Why is Recovery Taking So Long?? Is It Even Possible??
For those of us who are a bit older and who have battled anorexia for years, “recovery” from this disease seems like an elusive pipe-dream. In fact, a lot of us, myself included, may have reached the conclusion already that we will have anorexia for life; the disease is part of our genetic make-up and therefore simply a burden to bear.
We might have reached this conclusion because we have tried every type of therapy and recovery method available for eating disorders specifically, and we have even tried therapy for emotional disorders on the whole. In my case, since this disease has hung around me for 40 years, I have undergone all kinds of mental tests and physical examinations in order to pinpoint the source of my perpetual returns to restriction. These tests have returned with mixed results. For example, one psychiatrist thought I was psychotic and saddled with a bad case of borderline personality; another therapist – when I was going through a particularly sad (“depressed”) phase, which is common in anorexia, by the way – suggested I try Electroconvulsive Therapy [ECT], which I did, with no change in my mood thereafter; another treatment center offered the gamut of healing techniques, from group therapy to acupuncture to equine therapy; one doctor believed that if I did not care to eat, I should just get a PEG tube (a tube that runs straight through the abdomen to the stomach, inserted surgically) and leave it at that. [And as a result, I walked around with one of these tubes for 6 months, until the stomach acids draining from the tube-site became too painful to endure. Sorry for grossing anyone out there.]
My story is not unique; I have heard other people with anorexia tell horror stories that match and surpass my own in ghoulishness. So, we have a valid question here: can we recover?
The short answer is yes, we can recover. However, the longer answer requires a longer explanation.
If you have accepted the migration theory of anorexia, as influencers/fellow sufferers such as Tabitha Farrar and Kayla Rose espouse in their own treatment methods, you probably feel some hope that indeed, you can recover. But, as you read their books and blogs, watch their recovery videos, you get the sense that you have to follow this method of recovery correctly. You have to eliminate all restrictions immediately and rest and counteract any negative thought with its opposite action. And for optimal results: i.e., not raising your set-point weight by eating more yet retaining some restriction, thereby prolonging your nutritional rehabilitation and your neural rewiring, you need to begin with no restriction immediately and never look back.
I have lived with anorexia for over half my life, practically my whole life. After the tested methods of recovery have failed in the past, I have always returned to restriction in some way. Restriction plays a pivotal role in my identity and in my approach to life. As much as I hate restriction and rigidity, compulsive movement and self-imposed, harsh demands, these particulars of anorexia protect me. At least, on very established, subconscious and conscious levels, I believe these things protect me. And I use the pronoun “I” here instead of “my anorexia,” because at this point the two entities have become almost inextricably intertwined. Almost.
Thus, when I attempt to go “all in” and stop restricting, even while consulting with a coach who tries to yell out the negatives and cut off anorexic thoughts, the hard-wired thinking always sneaks in and gets the better of me. The hard-wired anorexia, which, as I mentioned, is by now also a part of my personality, does not trust the migration theory in the first place. In the second place, the “all-in” eating – while a glorious prospect to someone who is starving and really wants to eat loads – becomes a huge cluster of complications. Complications such as getting full quickly, so that I really do not enjoy eating loads after all, and I get angry and wonder whether stuffing myself is advisable; or complications such as gaining weight quickly, before I even begin eating completely unrestrictedly, so that I am this bigger person, unrecognizable to myself, and yet still craving bakeries-worth of treats.
And even more subtle but rigid complications: the “why” I sent my body into energy deficit in the first place. For many of us, we went on diets way back when for very complex reasons, not just the simple desire to be leaner or to stave off becoming too large. The outward justification for going on a diet may appear black-and-white, but more than likely, that first diet involved a lot of intricate mental calculation of which we may not even be conscious.
So, this complexity in the background – it, too, can stand in the way of unrestricted eating. For me, and I hate to admit it, my nine-year-old self had a hard time dealing with what looked scary all around me. My parents talked with worry about world events in 1979; my mother herself was in the process of getting her law degree and was nervous about her own career path; my older sister (who was 12) had almost reached puberty and had gained a bit of weight, as most children do in adolescence, but my parents and people around her chided her for eating anything “unhealthy” and for getting plump. Looking on at all of this from an anxious 9-year-old’s perspective, I wanted to run away from every bit of it. I wanted so much to return to the safety of a playpen and eat all the sweet, easy-to-digest foods that I enjoyed as a toddler.
Even though I matured somewhat and attended school, learned things and grew out of a lot of my childhood delights and fears, the basic problem remained: life scared me, and I had figured out how to handle it by, without even thinking too much about it, restricting. With food and weight concerns occupying a lot of my mind-space, I could stay, at least metaphorically, in the safety-zone of the playpen. I had to parcel out the food I ate, of course, so as not to exhaust my resources. Yet the very act of rationing the food helped keep the barriers of the playpen walls even stronger. I had become an adult, but an adult who stood apart from the world because I had this “problem” with eating.
My words here sound a bit like, in a warped and subconscious way, I actually enjoyed having anorexia and would prefer to hang on to it for safety and comfort’s sake. If you get that sense from what I have written, you are correct. In order to recover, I have to accept that anorexia became something very dear to me over the years. I hated my life, and yet I felt I could not live any other way. Furthermore, anorexia has a strange way of making me think I have accomplished at least something with my constant health-battles and power-struggles with therapists and loved ones. While I want to say “I hate this disease and I am a great person without it; I will just have to figure out who that person is,” I can only pinpoint the fact that I hate this disease. I am unsure of who I am without it, because all these years, I have not matured that much, after all.
However, I will not despair. Disentangling myself from long-term anorexia requires a hard look at the ugly truths. Once I do that, though, I can say, “Ok, this looks pretty unattractive, this life-in-the-playpen that I have actually to an extent enjoyed (because I did not really know another way of living), but now that I see it for what it is, I can eat unrestrictedly.” How does realizing all of this psychoanalytical stuff help me eat unrestrictedly? Because I need to know all the stumbling blocks to recovery. I must get 100% honest with myself and spot all the ways in which I do restrict, including the way I think. I also need to note the fears about living outside the playpen and eat in spite of these.
And therefore, I daresay that recovery may take some of us who are older a bit more time. Reaching a “recovered” state is possible, I believe, yet I have so much work to do in the re-wiring area. This message should not discourage any of you – rather, I say it to encourage you. If you feel despair that you have invested your whole heart into Tabitha Farrar’s migration theory, but you do not feel the freedom yet that comes with unrestricted eating, etc. – just hang in there. The brain takes a long while to catch up with the body. Consider the possibility that, somewhere inside of you, you might hang on to disease-remnants because you perceive, albeit misguidedly, the disease has bestowed benefits upon you for years and years. If you make such a realization, pick apart the notion that the disease shielded and protected you: bash it to pieces, or ignore it. And if you struggle with your new body size(s) at each stage along the way – or if you find yourself restricting despite your best intentions, do not think you have trashed your recovery, raised your “set weight point,” nor any of those negatives. Just understand you need to get your battle gear repaired and go back to fighting every single aspect of the disease that has shackled you for so long.
Older people, with long-term, chronic anorexia: we can recover! And all the while, we need to get honest with ourselves, as soon as possible. We also have to understand the process takes a looooong time. Never fear: try to enjoy the journey as much as possible. It means extra time wearing leisurely clothes and spending weekends on the sofa; spurning household chores and finding ways to get others to help you take on physical tasks; riding the bus with your headphones on just for the ride; driving your car just for the radio; buying (and eating!) those pretzel M&Ms from the checkout counter because you should; and the list continues.
Keep in mind, too, two major allures about your end goal: you will be a much more whole, precious human being, and you will always be able to eat what you want, when you want it.
