height – nadir – of my eating disorder, the only food I ate was iceberg lettuce and small candies. Small candies are an essential “food” for the eating disorder set – you can quiet your stomach with not much in the way of caloric additions.

I feel increasingly revolted when I think about eating food, and rejecting what I’ve made is becoming more common. It goes if I don’t like the colour or the way it looks on the plate. It goes if I felt weird during prep. It goes if I get the heebie-jeebies for any reason at all. When the eating disorder is straining at the imposed restraints, almost anything about food will give me the ick.

The exception has always been McDonald’s. I think that’s because an aspect of my eating disorder relates to my sensory processing challenges, and Mickey D’s is hella consistent with their preparation.

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One good thing I’ve done regarding my current challenges has been sharing with my counsellor that I’m struggling. Eating disorders are a bit like mushrooms – they thrive in the dark.

I’m pretty honest with therapists, but not wholly. I’m not sure why I don’t share everything. I’ll add it to the ponder list.

Once upon a time, I was also hella defensive when it came to anything eating disorder-related. I went to bat for emaciated total strangers just like some of Ariana Grande’s fans. I extended the eating disorder lies I told myself to those who needed my defence: after all, you can’t let people call out a problem in others that might also apply to you. Therein lies madness.

The rub is that I know I’m lying. Neither of us is eating disorder-free at the moment. I wonder if Ms. Grande knows about boundaries? A lack is common in people with EDs.

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Finding and enforcing my boundaries has been vital for my eating disorder recovery. Sobriety in binging and purging was necessary, but not sufficient for healing: you have to address the underlying issues unless relapse is a desired menu item, and for me, boundaries are a doozy.

Perhaps one of the reasons I’ve been edging close to the danger zone is that some of my behavioural changes are still attributable to compliance rather than to recovery proper. I walk the walk, but I still have problematic inside thoughts I obviously need to address.

I’ve been sort of working on some of them in secret, but secret recovery plans guarantee failure ninety-seven percent of the time. I should know; I’ve tried secret recovery before, and it never took.

In many ways, I’m a slow learner.

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*header image – Write Diary

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