First off, I want to sincerely thank all of you who shared my post on NEDA. Your support of me and this blog really means so, so much and I am so grateful for all of you.
After seeing all of the National Eating Disorder Awareness Week posts Facebook/Instagram etc. (and there have been a lot!) I wanted to write something more on here.
NEDA's theme this year is "I Had No Idea" and the majority of the posts that I've seen have followed that theme, with statements such as "I had no idea that my diet would lead to x, y, z" or "I had no idea that over-exercise was making me sick.."etc. and while I don't at all think that anyone really has an "idea" of what they're in for when first developing an eating disorder, there's something about all those posts that has just really rubbed me the wrong way.
These messages seem as though they're meant as "warnings" to someone who might be susceptible to developing an eating disorder. ("I didn't know that this would happen to me, but now that you do know, don't do it!) I see a lot of posts about prevention, articles stating that through increasing awareness we'll be able to decrease the number of people who suffer from the disorder.
It's a noble goal, no doubt. And I don't think there is anything wrong with efforts towards awareness. However, I don't believe that eating disorders are preventable, or that if people knew more about what they were getting into they wouldn't "choose" to develop the illness. Eating disorders, while definitely impacted by one's environment, aren't the result of environment alone. There are such strong biological and genetic factors that play into who gets sick and who doesn't that unless we're able to determine a way to alter a person's genetic makeup, we aren't ever going to be able to "prevent" eating disorders. And in talking about these disorders as though they are something an individual either chooses or doesn't, or as something that we can warn people about, we aren't doing anyone a bit of good. (quite the opposite, actually)
When I first began struggling, I had a lot of people try to "talk me out of it", told that I was going to die, that my body would start eating itself/that my bones would start decaying, that my hair would fall out etc. etc. I was told that I'd be sent to the hospital if I couldn't start eating at home (and was then told lots of horror stories about the hospital in effort to 'scare' me into getting my act together..), that I'd never be able to have kids when I was older (as a child my dream was to be the exact replica of my mom when I grew up, so that was a really big scare) and yet none of that information stopped my simple attempt at the Special K diet from spiraling into a full-blown mental disorder. You can't warn someone out of developing schizophrenia or OCD. The sick individual does not "choose" to be sick because they aren't aware of the consequences involved. No one chooses a mental illness at all. The disorder chooses the individual who is biologically pre-disposed to the illness, and yet somehow the majority of the efforts at "awareness" seem to be imply that it's the other way around.
I think awareness is important, but I see the purpose and goal of awareness as not preventing the disorder but as finding better methods to treat those who are already sick. Most all of the girls I've met in treatment have known that the eating disorder wasn't "a good idea", but that didn't stop them from continuing to struggle. And if the professionals treating those with eating disorders are operating under the assumption that these diseases are choices/something that a person could be warned against or talked out of, those being "treated" are left at a pretty scary disadvantage, because all good intentions aside, you can't treat what you don't understand.
As I've written before, I do believe that there are choices in recovery and I never want my writing to imply that I see the person with an eating disorder as being helpless in the face of their struggle, but I don't believe that anyone - ever - regardless of whether they are properly informed and aware of the risks involved - can choose whether or not to get sick. I wish we could prevent eating disorders with awareness, but it just doesn't work that way.
This feels like a rather disheartening note to end on, but if you take anything from this post I hope it is more compassion for yourself in your struggle. You didn't choose this. You couldn't have known better or been more aware. It wouldn't have mattered. (And for those who don't struggle personally, but love someone who does, I hope you know too that you neither caused the disorder nor could have prevented it or seen it coming/intervened earlier etc.) I would also really love to hear any of your thoughts and opinion - so please feel free to comment and share your input!
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