Lessons To Heal

Let me first state that eating disorders are NOT ABOUT FOOD. I'm serious!!

Drug addictions are not about the drugs either. Taking the drug is a way to avoid feelings, thoughts, discomforts, and life in general. Yes actual drugs themselves have addictive components and the effect on someone's body chemistry is a part of the overall picture, but ultimately the drugs are symptoms, signals, focal points of the underlying problem. This is the same with eating disorders. Overeating, undereating, and purging are ways to avoid feelings, thoughts, discomforts, and life in general. It is the AVOIDANCE that is the real problem.

But, as drugs, food plays on your body's chemistry and therefore a person can be addicted to food itself (such as sugar or salt), starving (there is a temporary physical chemical change when the body starves that produces a slight endorphin rush, that is so the body can have the energy to hunt for food), and purging (when a body purges the chemistry is altered and it is to this alternative chemistry that one can find addicting). However, in this sense, ANYTHING can be addicting.

Lemons, for example, offer a certain dramatic taste that alters the taste buds slightly and can be addicting if someone finds this taste to be highly pleasurable. However, when someone is eating lemons rather than living their life then it is "officially" an addiction. But talking about the lemons themselves is not going to help. Trying to heal the addiction by focusing on the lemons will not work. The lemons are just symbols at this point, they represent the addict's desire to escape and perhaps we could look at the metaphor in lemons, such as how they are sour, bitter, tart... but other than that, the problem is NOT about the actual lemons!

Think about your particular eating disorder habits, write down the specific "tricks" that you use most, and see if you can find the metaphors in them.

Possible Metaphors

• Starvation: 'deny thy self', usually tied into self-worth issues, depravation because one already feels deprived of something (love?), the quest for "purity" is often linked to feeling dirty, etc. There are many metaphors to be found here... starving away one's adult body shape could be a fear of adulthood/responsibilities/not being taken care of... etc.

• Binge: wanting to take a lot in quickly, fear of not having enough, fear of losing out or missing something, fear of abandonment, desire to "fill up" because life feels empty, etc.

• Purge: get rid of, get out violently, often there is a need to release anger, rage, pent-up emotions, this is a dramatic act, a powerful statement is trying to be made, trying to rid oneself of things they don't like, etc.

• Sugar Foods: a desire for sweetness (so ask yourself how else you can find sweetness in life), a sugar rush (false energy used to off-set depression).

• Crunchy Foods: to bite down and chew can be an aggressive act, this may be related to unresolved and unexpressed anger, etc.

Think about it. There are many metaphors in the eating disorders, there are also many paradoxes and hidden meanings. It is worthwhile to investigate these things so that we can get to know ourselves better. And if you are going to spend your time stuck in an addiction, then be willing to spend some time trying to understand it!

No matter what you may think, it's NOT ABOUT THE FOOD OR THE WEIGHT. Find out what it's really about for YOU, because though there are similarities, it's about different things for ALL of us and the sooner we try to discover who we are, the sooner we may be willing to BE who we are, ACCEPT who we are, and STOP hiding behind our addictions.

With strength and hope from Lisa