Eating Disorder Recovery: Why “To Do Lists” Work and Don’t Work
When you suffer from an eating disorder your psyche has developed in such a way that the eating disorder is needed. Anyone with an eating disorder knows that deciding to “stop” doesn’t work.
If you have an eating disorder you also know that you do things unrelated to food that cause problems in your life.
Problem Habits
Postponing anything or everything is standard behavior for a person with an eating disorder. Withdrawing from social contact, immersing in reading or watching TV or other escapist fare is part of the life of a person with an eating disorder. So is staying up late and/or falling asleep on the couch in front of the TV, always feeling tired, skipping breakfast, breaking promises and more. If you have an eating disorder you can add to this list.
Decision to Improve
Every once in a while the person with an eating disorder will make a decision to improve her life. She rallies her energy and makes a list of what she needs to do to live better. She knows she can’t stop the eating disorder, but she will try to improve in other areas.
The “To Do List”
Your list might go something like this:
1. Don’t watch TV (or limit TV to 2 hours a week or one or two favorite shows).
2. Get eight hours of sleep every night.
3. Eat a balanced breakfast every day.
4. Call friends (or people who used to be friends) and invite them to something.
5. Take a shower or bath every day.
6. Get dressed nicely every day.
7. Clean the house and get rid of clutter.
8. Throw out junk food and binge food.
9. Get to an employment agency and go on interviews for a new job.
10. Take a class at a college extension program.
Okay. Sound familiar? These are all worthwhile tasks. Usually a version of this list will its way into self-help programs, self-help books, blogs and suggestions from support groups, friends, therapists, and here it is on my blog. It may be pinned up on your bulletin board. A worn and faded version may be floating around in your desk or bureau drawer.
Does the List Work?
Does this list work if you follow the instructions? Yes, following these guidelines will give a person an opportunity to improve her life. So if you follow your list you will improve your life, right?
So why doesn’t it work? Why does the person revert to the old behaviors despite the good intentions?
Why that List Doen’t Work
Here’s the key, the crucial piece that needs to be understood. All avoidant behaviors serve a function.
By avoidant behavior I mean anything that keeps people and opportunity away: being tired, dirty, smelly, raggedy, angry, bored, listless are effective blocks between a person and a more full life.)
All the things you do or do not do are based on the your psychological and emotional condition as you are —-not as you wish to be, as you your are.
Making a mechanical change in your life will bring the immediate consequences of the change, e.g. sleep more and be more alert during the day, don’t watch TV and have more time available for other activities.
But, making a mechanical change does nothing for the interior structure you needed. That structure supports the old status quo that allowed you to bear your life. You need the isolation because you can’t bear the feelings that come up when you are more in the hustle bustle of life.
When the mechanical structure is tampered with, your psychological and emotional vulnerabilities are not protected. Powerful feelings, usually frightening and painful, emerge in a torrent.
The old structure isn’t there to hold you. So you will rush back to the TV or the junk food or the sleep deprived state to make yourself “okay.” And, of course, you will be highly critical of yourself for “failing” again.
When Can the To Do List Work?
When does such a “To Do” list work? In effective psychotherapy, you make a small change following such a list. Your emotions will come up. The psychology of your inner self will react. You will feel pain, fear, anger, act out and both feel and actually be “out of control.” (Because the old structure isn’t there to hold you, i.e. keep you “in control”.)
The Process
But, on the journey to health with a knowledgeable and caring psychotherapist who understands the healing system of a person with an eating disorder, that acting out can be held. It can be understood, shared, processed and eventually brought to awareness and integrated into the whole of the person.
That’s the complex psychotherapeutic work in a nutshell. When this piece is completed, you are a bit stronger and healthier than you were. Then you will make another change. Again, your vulnerabilities are exposed with no structural protection except the new holding environment that is her therapy. Again your feelings and acting out behavior find understanding and holding as you heal a bit more and grow a bit stronger.
And so again, you works down the list and add more complexity to that list as you enter a more full and complex life.
So, the list does and doesn’t work, depending on how a person prepares to deal with the inevitable consequences of tampering with the balance an existing system.
Value in Experimentation
Above all, experimenting with a “To Do” list, can lead you to a genuine recovery path. Often it’s when we do everything we can think of, use everything we have available and still fail to accomplish our goals, that we then reach for something beyond what we know about. That’s when we reach for teachers, schools, therapists, educational programs, creativity and spirituality practices, and healthy body movement experiences to grow beyond our limits.
If you have an eating disorder you need to reach beyond the limits of your abilities and risk trusting the heart and mind of another to find your way through that list to healing and a better life.
When your “To Do List” fails it may be just the signal you need to reach for your deep recovery work.
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