Today is Wise Up Wednesday... let's do this!
Wisdom is a weird old thing; much deeper than knowledge and much more powerful than expertise marked by a degree certificate. Wisdom requires emotional attachment and first-hand experience; to share wisdom, a person has to have walked the walk and talked the talk (apologies for the horrible cliché, but it's true, so deal with it).
Unfortunately, when it comes to Eating Disorders, this is quite a shame – the people who know these horrible illnesses inside out are the ones who have suffered at the hands of them. The only people who completely and utterly understand what it feels like to wake up every day and have every mood and moment dictated by what they weigh or how much they eat are those who have been through it themselves.
The positive side of this is what I'm finally experiencing now and the truth is that I don't ever regret having an Eating Disorder. Sure, I felt ashamed of my behaviours and my web of lies that I span so convincingly to cover up as best I could the tell-tale signs that I was fighting a losing battle. I hated seeing the worried looks permanently worn by my family every time I pushed my food away or slipped away to the toilet after eating and I wish that I had been able to give myself a kick up the bum every time I got 'stuck' on my route to recovery. But you know what? I'm so glad that I now have the understanding that I do, and the determination to use that wisdom. It seems to mean so much more to those who are suffering to hear from those who have been where they are now. That’s exactly why I’m not regretful; not for a second, when I look back over the years I struggled with my Eating Disorders.
If I can help even just one person to see that their future can hold something better than the endless cycle of eating disordered thoughts and behaviours, then I’m happy. Eating Disorders offer so much promise, so much hope, comfort and safety… but really, beneath all that and further down the line the only things they bring are destruction, devastation and (and I’m sorry it’s not another ‘d’) BOREDOM. Calorie counting is boring, weighing out food is boring, binge-shopping is boring, and obsessing over every single morsel of food is boring. Allow yourself to admit it. It doesn’t have to be that way. There is always something else.
This seems all very self-indulgent. I honestly don’t want to come across as being ‘preachy’; I hated that when I was ill. In hospital, they’d invite recovered people in to come and talk to us about how amazing life is now – woo for them. I was cynical, never in a million years believing that I could live or even establish some form of identity without clinging to my eating disorder; it was part of me and made me who I was. You might feel like that now. I may not be able to get this message through to you. But all I can say is that I was that person who refused to see, who failed to believe and who continued to starve and binge and purge. It’s your choice. It’s your life. It’s your future. Go get it.
Wisdom is a weird old thing; much deeper than knowledge and much more powerful than expertise marked by a degree certificate. Wisdom requires emotional attachment and first-hand experience; to share wisdom, a person has to have walked the walk and talked the talk (apologies for the horrible cliché, but it's true, so deal with it).
Unfortunately, when it comes to Eating Disorders, this is quite a shame – the people who know these horrible illnesses inside out are the ones who have suffered at the hands of them. The only people who completely and utterly understand what it feels like to wake up every day and have every mood and moment dictated by what they weigh or how much they eat are those who have been through it themselves.
The positive side of this is what I'm finally experiencing now and the truth is that I don't ever regret having an Eating Disorder. Sure, I felt ashamed of my behaviours and my web of lies that I span so convincingly to cover up as best I could the tell-tale signs that I was fighting a losing battle. I hated seeing the worried looks permanently worn by my family every time I pushed my food away or slipped away to the toilet after eating and I wish that I had been able to give myself a kick up the bum every time I got 'stuck' on my route to recovery. But you know what? I'm so glad that I now have the understanding that I do, and the determination to use that wisdom. It seems to mean so much more to those who are suffering to hear from those who have been where they are now. That’s exactly why I’m not regretful; not for a second, when I look back over the years I struggled with my Eating Disorders.
If I can help even just one person to see that their future can hold something better than the endless cycle of eating disordered thoughts and behaviours, then I’m happy. Eating Disorders offer so much promise, so much hope, comfort and safety… but really, beneath all that and further down the line the only things they bring are destruction, devastation and (and I’m sorry it’s not another ‘d’) BOREDOM. Calorie counting is boring, weighing out food is boring, binge-shopping is boring, and obsessing over every single morsel of food is boring. Allow yourself to admit it. It doesn’t have to be that way. There is always something else.
This seems all very self-indulgent. I honestly don’t want to come across as being ‘preachy’; I hated that when I was ill. In hospital, they’d invite recovered people in to come and talk to us about how amazing life is now – woo for them. I was cynical, never in a million years believing that I could live or even establish some form of identity without clinging to my eating disorder; it was part of me and made me who I was. You might feel like that now. I may not be able to get this message through to you. But all I can say is that I was that person who refused to see, who failed to believe and who continued to starve and binge and purge. It’s your choice. It’s your life. It’s your future. Go get it.
