On what binge eating was like
I think that a lot of people don't know what binge eating is. It's eating a large amount of food at once, more than most people would typically eat, afterwards feeling deep distress and self-loathing, and having a feeling of being out of control. It's a compulsive thing. You want to stop and you can't. (...)
I'll give you an example of what it looked like for me: (...) because an eating disorder is about so much more than food. An eating disorder is a way to cope with pain, or to cope with emotional needs that aren't being met. And I always wanted more from my friendship with Jules. I wanted to commune with her. I wanted kind of like this merger of souls. (...)
There was always a lot of ferocity in aggression in it for me, which was part of its power. I went to the freezer. I bit into a cookie, worried I chipped my tooth, but I kept going. The need to keep going was paramount because as long as I was bingeing, I didn't have to think. I didn't have to think about any loss or pain or wanting or yearning. (...)
On how she relates to eating now, having spent the last two decades on the borderline of anorexia
When I was hungry all the time, I had headaches. I was often exhausted. I was often organizing my life around needing to come home and eat or needing to eat a certain thing at a certain time. And I'm letting go of those rituals. And with an eating disorder, food comes to stand in for relationships with people. And as my fixation on food dissipates, I am far more interested in relatedness with others. And that is one [benefit], in addition to the health benefits of dismantling and eating disorder [and] the physical health benefits of dismantling an eating disorder, there are social and emotional benefits, too.
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/06/23/882045262/from-empty-to-satisfied-author-traces-a-hunger-that-food-cant-fix
Comments
Post a Comment