A New Angle

Note: Please read the links provided in this post, or at least skim them. They're brief, helpful, and an incredibly good explanation for what I've chosen to focus on therapeutically.


There are two things I want/don't want in terms of my eating disorder. First, I want to understand its pathology -- its roots, why it continues to have such a profound and inextricable hold on me today, and how I can arm myself against these beliefs and triggers when I decide I'm ready. Second, I want to keep losing weight. (Shocking, I know.) Not being in hospital or residential allows me the capacity to pick and choose what elements of recovery I want to work on, so I figure I should take advantage of this while I still can and attempt a psychological, emotional, spiritual recovery without actually, um, eating.

(Yes, I know this isn't possible to do 100%. But I figure I can at least get my foot* in the door as far as mentality is concerned. And who knows? Maybe my insights will prompt me to find more motivation.)

So with this goal in mind, I've been trawling the web for treatment professionals' recovery blogs, taking my cues from therapy, and journaling on things that might hold some value to me. Having explained that, I went and made a list of underlying thoughts and beliefs that make it easy to cling to/difficult to let go of the eating disorder. (Inspiration: therapy topics and this.)

Bullet points one and two on the link, as well as their "solutions," are of particular relevance to this assignment. (Further explanation here.) It actually helps to think of my anorexia as the product of some very well-intentioned survival mechanisms that I devised in the first few years of my life, rather than some parasitic demon named "Ed" or "Ana." Possibly because the first is much more, well, scientifically accurate. Start talking about my evil abusive boyfriend and I feel like we're playing make-believe. Personification of things that aren't actually people creates impenetrable cognitive blockages between the metaphor and the reality of the situation. That's just how my brain works. (I understand that for many others, the result is the complete opposite. To each badger his own cheese, as they say**.)

So on to my next post -- the list itself.


*Originally I typed "food." Freudian slip much?
** "They" = I.