I think the best way to describe the feeling is ‘unraveling at the seams.’ As I sat and surveyed the empty packet/plate/bowl/box glaring at me, I found myself likening it to a mirror—because ironically, as I sat there feeling more full than I’ve ever been before, I also felt just as empty.
Just like Anne Hathaway’s character in The Princess Diaries, Princess Amelia, wailed; my only explanation for what happened was “I got played.” Because I did—just like I did the previous five hundred times I re-enacted this scene.
When Binge Eating Becomes An Addiction
After reading a book a close friend had given me called ‘In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts,’ written by a man named Dr. Gabor Maté, who treated drug addicts in Vancouver’s notorious Downtown Eastside, I realized that binging was just an inevitable development for me. Known as Canada’s poorest postal code, Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside is the junkie- mecca of Canada, and its inhabitants couldn’t seem more different than us: uneducated, homeless, unemployed, addicted, and in every sense of the word, messed-up.
Dr. Maté’s passion for the inhabitants of this area, is, as he explains in his book, is a part of a search for himself. He realized, with every high and homeless druggie he administered methadone to, that beneath the surface layers of street grime and festering needle-wound infections is just a person who was at the wrong place at the wrong time for too much of their lives. Be it heroine, cocaine, chocolate, or sex, we are all slaves to our personal choice of drug. Being a slave to your drug is called addiction, and like drug addiction, it is something that can take over your life, compromise your morals and values, and change you from the inside out.
The American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM) defines addiction as being characterized by the following:
“[an] inability to consistently abstain, impairment in behavioral control, craving, diminished recognition of significant problems with one’s behaviors and interpersonal relationships, and a dysfunctional emotional response. Like other chronic diseases, addiction often involves cycles of relapse and remission. Without treatment or engagement in recovery activities, addiction is progressive and can result in disability or premature death.”
This is about my binging addiction, how binge eating began as a fun way to relieve stress with my college friends, developed into something darker and uglier than I ever intended, and how I finally decided to commit to healing and to break free of the vicious cycle.
From Binge Drinker to Binge Eater
I was never a stranger to the act of binging. During my first year at university, I repeatedly engaged in binge drinking. Every time I drank, I drank to get drunk.
But third year of university was different. Instead of binge drinking to party and socialize (I guess I’d gotten it out of my system), I decided it was time I brought my GPA up to something resembling ‘hirable’. Thus it began: the insidious morphing from a binge-drinker to a binge-eater—one maladaptation into another. Binge eating meant I didn’t have to leave the house. It involved little socializing and most importantly, no debilitating hangovers. I could even catch up on lectures as I wolfed down nachos, cake or popcorn! The cherry on top of this whole metaphorical cake was getting my own apartment: privacy is paramount to the binge-eater. I didn’t see it coming but I should have: I was strapped onto the tracks, and the train was heading straight for me. It was about to get ugly.
The Kitchen: 1- Willpower: 0- A Vignette
I thought the best way to avoid binging was to spend more time away from the house so I wouldn’t have to face the food in the pantry, but all I did was turn what was supposed to be a place of rest and recharging into a place of negativity and isolation. Every time I came home it was like a tension cord between myself and the kitchen—“no no, don’t go in there. You don’t need to—no but I do. I DO need to.” And within seconds I’d be shoveling spoonfuls of chocolate frosting into my mouth.
Binge-Purge-Repeat
I felt fat all the time. Growing up in a body-conscious family, in a culture hypersensitive to girls’ body weight, there was no way binging would go without consequences. I was raised dieting, but I always had a love-hate relationship with it.
So I added another element to the vicious cycle: purging. Although I didn’t realize at the time, doing so meant that I was locking myself in for the long haul. I took the path of least resistance, and I began to purge after almost every binge. Needless to say, I hated myself—found myself disgusting; found myself unable to exercise or purge enough to ‘cancel out’ the outrageously huge caloric intake I was indulging in on each binge. I knew I couldn’t go on like this. By mid-semester, my mind and body were screaming at me to get help. I needed to ask myself some serious questions, and Dr. Gabor Maté’s book helped me start with the most fundamental one:
“Why?”
My Intuitions Were Shot
To get to the root of the problem, I had to go back to the days when my entire identity centered on intake restriction.
I knew this was where I had to start my reflections when a close friend of mine recommended mindful eating. Initially, I wrote it off as just another dieting fad designed to appeal to followers of the whole ‘mindfulness’ movement that stems from the same idea as things like quinoa bowls and the Paleo diet. But mindful eating, also called intuitive eating, is different from dieting because its not about external cues like reminders or rules or strict meal-plans. Its about listening to the needs of your body.
Intuitive eating is rising to the top of the dieting scene—which is ironic because its not a diet at all.
Designed to rekindle (or spark?) your healthy relationship with food, it focuses on listening to your hunger signals, getting rid of the “good food vs. bad food” model, and reframing the meaning of food to mean body-fuel instead of a substitute for some deeper lacking. Books like “Intuitive Eating” by Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch have had raving reviews written about it, and loads of inspiring testimonials. I know, I know—loads of dieters have claimed that the so-and-so diet “works” and that its “life-changing,” but really, just try and juice for the rest of your life, or spend the rest of your life having nightmares about carbs until you’re too old to care.
I did some research. I read Dr. Maté’s entire book (which you can find here), watched YouTuber Josie Mai’s vlog post about her journey from binging and dieting to intuitive eating, watched this TED Talk by Sandra Aamoudt about why dieting doesn’t work, and read up on this website about mindful eating. After two days of research and weeks of reflection, I was able to answer some of the questions I posed to myself:
1. Why did I start binge eating? Because dieting played such a huge role in my life, and restriction was all I knew. After leaving home I binge drank and then binge ate when I wouldn’t dedicate time to socializing and drinking. Eating was my response to loneliness, boredom, stress, sadness, etc.
2. Why did I keep going even when I knew it was self-destructive? Because I knew I could always purge if it got out of hand. Because I want immediate gratification, and to let go. Because it was positively reinforced.
3. Why can other people face food in the neutral way that I seemed unable to? Because they have a healthy relationship with food—that is, they view food as fuel for the body, and not their main source of comfort.
4. How can I stop, and develop a healthy relationship with food? I need to go back to the basics, and think about why we eat. I need to transform the idea of food in my head back into its original purpose: nutrition and fuel. A response to hunger, and not to stress.
If you can relate to some of what I described above, I highly recommend even one of those resources. It is important to first understand your actions before you being to fix them.
Closer to home is McGill’s Eating Disorder Program offered as part of the Mental Health Services in Brown Building. They deal with countless cases of binge eating disorders and bulimia, and even just symptoms of eating disorders. Getting professional help was something I had been putting off for too long, but I’m glad I took the step. Getting help is never something that you’re “not sick enough for.” If you’re thinking of getting help, there’s a reason those thoughts are in your head. Just reach out your hand and someone will take it.
Like Josie Mai said, “You have to be sick and tired of being sick and tired.” I know I am. I am determined to get better, determined to live my life so that I can direct my energy and efforts into my future, my relationships, and my academics. I only have so much mental energy to spend on any given day, and I refuse to be a slave to food, be a slave to dieting, to the mirror, or to the scale. After all the hell I put my body and mind through, I just want what I should have: my life in the fullest. Its only right—its only intuitive.
Image Sources:
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-eYVGTgIZc0o/UmB0HSuBR-I/AAAAAAAAHl0/S15wqyNWHt…
http://btcnutrition.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/attuned-eating.jpg
http://www.shineorset.com/2013/10/intuitive-eating.html
http://www.amazon.com/Realm-Hungry-Ghosts-Encounters-Addiction/dp/155643…