The further away I get from the years I lived with anorexia nervosa the more I understand and feel very differently about the experience I went through compared to what I understood and felt while I was living it.
One of the things that stands out to me is the understanding I now have that it wasn’t my fault.
I didn’t always feel this way.
Let me explain…
Guilt
When I think back to the years, I lived with anorexia nervosa the feeling that encapsulates those years is “guilt”.
Sometimes that guilt was a whisper and sometimes that guilt was all consuming and sometimes it was between the two.
But it was ever-present.
It came with me as a part of my skin, my blood and the air I breathed. It manifested in digging my nails into my flesh as I ate, crying in the bathroom at my friends 21st birthday, the inability to maintain eye contact and the pull of wanting to be as small and innocuous as possible.
I felt guilt that I was sick, guilt that I couldn’t seem to do better, be better, get better, guilt that I existed, guilt that my existence was taking up resources, guilt when I ate food, guilt when I didn’t eat food, guilt that I was causing my parents and family distress, guilt I wasn’t more useful, guilt I couldn’t fix the world’s problems, guilt, guilt, guilt, guilt, guilt.
The way my brain could apply guilt to any situation was phenomenal.
I remember trying to write a gratitude diary and all I felt as I diligently scribbled three things, I felt grateful for each day wasn’t gratitude but an immense guilt.
I even felt guilty for feeling guilty.
How dare I feel guilty when I had it so much better than many others?
How dare I feel guilty when I should feel grateful and be making the most of my life?
Where Did All This Guilt Come From?
First, I must share that a starved and malnourished body and mind are not a safe way to be existing in the world. When you’re living in the world in an unsafe way there aren’t a whole lot of positive feelings being generated. Instead, there is a lot of worry, fear, anxiety and more of what we would think of as the negative emotions and we know that “guilt” is one of the emotions that people living with anorexia nervosa experience to pathological degrees.
Secondly, in hindsight I think a great chunk of the guilt ultimately came from believing it was my fault.
Taboo
I felt guilt and shame for having an eating disorder.
I felt guilt and shame for not being able to recover from that eating disorder.
And I was taught to not speak about the eating disorder.
This thing I was dealing with 24/7 was taboo.
Even though the truth is I was powerless against the development of anorexia nervosa, and I didn’t even know what an eating disorder was when I got sick, I still believed it was my fault.
I wanted to write here that I was told it wasn’t my fault and I think I was, but I don’t truly remember anyone saying this… it’s very possible I wasn’t told this… Even if I was told this crucially and what matters most is I certainly wasn’t treated in a way that showed me it wasn’t my fault.
I was treated as though it was my fault.
I felt alone.
I felt confused.
I felt broken.
It’s Not Your Fault
I now know it was never my fault.
None of it.
And I do mean absolutely none of it.
I was 13 years old when I fell sick.
I was 13 years old and trying my hardest.
I was trying my hardest to simply live in a world that was terrifying and chaotic (also beautiful and magical yes, but equally undeniably hard).
The truth is no one develops an eating disorder by choice.
There is no day where someone decides they’d like to have an eating disorder.
It is not possible to choose to develop an eating disorder and it’s not possible to choose to go on living with an eating disorder.
We are always doing the best we can do.
I wish people treating people living with eating disorders knew this.
I wish people with loved ones living with eating disorders knew this.
I wish people living with eating disorders knew this.
Because even a few weeks ago one of incredible clients shared with me that she felt immense guilt about not having recovered yet.
She said if it was a choice to recover why wasn’t she making that choice?
She said she understood it wasn’t a choice to get sick but that it was a choice to get better and how could she live with herself knowing she wasn’t making that choice.
Let me ask you (as I did her)…
Is it a choice to break your arm?
Is it a choice to get the flue?
No one chooses an eating disorder any more than they choose one of these.
It really is that simple and the longer we go around pretending it’s not the more people we allow to be harmed.
You Did Not Develop an Eating Disorder in a Vacuum
Recently I spoke at a training day for doctors and nurses at a hospital in a city near where I live. I do these days semi-regularly as a way of being a part of helping health professionals improve their understanding of eating disorders and ultimately contributing to changing the treatment of people recovering from eating disorders.
There are common questions I get asked when I speak about my lived experience with anorexia nervosa at these events.
One of the regular questions I get asked is, in a nutshell “why did you develop an eating disorder?”
And I get it, people want to understand.
They want it to make sense.
They want an answer.
I did too.
For a long, long time.
I wondered what was so different and so defunct about me.
I wondered what went wrong.
Now my understanding is simple. It wasn’t about me.
It was never about me.
Anorexia nervosa is not personal.
The only two things I needed to develop the eating disorder that would go on to utterly and completely consume the next 15 years of my life in a way words will never be able to express was 1. A genetic predisposition and 2. A calorie deficit “Anorexia is Genetic, So What Do I Do Now?”
However, what this doesn’t take into account is something that I’ve come to understand more and more since my recovery and that is that I did not develop an eating disorder in a vacuum.
What I mean by this is why the “calorie deficit” in the first place?
Had I not had that period of eating less than my body needed, had that one factor been taken out of the equation I would not have developed anorexia nervosa.
This is unbelievable to know.
What a wildly different life that would have been… In ways I cannot even allow myself to imagine because as much as I love my life now, as much as I understand the experience I went through and I am even one of those lucky enough to have not only come to peace with it but see it as a valuable experience in my life that has likely made me a better person. I do not for a second believe I needed to go through the years of pain and torment I did in order to live a great life now. Anorexia nervosa didn’t need to be a part of my life.
The reality is that I was influenced by the outside world since the day I was born and long before I had in place any solid boundaries, filters and ability to choose what I took to heart or didn’t.
As were you.
The world affected me in ways I could not have known possible.
As it has you.
As it does all of us.
Change
I believe not only can we improve the treatment and outcomes of people living with eating disorders but I also truly believe we can change the amount of people who fall sick in the first place.
I believe we can improve this immensely.
But it won’t change with putting the onus on the individual with the eating disorder that they are so weird and messed up, crazy or broken to have developed an eating disorder.
Like it’s so hard to comprehend why someone may turn to food to cope…
It will change when we make the world a better place to live, and there is only so much the average individual can do to make that so.
So do it.
The Real Change
And yet, there is no use in blaming the world, society or specific people in your life past or present for your developing an eating disorder.
Even despite it being true.
Why? Because it won’t help.
Having someone or something to blame or even understanding why you fell sick in the first place aren’t where you’ll find your cure.
In order to recover you have to focus on you.
I know this because in order to recover I had to learn to focus on me.
I had to learn how to stop looking to the outside world for answers, I had to stop looking to the outside world for what needed fixing, I had to stop looking to the outside world for reasons and motivation to recover.
And that was uncomfortable.
Uncomfortable but necessary.
The harsh truth is that we all play a role in these things, we are all part of a larger gestalt. It would be preferred if the world changed to be a better place that would be my first preference for you, for all of us but it likely isn’t happening in your lifetime… maybe someday and we can certainly advocate and for and be a part of changing the story for future generations… but for now your recovery as unfair as it may be, being that it was never your fault you got sick, is largely up to you.
Summary
What I intended to convey in the big mix of words above is that your developing an eating disorder, living with an eating disorder, feeling stuck and unable to recover from an eating disorder were not and are not your fault.
None of it is your fault.
I am not going to argue this point endlessly because it is simply a truth.
You are not to blame.
However, this does not absolve you of responsibility now.
The very unfair reality is that even though you didn’t choose the eating disorder in order to recover you must take on the responsibility of recovering from that eating disorder. And I don’t mean trying to do it all alone or believing you’re not worthy of help. I mean getting the right help and the right help is the help that helps you make changes because the doing of it, the day to day of recovery, the “nitty gritty” as one of my clients recently put it, that’s all yours.
No one else can do that for you.
With my whole heart I hope you found this information useful and inspiring.
Become Great. Live Great.
Bonnie.
2 thoughts on “It Wasn’t Your Fault: What I Wish You Knew About Living with and Recovering from Anorexia”
I completely agree. An eating disorder is not a choice. Genetics + energy deficit is 100% what causes an ED. There is a chemical, hormonal and neurological change in the brain which for some is stronger than others.
I also wish clinicians would stop saying it is a ‘coping mechanism’. This comment further strengthens that the sufferer is making a choice to use their eating disorder to deal with life’s problems. It further cements the guilt.
Sure, when life is stressful there is a tendency for relapse to occur. Not because the sufferer can’t cope. But, I believe it’s because their brain is sending faulty signals due to a chemical imbalance. Or hormonal imbalance such as pregnancy,
Menopause or puberty.
Thank you for writing this piece. I can’t wait for the day when researchers can break the mystery of this evil illness.
Thank you for sharing your insight Jo <3