What happens when my disordered thoughts are triggered (aka, my head is an uncomfortable place to be right now)
If you follow me on Pintrest, you can pretty much tell when I'm having a rough day. My feed gets clogged with photos of beautiful fat women and inspirational quotes about body love.
I don't do this because I'm sitting at home thinking to myself, "Wow! I'm sooooooooooo in love with my body today! I need to share it with THE WORLD!!!"
No.
What is happening inside my head closely resembles this: I am not good enough. I will never be good enough. I've gained weight. I'm a failure. I'm getting fat. I better check my BMI (again) to make sure its still ok. I'd better do body fat calculator too, just to be safe. I can't believe I didn't go to the gym at all last week; I know I was sick and could barely function doing daily tasks (like waking up for work, staying awake at work, staying awake in the car during the commute between work and home, etc) but that one week of skipped gym IS GOING TO MAKE ME FAT. Omg. My stomach feels sick, I must be getting fat. Omg. Of course no one respects me, I'm not ever going to have a flat stomach, how could they?!?
So on and so forth. I could seriously write pages of this stuff. It's all disordered thinking.
See, you get used to doing a sort of self analysis when you're in the depths of therapy and treatment for eating disorders. You have to determine what is real, and what is disordered. Its like partitioning your brain into two columns. One is the Real You, the other ED. ED sucks. ED is MEAN. ED lies. The Real You is sweet, shy maybe, and too insecure to always fight against the mean things ED says. ED is a bully, and the Real You is a tiny, terrified person.
Gradually, the Real You gets stronger. She starts fighting back. When ED says, "You feel fat and gross today." The Real You speaks up and says, "Actually, I'm just bloated. I ate too many beans."
When you've stopped all the intensive recovery stuff, that introspection is a coping mechanism that you spent a whole lot of time developing. Its like a psychological safety net at times, keeping the worst of the backsliding at bay. The thing is, you sort of think that those nasty ED thoughts will stop. You know? Like, instead of habitually reminding yourself that ED is wrong and moving on, ED would eventually just shut up.
There's one thing you have to understand about eating disorders, especially my own experience with them. They are about control, and control=perfection. So, it stands to reason that perfectionism is a common trait among those with eating disorders.
So what happens is, I get triggered and I have some nasty thought like, "Ugh. My lovehandles are so HUGE! I have to fix it or else." Then I'm like, "Hold up Becky. That was a disordered thought and maybe you need to figure out what your love handles are representing right now." So I delve deeper to figure out what has triggered me and deal with that instead of hating on my (minuscule) love handles.
So what happens when I reach a hurtle that I have no control over though? What happens then? I can tell you with 100% honesty that I feel completely powerless at work right now. Not to my employees, but to my boss. I feel like there is very little trust between us, and I don't know how to fix it. Because I can't change the way she handles things emotionally, and I can't (despite my best efforts) stop being emotionally affected by the way she handles things. I have done the things I know how to do to help myself be less bothered by it, but I am who I am.
So what happens when I have to control of a situation?
I have my triggered thought. I have ten triggered thoughts. THEN THIS HAPPENS:
"So, if you still hear the voice of ED speaking up when you're triggered, then you haven't recovered. Right? I mean, that whole self analysis thing is part of recovery, not part of being recovered. Right? If it still happens, it means that you've failed. You are still a terrible anorexic at heart and you'll never be good enough for recovery. Your recovery isn't perfect, which means that your boss is right. You are a worthless no good asshole who doesn't deserve anything."
Which, let me be clear, my boss DOES NOT ACTUALLY THINK. She's just passive aggressive so I never trust anything she says. Ever. Which is basically on me, you know?
That was ED at its worst. That was ED in disguise as The Real You. It never talked about being fat, or how much less you need to eat to be better.
To some extent this post is just more ED. I mean, the thing that I really need to face and deal with is my own emotions towards work, not how disordered my thoughts are. If I deal with that, the disordered thoughts will literally go away for a while. They will leave me at peace until something else comes along that triggers them.
But. . . I'm terrified. Like I said, I don't feel like I have much control here, and I really love my job. This though, this is making me less likely to stick around. If it doesn't get better, it isn't worth ruining the years and years of work I've done to get me to where I am in my life. Work is work is work. But being, basically, recovered? That's something I will NEVER stop being proud of.
I don't do this because I'm sitting at home thinking to myself, "Wow! I'm sooooooooooo in love with my body today! I need to share it with THE WORLD!!!"
No.
What is happening inside my head closely resembles this: I am not good enough. I will never be good enough. I've gained weight. I'm a failure. I'm getting fat. I better check my BMI (again) to make sure its still ok. I'd better do body fat calculator too, just to be safe. I can't believe I didn't go to the gym at all last week; I know I was sick and could barely function doing daily tasks (like waking up for work, staying awake at work, staying awake in the car during the commute between work and home, etc) but that one week of skipped gym IS GOING TO MAKE ME FAT. Omg. My stomach feels sick, I must be getting fat. Omg. Of course no one respects me, I'm not ever going to have a flat stomach, how could they?!?
So on and so forth. I could seriously write pages of this stuff. It's all disordered thinking.
See, you get used to doing a sort of self analysis when you're in the depths of therapy and treatment for eating disorders. You have to determine what is real, and what is disordered. Its like partitioning your brain into two columns. One is the Real You, the other ED. ED sucks. ED is MEAN. ED lies. The Real You is sweet, shy maybe, and too insecure to always fight against the mean things ED says. ED is a bully, and the Real You is a tiny, terrified person.
Gradually, the Real You gets stronger. She starts fighting back. When ED says, "You feel fat and gross today." The Real You speaks up and says, "Actually, I'm just bloated. I ate too many beans."
When you've stopped all the intensive recovery stuff, that introspection is a coping mechanism that you spent a whole lot of time developing. Its like a psychological safety net at times, keeping the worst of the backsliding at bay. The thing is, you sort of think that those nasty ED thoughts will stop. You know? Like, instead of habitually reminding yourself that ED is wrong and moving on, ED would eventually just shut up.
There's one thing you have to understand about eating disorders, especially my own experience with them. They are about control, and control=perfection. So, it stands to reason that perfectionism is a common trait among those with eating disorders.
So what happens is, I get triggered and I have some nasty thought like, "Ugh. My lovehandles are so HUGE! I have to fix it or else." Then I'm like, "Hold up Becky. That was a disordered thought and maybe you need to figure out what your love handles are representing right now." So I delve deeper to figure out what has triggered me and deal with that instead of hating on my (minuscule) love handles.
So what happens when I reach a hurtle that I have no control over though? What happens then? I can tell you with 100% honesty that I feel completely powerless at work right now. Not to my employees, but to my boss. I feel like there is very little trust between us, and I don't know how to fix it. Because I can't change the way she handles things emotionally, and I can't (despite my best efforts) stop being emotionally affected by the way she handles things. I have done the things I know how to do to help myself be less bothered by it, but I am who I am.
So what happens when I have to control of a situation?
I have my triggered thought. I have ten triggered thoughts. THEN THIS HAPPENS:
"So, if you still hear the voice of ED speaking up when you're triggered, then you haven't recovered. Right? I mean, that whole self analysis thing is part of recovery, not part of being recovered. Right? If it still happens, it means that you've failed. You are still a terrible anorexic at heart and you'll never be good enough for recovery. Your recovery isn't perfect, which means that your boss is right. You are a worthless no good asshole who doesn't deserve anything."
Which, let me be clear, my boss DOES NOT ACTUALLY THINK. She's just passive aggressive so I never trust anything she says. Ever. Which is basically on me, you know?
That was ED at its worst. That was ED in disguise as The Real You. It never talked about being fat, or how much less you need to eat to be better.
To some extent this post is just more ED. I mean, the thing that I really need to face and deal with is my own emotions towards work, not how disordered my thoughts are. If I deal with that, the disordered thoughts will literally go away for a while. They will leave me at peace until something else comes along that triggers them.
But. . . I'm terrified. Like I said, I don't feel like I have much control here, and I really love my job. This though, this is making me less likely to stick around. If it doesn't get better, it isn't worth ruining the years and years of work I've done to get me to where I am in my life. Work is work is work. But being, basically, recovered? That's something I will NEVER stop being proud of.
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