healing from disordered eating.
Despite planning to spend October doing my yoga teacher training in India I, instead, was stuck in London. I mean, not literally stuck. But, in the midst of planning the trip, organising work plans and preparing my pills (not the fun kind), I’d seemingly forgotten to sort out my visa. And, it turns out, getting a visa to India is actually quite complicated. So, as I sublet my room in Bristol, I thought I’d make the most out of it.
It could be argued that it was “an easy mistake to make” (thanks Mum) but I’d also overlooked getting my vaccinations - so it was probably a good thing that I wasn’t allowed on the plane. But, if I’m being honest, my unconscious was having some minor reservations about travelling 4000 miles away from my home for a month in fear of falling ill (and I think my family was too). However, the trip to London wasn’t wasted as it revealed to me my healing over the last year.
It’s coming up to a year since I went in for some treatment, and I’d begun to feel hopeless as to whether or not it had really worked.
I’ve spent 2 ½ years militantly monitoring what I ate, when I ate, when I slept, how much sleep I got, when to exercise, when to rest, and what pills to take and when… whilst also trying not to let this become an obsession. But, despite my best efforts, it was inevitable that this would develop into a disordered relationship with food. So, on top of healing my body, this year has been about healing that relationship. And, although you could argue it was an unsuccessful trip, it was a successful one too. Because throughout the month I’d only had one moment of panic the day after being rejected from Vista Airlines when I was trying to find something to eat around Heathrow. But after calming myself down (and not crying down the phone to my Mum) I grabbed a Huel and moved on.
disordered eating.
My relationship with food is still a work in progress. Eating, to me, is very personal. I find eating out and eating with people I don’t know difficult because of the effect food had on me.
This time last year I was on meal replacement shakes because everything I ate gave me chronic fatigue and brain fog. Chronic fatigue isn’t just “really tired”. It’s as if a wave of exhaustion encapsulates your entire body and any movement feels as if you're wearing a lead bodysuit. Have you ever had that dream where you’re running from something, or someone, and no matter how hard you try you just can’t run fast enough? You even try and think yourself into running faster, using all of your brain energy. But, if anything, it just slows you down even more? That’s what it felt like. Every day and after every meal.
The reason I called it a “disordered relationship with food” as opposed to an “eating disorder” is because of the misconception around eating disorders as a desire to be skinny. But, it’s so much more complicated than that.
Disordered eating means that your relationship with food causes mental distress.
I don’t desire to look a certain way anymore, but in the height of my mental battle, meal times caused me anxiety. I’d often get panic or anxiety attacks and (at the expense of my family) would sometimes (uncontrollably) burst into tears when looking at a menu or ordering out. Which is why it meant to much to mean to dine out at places like BOX-E and not have to stress about what I could and couldn’t eat. Just be.
Having to give up eating was one of the most difficult things I’ve ever had to do. When we’re sick, when we feel sad, even when we feel happy; we eat: for comfort, celebration, and commiseration. Not only does it feel unnatural to stop eating, food is personal whether we acknowledge it or not. What we eat, when we eat and who we eat with is personal. Our first ever meal is from the person who gave us life. Our meals following, are with our closest family members. It’s only as we get older that we start to change our choice of food and meal mates. When that’s taken away your just left with your thoughts.
societies relationship with food.
I’m, sadly, not a minority when it comes to disordered eating. Society's relationship with food is, frankly….. fucked. And, hypocritical. We’re moving into an era where all bodies are starting to be celebrated and where the wellness movement is highlighting our need for healthy eating, movement, and mental health management. But, this has only been happening in recent years. Lest we forget the “nothing tastes better than skinny” mantra which essentially raised us millennial women (and the women preceding us). On top of this, we have the food industry's constant commercials corrupting our thoughts, feeding our minds with sugar and addi(c)tives that don’t lead to the “nothing tastes better than skinny” desired body image we’re all told to strive for.
This was highlighted in big, bold, fluorescent, flashing lights when I’d lost a ton of weight last year (from literally not eating food) and, despite the purple circles under my eyes and yellow skin (hidden by some very heavy concealer and makeup), when I’d tell people what I was going through I was repeatedly told:
“at least you look good!!”.
Such a damaging comment coming from a place of body image insecurity fed to us by the media we consume repeatedly telling us that we’re not good enough. Perpetuating this cycle by the unconscious choice of words we use by ingraining into the minds of each other that “health” isn’t as important as “looks”. And, as long as you fulfill the role of the westernized standard of beauty then you’ve succeeded in life. This only made me recede back into my shell of isolation, finding comfort in music and books.
This is one of the reasons I feel so passionate about sharing what I’ve learned about food, health, and nutrition. Because I know where those comments come from. I know that I’m not alone and I know how fucking difficult it is to work on this relationship. It’s not just a daily battle, it’s a minute-by-minute battle because food is everywhere. You can’t walk down the street without seeing an advert, coffee shop, or restaurant luring you in to eat. And that’s just the offline world.
I have a chronic illness. Which means I have to be particular about what I eat. I have to move and meditate every day and I can’t party like I used to. When I first got diagnosed I looked at the positives - it made me take accountability for my health. However, the constant knocks from society when having to implement these changes (like talking about my dietary needs when eating out) made me feel angry, sad, and in denial about my illness. Feeling like a burden, unloveable, and unwanted because of our misconception about the importance of diet on our health.
Everyone who comes to me with a health problem and is told to change their diet goes through the same thing. Changing our diet in today’s society takes up a lot of mental effort and energy, and there’s very little support, particularly in the places where we really need it - where we get our food. It shouldn’t be this difficult, expensive, or draining to manage our health through nature’s medicine.
Healing isn’t linear and doesn’t always happen the way you want it to. I thought this month would be a month of healing in the mountains with some yogic-guru’s guiding my journey. But, instead, London showed me the light at the end of the long, dark, and lonely tunnel that I’d been digging through for the past 2 ½ years. It showed me that as soon as I started living my life again and let go of the obsession of trying to be 100% healthy, I felt better. I wasn’t crying over spilled almond milk or hyperventilating every time I was asked what I wanted to eat. It reaffirmed to me the incredibly powerful link we have between our bodies and mind, when we just let go and breathe.