Eating Disorders
I didn't choose to starve myself
Anorexia was my voice and simultaneously it was my prison.
Posted March 19, 2011
A recent study* looked at the degree of stigma associated with anorexia nervosa, bulimia, and depression. In comparison to people with depression, eating disorder sufferers were rated as more fragile, more responsible for their disorder, and more likely to use their illness as a way to get attention. In addition, the study participants stated that they admired certain aspects of eating disorders and thought that there could be some benefits in having anorexia or bulimia. Some participants even reported that they might be motivated to imitate eating disorder behavior.
After reading these research results, I wanted to shout, "Having an eating disorder is not a choice. I did not chose to have anorexia and it is nothing to envy or emulate." As a sufferer of anorexia and now as a psychotherapist who treats sufferers and leads a psychoeducational group on eating disorders, I have seen how widespread the myths and misperceptions about eating disorders are.
Even when I was clearly malnourished and my clothes were hanging off of me, people would look at me and say, "I wish I could have some of what you have." I also heard, "Tell me your secret (i.e. for staying slim)." Both of these comments implied that starving myself was a choice and a trait they envied and wished to imitate.
When I finally admitted that I needed help to gain weight I heard, "It's easy, just drink a milk shake every day," or laughing, others said, "I wish I had your problem." These comments implied that reversing my self-imposed starvation would be easy. As anyone suffering from anorexia will attest, eating, let alone gaining weight, feels like torture.
Anorexia did not only starve me physically. It also starved me emotionally and isolated me from family and friends. Obsessing about how little I would eat and how much I would exercise was my main focus, leaving little space for any relationships.
One of the most memorable parts of college are the close friendships we make, often ones we keep for the rest of our lifetime. Prior to my illness, I had a close group of friends in college. Once the anorexic behaviors developed, dieting, exercising, and studying took up all of may time. At first my friends were worried about my isolation and drastic weight loss and they told me so. I promised them that I would gain weight. Yet I couldn't. They became angry and frustrated. Like the participants in the research study, my friends believed that having an eating disorder was a choice and that I had consciously chosen self-starvation over them.
I had not made such a choice. The illness controlled me. It had me in its vise-like claws.I kept a scale under my bed in my dorm room. Each morning I stepped on the scale, praying that the arrow would point to a lower number. One more pound, I would tell myself. I'll lose one more pound and then I will stop. Each morning, it was one more pound, just one more pound. Isolation and loneliness were not anything I would have chosen.
What I initially thought was a conscious and well thought-out decision clearly was not. I grew up with two strong willed parents and my voice and feelings were rarely heard. I felt angry when I began college and believed that my parents were still trying to control me, not allowing me to make age-appropriate decisions. As I did not think that my parents could hear me express my anger verbally, I decided to use my body to express it.
I thought that I would lose just enough weight from my already petite frame to scare my parents, to show them that they could no longer tell me what to do. I succeeded in frightening them. However, once I began the descent downwards, I was powerless to stop it. It was like an electric switch had been flipped and I could not reverse it. It did not matter how much my parents begged me to gain weight nor how many promises I made to my doctor, I could not stop the obsessive dieting and exercising. I did not have a choice.
As with many sufferers, anorexia became the way I expressed my feelings. It became the way I coped with stress and uncertainty. It felt safe and I clung to it like a security blanket. Without learning other ways to express myself and deal with life stresses, the illness, with its rigid routines and thought processes, felt like my only life line. It was my best friend and my worst enemy. It was my voice and at the same time it was my prison.
Suffering from an eating disorder is not a choice. Starvation, isolation, and loneliness, all parts of anorexia, were never choices I would have made. In accordance with recent research, I believe that I was born with a physiological predisposition to an eating disorder that was triggered by psychosocial stressors. Anorexia nervosa is an illness which robbed me of my early adult life and of experiences I can never recapture. It is an illness I would not wish on my worst enemy.
*Source: International Journal of Eating Disorders, 2010 Nov 1;43(7):671-674.
