WBB ESSAYS
When Recovery Feels Like a Lie
- Shannon Cutts
[ Taken with permission from her fabulous recovery-focused site, Key to Life.]
Q: When you began healing from your eating disorder, did you ever feel like you were just lying to yourself as you attempted to change your thoughts processes?
A: Yes, sometimes I did feel like I was lying or deluding myself about whether I’d ever be able to change or not. And I think this is very natural – both to feel like this and to ask this question. This is an incredibly important question to ask – but even more important to ask is the question of which ‘you’ you feel you are lying to. Let me explain - right now, just like I was and like every person healing from an eating disorder will be at a certain stage of recovery, you will find yourself to be of two minds about your healing and recovery. If you can think of it (in the most positive sense) like a schizophrenia – where one-half of your mind is healthy and wants to recover, and one-half of your mind is ill and wants to stay that way – your conflict about healing will seem less jarring and scary.
See, you don’t just have one thought process going on as you strive to heal from your eating disordered behavior and the thought processes that are driving it. For some time yet to come you will have two simultaneous trains of thought going on in your head – one train of thought saying ‘Good job - you are getting better!’ and the other train of thought saying ‘You are failing because you are getting better’. Your job – in one sense your ONLY job - right now as you are healing is to choose carefully which train of thought, which ‘truth’, you listen to. You must be vigilant to ask yourself, each moment of each day, which train of thought you are listening to and which ‘truth’ you are calling ‘true’. When you listen to the train of thought that wants to heal, then and only then you will be able to believe you can change your thought processes, because each moment you invest in paying attention to the part of you that wants to get better, that part of you will get stronger and more dominant.
It’s not easy, I know. I had to do it too, and I had to struggle a LOT especially in the beginning to listen to ‘healthy’ Shannon instead of ‘eating disordered Shannon’. In fact, it is a lifelong effort you will make, just as I did and continue to do. So just make a commitment to yourself that no matter what, you will never give up trying to listen to your ‘healthy’ mind that wants to get better and partner with you to build a life full of all your dreams. And just like lifting weights or strength training, the more time and effort you invest into listening to your healthy mind rather than your sick mind, the stronger you will become in that area. I had to invest an incredible amount of time into my healthy mind before it became strong enough to overpower my sick mind, but after a time I built up my new healthy ‘muscles’ and it became much easier to tune in to the good thoughts and support myself in my healing process in this way. You will find, as you pursue healing, that it will feel much the same for you.
One excellent way to strengthen yourself in this area is to keep a list of your dreams, and a description of what your ‘dream life’ will look like, handy. Whenever you start to doubt that you can change your thought processes, your behaviors, and your life, and whenever your thoughts start to seem dark and self-defeating, re-read the description of your dream life. Take a look at the thought and behavior choices you are making and ask yourself whether they will be able to deliver your dreams to you. For instance, when I used to want to have a bulimic episode and throw up right before a recording session, I would have to refer to my dream list and ask myself if I could have both bulimia and a recording career. Then I would ask myself which I wanted more – bulimia or a recording career. My own answers would strengthen me to be able to say no to the behaviors my ‘sick’ mind was telling me to engage in. My healthy mind would become so enraged at my sick mind’s attempt to sabotage my dreams, and it would refuse to let the sick thoughts gain the upper hand. In this way I would be able to successfully suppress my urge to have a bulimic episode by remembering my dreams and refusing to let anything get in the way of the healthy me building the life I dreamed of for myself.
You can use this same technique to empower yourself to choose health and life when you are tempted to go back to old damaging behaviors.
- Shannon Cutts
[ Taken with permission from her fabulous recovery-focused site, Key to Life.]
