Overcoming An Eating Disorder Takes Learning How Not To Care
This is a very simple statement but I fully believe in it. Eventually along this winding road of recovery you figure out "how not to care". It takes awhile, because it goes against the mentality you have ingrained in yourself, but it is this concept that really becomes a tipping point in recovering.
During my eating disorder EVERYTHING MATTERED. I was hyper controlling and consumed by the rules and rigid structure I had incorporated into my life. My Sophomore year I downloaded an app called Six Pack Promise on my phone and I completed that workout every day, no exceptions. My Junior year I had to bring my own food to Thanksgiving because I refused to eat anything prepared with oil or fat. My Senior year my head coach had to physically stand in front of the gates to our track to prevent me from coming to practice because I had been battling a cold all week that was only getting worse.
My Food Mattered.
The preparation of my food mattered.
The serving size of my food mattered.
The ingredients in my food mattered.
The timing of my food mattered.
My Workouts Mattered.
My performance in my workouts mattered.
The intensity of my workouts mattered.
The length of my workouts mattered.
The timing of my workouts mattered.
I really thrived when everything in my little world aligned according to my plan, but intensely struggled when things did not.
If my workout was cut short, I felt the need to compensate with either less food or doing an additional workout on my own.
If I was served food coated in oil at a restaurant I would immediately move everything to the edges of my plate in hopes of draining as much as I could away. That or I would refuse to eat it.
If I did not race well at a meet, I would punish myself by not allowing myself my usual post meet fro-yo or a more indulgent dinner.
If I was spontaneously invited out to dinner I would rarely accept, simply because my meals for the whole week were already planned and my entire intake that day was based on what I was having for dinner. Every day was a puzzle where I intensely try to put the pieces (or meals) together in pursuit of a “perfect balance”.
I had no flexibility in my life except for my actual body, but that too was a product of a stretching routine I incorporated each evening. My first several months in recovery were extremely difficult because it was forcing me to step outside of my comfort zone and push the boundaries of my rules and habits. More often than not I chose to revert back to my comfortable behaviors. But I kept at it, slowly, but I kept at it.
Over time I started to desensitize to some of my extremeness. I expanded my diet by breaking down fear foods one at a time. I reduced my exercise one level at a time, easing myself into a new standard for activity only to reduce that again over and over again. It was like climbing a ladder and each rung represented a new standard for what amount of food and exercise was acceptable. As I moved higher the minimum amount of food I ate increased while the maximum amount of physical activity I could do decreased. And at each level the intensity with which I cared about both softened.
Now:
When I plan to go for a walk during lunch but am unable to because of unanticipated demands at work, I am okay to sit all day.
When I go away on vacation and have to eat every meal out at a restaurant, I am excited by the variety, not afraid.
When I come home each day I allow myself to have whatever I am craving before I go to bed, regardless of whether I did something amazing or made a big mistake that day.
When I have an abundance of carbs for lunch I still allow myself to eat carbs with dinner. If I have peanut butter in the morning I can also have it at night. And if I am invited out to eat I can go and I can enjoy myself without looking over the menu with my mind in a panic to find the right meal to complete my puzzle for the day.
It takes time, it takes persistence, and it takes a lot of effort but eventually you can prove to yourself that EVERYTHING DOES NOT MATTER, that you truly do not need to care as much as you always have and most importantly that everything will be okay.