One page wouldn’t be enough if I wanted to list all the triggers. Everything you can think of can be a trigger to fall into a cycle of eating disorder rollercoaster. In this blog, we will identify the triggers and eliminate them. I will also share my practices, which made me recover for good. I, just like my body, am a rebel. I don’t follow set-up rules, many of which are to be avoided at all costs.
Identifying the beasts
- The Scale and the mirror.
“Mum”, said my daughter, “the teacher played us a movie about obese people. Can I check what my weight is?”. I thought, why would anyone play anything like that to 8-year-old kids? First of all, talking about obesity is a completely different story. What the teachers think they are doing! I looked at my daughter and said, “Let us do something, and then I will explain”. I went upstairs and took the very old Scale out of a cupboard. Then we went outside and placed the Scale where it belonged. It always belonged in the litter bin! Then I said, “How do you feel? ” “I feel good”. Great, and that is the principle of being healthy. You are not a chicken for sale, a meat that needs to be weighed. There are millions of people in this world; everyone looks and feels different. But what matters most is that they are healthy and feel good.
Yes, I threw away the Scale. Forever. For good. But I remember, being in my peak anorexia stage at the age of 14, I could stand on the Scale several times per day, even after drinking just a glass of water.
I could check my belly, body, and weight each time I looked in the mirror. And each time, I wasn’t happy about my look. Each time, I felt bad.
I decided to stop looking at that mirror and completely let go when I started my recovery phase. If you do what you always did, You will stay where you are. So, let go and change your behaviour. Yes, it will feel strange; yes, you will feel out of control; and yes, you must accept that what you see in the mirror is not real. But That will be only the beginning of being truly happy and free.
“Things are not always what they seem”
Only then could I focus on what is important – I could focus on getting my life back.
2. Exercise
For many years, I wasn’t honest with myself. The exercise wasn’t there because I wanted to be healthy. I exercised because I was controlling my weight. Where is the fun in that? There is no fun. I didn’t focus on my body’s strength, balance, fitness or flexibility. The main goal was to control my weight at all costs. I could do rope skipping in my room for three hours after dinner and run up and down a ten-floor building ten times, only because I ate a decent dinner. I could run a marathon only to be in control. Insane.
And when I started my recovery, realising that recovery exists after years of self-doubt, I wanted to continue with my exercise. And each time, I failed. I had relapse after relapse. Why? Everyone exercises, and even people who recover advise doing it. It is healthy, good, and perfect, so why? Because after years of restricting this way, years of overdoing it, years of harming myself, my body was fed up with it! My brain perceived my exercising as restricting. Fifteen minutes of yoga caused a relapse. I was trying to run with a broken leg! Two legs even! Would you run with a broken leg, or would you heal first? No matter how good and healthy exercising is, you must first heal your body to exercise.
During my recovery, I stopped exercising for nearly one year. Yes. One full year. Because to recover meant a life to me! Because I wanted it so badly, I decided to heal all my broken parts first before going for a run.
I am not saying – stop exercising forever. Find your trigger, heal, and then do what you consider healthy.
3. Food – All Food is good
For many years, I thought I was addicted to food. Why? Because I was thinking about it from the moment I woke until I went to sleep. But I never thought that the main reason was that I was restricting my food! The restriction made me think about food because I was constantly hungry. And on top of that, I eliminated all the good food and put it on my bad list! So, I was restricting calories and what I could and could not eat.
The first step towards my recovery was a realisation that I could not restrict myself and that I must teach my body to trust me again. Plus, I had to eliminate the “bad food list”. No food is bad; that was my daily mantra!
I structured my eating pattern to 6 times per day and ensured I included the forbidden list of food, which, in my situation, was nearly all of it. And here we go. I started eating my favourite scrambled eggs on toast with butter and tomatoes. I also ate Solomon with rice, cream cheese, and broccoli. And I always had a treat after every meal. My favourite was a cake with strawberries or ice cream—one of my biggest trigger. But once I made a norm of it and ate it as a normal good food, the trigger stopped being a trigger. The most important is to build a healthy relationship with food so it will never come in the way of other life issues. Once you build trust with your body and a healthy relationship with food, you will never relate eating to other problems.
How long will that last? How long will I be so nervous and stressed but simultaneously, against all odds, so happy? I could observe a massive shift! My relapses settled, and my body stopped craving a lot, but instead, I could have a normal meal and a snack and – not think about food, exercising or purging! None of it. I could indulge in the evening, reading a book, drinking hot chocolate and eating a biscuit without constant guilt. Without self-harming behaviour, such as over-exerting, purging or starving for the next few days.
I changed the behaviour pattern by acting in a way towards food as I never did before. I broke the vicious cycle of restricting, starving, exercising, eating and so on! Did I gain weight? Imagine that I didn’t gain any more weight than I had to for my body to feel good about it. Of course, how I felt at that time was different. I avoided looking in the mirror and wondered where that new path would lead me. But answer yourself one important question: Where will eating disorder lead you? So, let it go and give new ways a try. Why not take life in control and change that sick pattern of Eating disorder?
I made two pages in my diary: one was a story of my life with an eating disorder and one without it. And do you know what? That story without eating disorders was brighter. That story won. I won my life back.
Will it happen overnight? No. If you say to yourself after relapse, never again, and then feel guilty as a failure, when you relapse again, I will tell you something: Be proud! Be proud that you have taken the path to recovery and that, against all obstacles, you stand up and follow that path. There will be many moments when you fall, but hey, now you are on the right road to recovery. You are winning your life back. Never ever doubt yourself again.
Love and light
Kasia
The Power in You 