The Hopeline
Volume 1, Number 5
Revised July 2004
Turning points and shifts in thinking mark the path toward sickness as well as the path toward recovery for people with eating disorders. When an eating disorder begins, a subtle, unconscious shift in focus takes place. Food and eating behaviors become more important than relationships with people. Often this shift follow a significant loss or disappointment in a very important relationship such as a rejection in a romantic relationship, a death of a very good friend or close relative, or an incident of abuse (sexual, physical, or emotional). When I began to recover, I had to face the fact that my biggest problems were in my thinking and in my relationships, not in my eating patterns or low weight. This Hopeline is about family relationships and raises some questions and issues important to think about and address while recovering from an eating disorder.
I can remember distinctly how angry I felt when a friend of mine challenged my claim that I felt independent of my parents (after all, I said, they live 3,000 miles away!). Deep inside, I knew he was right...I was still tied to my parents emotionally regardless of the physical separation; the frequent phone call, the letters, my concern for their problems, their involvement in my decisions, and, most of all, my difficulty in handling their anger or disagreement were a testimony to that. I realized for the first time that our relationship was not healthy and began to wonder if maybe it needed to change if I were to get well. Fortunately, my parents were willing to examine and discuss family issues with me. This is not always the case. I began to look at my family more objectively and realistically in an attempt to establish my own identity apart from my parents. This was difficult because I did not feel prepared to face the world on my own; I felt very scared, insecure, and lacking in self-love.
Just as I found the four I's (4 individual issues mentioned in the last Hopeline) important to work on within myself, I also found the Four F's (4 family issues) that I had to face as well. I challenge you to think about them and see if any questions I raise apply to your situation. Here are The Four F's:
FEELINGS
FIGHTING
FAILING
FEEDING
FEELINGS. Take some time to think about how your family handles feelings. Who gets angry? sad? depressed? Are feelings expressed directly or indirectly? I remember idolizing characters in movies or on TV who were invulnerable or showed no emotions. Feelings were scary to me and I did not know how to feel free to express them so I tried to deny them, hoping they would go away....they didn't...Once I stumbled onto binge eating and purging, I found a dual-edged sword, not only had I found a way to lose weight, but I had also found an anesthesia for my feelings. One of the challenges in recovery is choosing to experience the intense feelings so long buffered by anorexic, bulimic, or overeating behaviors. Just as the pain of a newly filled cavity is much more acute then the Novocain has just worn off, so the flood of emotions is at first very strong when the obsessions (exercise, binging, starving, etc.) are no longer there to numb the feelings. After awhile, it does not hurt so much, but at first it is very intense and very hard.
FIGHTING. How do you handle conflict at home? Are you the "people pleaser", the one wanting to preserve harmony and keep the family together at all costs? Do the same issues keep coming up over and over because they are never successfully resolved? I can remember my father observing that whenever the three of us were together (my parents and I), we would get into the same conflicts over and over again. He was right, but never once did we as a family try a new way of resolving our differences. I always blamed myself, thinking it was all my fault. How do you handle conflict now with people with whom you are in close relationships? Can you express your thoughts and feelings directly and honestly or do you keep your true feelings inside? Who is it that you are protecting?
FAILING. How much freedom do you have to fail by making a wrong decision or mishandling responsibility? Does someone always try to protect you by telling you how to do things? How much freedom do you give yourself or your family members to make their own decisions or experience failure? It is so important that you can allow yourself to fail, for it is in the process of failing that learning from mistakes can happen. Are you able to "let go" and let your family members handle their own problems or are you always rushing in to try to smooth things over and make things better? Let me give you an example. When I was in recovery, I began to talk with my parents about the role of the family in the development and perpetuation of my disorder. It was really hard for me to do because I did not want them to feel sad. I don't know why this was so difficult, but it was really hard for me to see my parents experience feelings of hurt and guilt as they began to see that they had a part in my eating disorder. One of the rare times that I ever saw my father cry was when we were talking about my eating disorder and he was concerned that he may have pushed me too hard when I was a child. He really loved me and had tried to be the best parent he possible could. However, I knew that I had to "let go" of my need to protect them and to "let go" of them. I was holding on too tight to them and felt overly responsible for taking care of their feelings. I had to let them experience their own feelings without me trying to make it easier. That was really hard for me. I did not want to see my parents fail or, for that matter, have to acknowledge their past failures. I have seen the same thing happen with women with eating disorders who have been severely abused by their parents. Even though acknowledging the abuse, they continue to feel a need to protect the abusive parent from emotional distress.
FEEDING. How does what you do with food impact your family? How do family members feel if they are all eating a meal and you eat something totally different or do not eat with them at all? How do they feel about your weight? Do you overeat so that your mother doesn't feel alone in her overeating disorder?
If your family does not know about your eating disorder (often the case with bulimia), which issues have been avoided since you have been preoccupied with binge eating and vomiting? Think of how little they know or understand about you when the major focus of you thoughts and energy is a secret. Think of how lacking in intimacy and vulnerability your relationships are.
If your family does know about your eating disorder, how mush to you direct/control the lives of the other people in the family? How much attention and energy revolves around your problem? How many arguments/intense discussions/tears have been precipitated because of the eating disorder? Would anything else have gotten the family into counseling? I became a very powerful person in my family with I had my eating disorder. They would literally drive miles to find a restaurant that served food I would eat whether they wanted to eat there or not!! How did we ever get to such a dysfunctional state? What problems are masked because so much energy is focused around food? There are benefits to your behaviors, even for the family, otherwise you would not continue to do them.
In this Hopeline, I have raised many questions in order to stimulate your thinking about your family. It might help you think through the questions if you took time to write out your responses to them s well as your feelings about the issues raised. Hopefully, thinking about these things will help you to feel a little more hopeful and a little less in the dark as you move forward on the road to recovery.
With hope,
Kim