61 lines
13 KiB
JavaScript
61 lines
13 KiB
JavaScript
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var stdin_exports = {};
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default: () => _2016_02_28_eating_disorder_powerful,
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metadata: () => metadata
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module.exports = __toCommonJS(stdin_exports);
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var import_index_10ac95e2 = require("./index-10ac95e2.js");
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const metadata = {
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"title": "My eating disorder was dangerous because it was\xA0powerful (feat. hip hop\xA0lyrics.)",
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"author": "Thomas Wilson",
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"draft": true,
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"slug": "2016-eating-disorder-awareness-week",
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"date": "2019-02-28T00:00:00.000Z",
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"tags": ["eating-disorder"]
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};
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const _2016_02_28_eating_disorder_powerful = (0, import_index_10ac95e2.c)(($$result, $$props, $$bindings, slots) => {
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return `<aside class="${"medium-note"}">I originally published this article in 2017 on my Medium blog. As of this update (late 2019), the reading experience on Medium has become increasingly dominated with banners, footers, and modals which ask you to sign in. I have republished it on my own site, where I will never track you, ask you to sign in, or show you adverts.
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</aside>
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<p>This post is published right at the tail-end of Eating Disorder Awareness Week 2016. It has been inspired by a lot of people\u2019s choices to share their experiences with EDs. I\u2019m trying to do the same: just share my experiences, and how my personal relationship with food and mental health have impacted my life. I\u2019ve also been unsure if I should publish this on my personal Medium blog (and therefore associate it with me and my professional work and personal identity). Ultimately I think it\u2019s important to see how mental health and ED can affect anyone. It simply wouldn\u2019t be the same if I published this anonymously. Within reason, experience with mental health or ED doesn\u2019t put any limits on the kind or quality of work you can pursue\u200A-\u200Athis is something I want to showcase with actions, not just sentiments. I also think it\u2019s important to represent the male corner of this conversation (not that I in any way feel under-represented or pushed into submission). With that in mind I hope any future employers or professionals can see this for what it\u2019s intended to be.</p>
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<p>Me and food have had a funny relationship since I was little and terrified of choking (still can\u2019t swallow pills). Like all things it changed with me in life. Depression hasn\u2019t left since aged around 19, and at 24 now anxiety\u2019s joining the party a bit too often for my liking\u200A-\u200Abut I guess I\u2019m too much of a polite host to ask it to leave. These are important because, for me at least, my relationship with food was never the problem, it\u2019s just been a coping mechanism. Feel sad? Don\u2019t eat. Feel stressed? Maybe eat less? Uncomfortable with the fact you\u2019re 24 and still get the same acne you did when you were 16? Yeah, definitely eat less.
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I only really came to terms with the fact that this isn\u2019t what everyone does when I was about 21. That\u2019s one of the dangers with mental health\u200A-\u200Athat it\u2019s not possible to simply be someone else, so you don\u2019t know what\u2019s unusual, or what you should watch out for. An interesting point, and one that highlights heavily the importance but difficulty of empathy, but not the one I\u2019m trying to make.
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As with any social or human problem, the range of possible factors and causes in eating disorders is huge. This doesn\u2019t detract from anyone\u2019s pain\u200A-\u200Athat\u2019s not even an argument worth having. If someone is homeless because of substance abuse, immigration, or complete lack of financial resources\u200A-\u200Anone of these detract from the problem of homelessness, or suggest that we shouldn\u2019t help someone. I\u2019ve spoken to people who have eating disorders they attribute to the need for control, feelings of security, anxiety-coping mechanisms, guilt, and body dysmorphia. This is not an extensive list.
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You ain\u2019t worth more cause you got more stuff. I don\u2019t care what the colour of your skin is. I don\u2019t care \u2018bout your fortune and fame. I just want for us to have more perspective. And understand that everybody\u2019s pain is the same. (Perspective\u200A-\u200ABlueprint)
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Because I never wanted to be super skinny, because I never strictly restricted my calorie intake, because I never went through binge-purge-restrict cycles, I did not believe myself to have any kind of eating disorder. But I do not have a healthy relationship with food, and the absence of all these factors does nothing to argue against that.
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The past 6 months of my life have undoubtedly been some of the most turbulent. I left (not by choice) a relationship, and with that I lost one of my most valued supports for dealing with my ED. I lost someone who understood better than most what it\u2019s like, but also knew exactly how little tolerance to have for it (spoiler: it was none).
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Even though starving myself was never a thing in its own right, I had a lot to cope with and very little to stop me. Quite predictably I spiralled, and for some reason my urge to simply not eat changed into a need to over exercise. In retrospect it\u2019s not a surprise things didn\u2019t go so well.
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Going to the gym 3 times a day and eating 20% below the RDA (probably about 30\u201340% what I should be eating) is bad for your health. But this wasn\u2019t about calories for me, this wasn\u2019t about losing weight, or gaining muscles, these were just side effects. I did it because I couldn\u2019t not.
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I was like a toddler in an increasingly small doctor\u2019s waiting room\u200A-\u200AI had too much energy and started bouncing off the walls (bedroom, office, bus, any wall really).
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The danger of my situation that it made me incredibly powerful. It put me at the top of my game. It\u2019s like drug use. People talk about the long-term health effects, but if it wasn\u2019t for the short-term incredibly desirable effects, we wouldn\u2019t see the problem with substance abuse that we do today.
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At the most simple level: if you\u2019re running 10k every day, you get better at running 10k. If you\u2019re lifting weights every evening, you can start to lift heavier things.
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This is how I justified my behaviours to myself. How can I be unhealthy when I am physically, unquestionably, demonstrably, the most fit I have ever been in my life? I\u2019m getting complements from friends about my body, people are noticing an improvement in my strength and performance. I was hitting personal best 5k and 10k literally every week.
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Have you ever heard athletes talk about their training schedule? It\u2019s crazy, but they\u2019re good and they\u2019re proud, and no one\u2019s telling them to stop. Have you ever heard anyone successful talk about how they got there, about the sacrifice, devotion, and difficulties? If you want to be good at something you put in hard work, and sacrifice comfort and security. If you\u2019re getting good at something, you\u2019re not supposed to be comfortable. Is what I told myself.
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Long hours, lack of sleep, writing paragraphs for weeks\u2026 Trading my social life to writing bars with preciseness (Understand\u200A-\u200ARashad & Confidence)
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This started bleeding over into other areas of my life. I dance. I started attending workshops for professional and graduate dancers (I am neither of those things). I started choreographing my own work, and corresponding with producers who work with graduate and emerging artists. I started attending as many classes as I could, looking obsessively to find workshops I could wing myself into. I was travelling to the theatre to watch live dance at least every other week. The results? I was in the best place with dance I\u2019ve ever been in my life. I was the most creatively fulfilled and challenged I\u2019ve ever been, and I was simply happy proud of the quality of my movement.
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With my Ph.D. and work in web-development I would sit down and just work for hours. I had exhausted my body to the point of physical damage, I had no choice but to sit very still and do a lot of work. The quiet introverted kind of work where you can\u2019t be distracted. I started taking risks and setting ambitions much higher than I had done before. And I met them. I was producing new software, reading a great deal of literature, and subsequently conducting my most planned research I had ever done in my life. I felt on top of my Ph.D., and I was achieving the things I wanted to do.
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All of these things were fuelled almost solely by the thing that underlies my relationship with food, and so I suppose my eating disorder (whatever that is). The voice inside my head that told me I simply couldn\u2019t do anything until it physically hurt to move, and kind of ached when you sat still. This is obviously physically dangerous, but the real danger was that the voice followed up on its promise: I was incredibly focused and by literally everything I valued in my life (fitness, dance, and my studies) I was doing well. I was doing really well.
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There is no explanation or solution. I can\u2019t tell you how I started to realise I was making ultimately bad decisions. In truth I still don\u2019t fully think I was\u200A-\u200AI\u2019m a stronger, more experienced, and focused person because of it. But at the same time, I know that if I had carried on down that road with my head down it would have gone badly. I was falling into bed every night, and would role out in the morning. I am not joking or exaggerating, I was taking every resource my body could find, and exhausting it every day. I was praying and meditating every day that this will end, that I wouldn\u2019t wake up tomorrow feeling like I have to physically defeat myself just to function.
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Nothing hit me until I started seeing concern in my friends. I have 4 people in my life who I see as my true friends. These are people I trust and respect more than myself. They are all people I love at a very deep level. All of them became obviously distressed when I would talk about my life or wellbeing during this phase. Two of them asked me to consider going to counselling or seeking professional help. This is when I realised I have not made a sustainable choice. This cannot go on forever. This is unhealthy and bad for me, even if it\u2019s doing me so much good.
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It\u2019s only been about a month since I made a conscious decision to get out of that place. In that time I\u2019ve realised that i) I have to start being selfish, and ii) Wherever I am, or anyone else is, in life\u200A-\u200Ait\u2019s temporary, and it\u2019s where we\u2019re supposed to be. Living with an unusual mental health landscape isn\u2019t something that changes with any urgency, and seeing myself lose fitness, and skill in dance is hard. But my outlook is changing. I feel myself wanting to forcibly start controlling my life agin\u200A-\u200Aand this is the danger of eating disorders in my life.
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Then I think back to when I was 22 and breaking up with the first girl I ever truly deeply loved in a mother-of-my-children kind of way. And I think back to the year that came after that, and how all I wanted it to do was end. I thought back to desperately searching for my purpose in my final year of my master\u2019s degree. I look back on when I really started pushing contemporary dance as part of my life, and wanted desperately to improve.
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Whenever we look at things in retrospect we lose the immediacy or urgency that are all we think about in the moment. In 3 years I\u2019ll be 27. I know that 27 year old me will tell 24 year old me exactly the same as what 24 year old me tells 22 year old me: be patient. Whatever needs to happen will happen. I am demonstrably not the most trustworthy person to be making decisions about how I should live my life. I should stop trying to make those decisions.
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Simz talk to the younger Simz what would you tell her? Try make a mil \u2018fore you get a deal. See nothing\u2019s impossible long as you keep your head up. And when it comes to the points where you\u2019re fed up. Take a step\xA0back.
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What would you say To the younger you? Would you tell you to be patient? Would you say to be true? (Time Capsule\u200A-\u200ALittle Simz & Caitlyn Scarlett)</p>`;
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});
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