It’s four in the afternoon, and I’ve made plans with my friend to get together and cook dinner. Thoughts filter into my brain, thoughts that I am trying to push out: What time do we have to eat? Will she judge how much I eat? Will she be looking at me? What if I eat too much and feel really uncomfortable after dinner? Judgement surrounds all of these thoughts: Thinking about this is selfish and useless. Why can’t you get it together and stop thinking about this when you know it’s not important?
I have been actively in recovery from an eating disorder for a little over a year. It’s still frustratingly hard for me to talk about, because the stigma associated with mental health feels enormous. A friend of mine said, “When someone is out sick at school you don’t turn to the girl next to you and whisper, “…..she has a fever!” but we do that about conditions like eating disorders.
To take the first steps towards changing the social milieu around mental health, here are some things I believe it would be chill if more people knew.
1. Eating Disorders are primarily not about food. This may sound confusing, but they’re not just about eating too little or too much. They’re not even really “about” appearance and weight either. Eating disorders arise as a way to cope, almost a distraction for the brain. They arise as a result of other mental conditions and illnesses. Most often, these are anxiety and depression, but EDs can be related to trauma or other conditions.
2. They can affect people of ANY size, gender, race, and background. We have stereotypical ideas of who suffers from EDs: white, thin, and female/feminine, but these are truly stereotypes. Along the lines of not judging by appearances, you cannot make assumptions about “how well or how sick someone is doing” based on how they look. Eating disorders are in the brain.
3. An eating disorder thrives on secrecy and isolation. It can be scary, absolutely terrifying to reach out to people when you think you will be judged. Like depression and other mental illnesses, people suffering from EDs are often afraid to talk about their struggles because they are worried about how people will perceive them. They judge themselves harshly and are often scared of that judgement from others.
4. Diet culture and negative food and body talk play a large role in perpetuating disorders. This is the bad and good news – it’s everywhere, but there are things we can do to fight that. Diet culture includes casual conversation about “bad” and “good” foods: “I shouldn’t eat this because XYZ.” There’s talk about compensation: “X food is so bad, it’s a good thing I’m going to go and ABC later to compensate.” Everyone deserves to have a positive relationship with food, and it’s proven that talk like this is harmful. This goes for body talk too. Challenge those thoughts you have about your stomach, your legs, your face. Those thoughts don’t deserve your focus. It is easy to talk about things we don’t like about ourselves, but there are so many more positive things to talk about.
5. Eurocentric white beauty standards play a huge role as well. An understanding of how race, and gender affect power, control, and our emotions and health is helpful, and this takes a little while to develop. Poet, writer, and activist Janani Balasubramanian writes, “I remember being hugely troubled by the language many of the speakers and health educators would use about their experiences: that ‘eating disorders were about power and control, not beauty’. As if this were a dichotomy. As if beauty were something other than a system of control and domination.” I recommend reading more on this subject from the perspectives of people of color. The rest of Balasubramanian’s wonderful article is here: https://www.bgdblog.org/2014/02/eatingdisordersareforwhitewomen/
6. No two stories are identical. This means what is helpful for some people may not be helpful for others! Like all illnesses, mental or physical, don’t be afraid to ask someone what you can do that is helpful to them! The two things that I would say are pretty much universally helpful are 1) Listening and 2) Reminding someone that you care about them, support them, and love them.