Why I Developed An Eating Disorder

Trigger warning: This post includes content related to eating disorder triggers and behaviors. If you are struggling with an eating disorder, please reach out to the National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA) Helpline: (800) 931-2237.

In last week’s blog post, I explained most of the known risk factors for developing anorexia, bulimia, and binge eating disorder. I am dedicating this post to my personal path to anorexia nervosa. Spoiler Alert: It was not because I was vain. It was because my anxiety and perfectionism, combined with hurtful messages from a loved one, convinced me that I needed to control my food and weight to live in the “ideal” body to be worthy of love.

Biology

There have been eating disorders in my extended family, but, for me, my issues with food and body stemmed primarily from psychological and environmental factors. In my case, my personal psychology loaded the metaphorical gun, and my environment pulled the trigger.

Psychology

According to a Temperament and Character Inventory test (TCI-R), which you can find online, that I took during treatment in 2014. I rate very low on novelty seeking (6^th percentile). I rate very high in harm avoidance (i.e., anxiety) (93rd percentile), which includes anticipatory worry (92nd percentile), fear of uncertainty (75th percentile), shyness (96th percentile), and fatigability (75th percentile). I rate moderately in reward dependence (50th percentile) but very high in one part of it – dependence (75th percentile). I also rate moderately in persistence (55^th percentile), but very high in two components of it – ambitiousness (85^th percentile) and perfectionist (80^th percentile). Those are all components of my temperament; I was hard-wired that way. Although I cannot change my temperament, having awareness is certainly helpful.

Our character traits are more malleable, and since I took this test in 2014, I have worked to make sure that my character traits align with my values. At the time I took the test, I rated low in self-directedness (25th percentile). I rated high in cooperativeness (75^th percentile), especially empathy (80^th percentile) and compassion (85^th percentile). Finally, I rated low in self-transcendence (25^th percentile).

Thus, I have struggled with heightened empathy, perfectionism, anxiety, and depression since I was a child, making me at risk for a restrictive eating disorder.

Environment

In college, I was dating a man who had experienced his own food and body issues. Before we met, he had lost a lot of weight and was finally experiencing life without the weight stigma and discrimination that had plagued his life before his weight loss. Throughout the time we dated, he was a very thin man who exercised daily to maintain his low weight. He projected his body obsession and insecurity on me. He bombarded me with messages that my weight was my worth and that I needed to lose weight (among other, more personal, harmful messages) in order for me to become worthy of love and success in life.

He compared me negatively to his ex-girlfriends, who were models; to my thin friends, who he found attractive; to my larger-bodied friends, who he did not find attractive; to the fit women in “best-looking-naked” Boulder, Colorado; and to the larger-bodied women in his hometown.

He told me that I was eating too much, that the food I ate had more calories than I thought, and that I had to burn more calories than I ate. He purposely bought me pants that were too small to shame me about my size, and he criticized my clothing choices. He told me that he noticed that I was gaining weight (which, by the way, I wasn’t). He told me that he likes what he likes and that is extremely skinny women. I should have left him then, but he told me that is what all men like, and I believed him. “At least he is willing to stay with me even though I am not super thin,” I thought. He reinforced this by telling me that when other men told me that I was beautiful, they were only telling me that lie in hopes of “getting laid.” (I don’t know why I believed this; I had a reputation for being a prude.)

When his family gave me a box of chocolates for Christmas one year, he would not let me take them home with me. (We lived in separate apartments.) He rationed some to me, and he ate the rest. He gave me weight-loss tips, including tips specifically to correct the personal “flaws” he perceived in me. One time, he even temporarily broke up with me, largely due to my weight.

I resisted these messages as long as I possibly could. But I was vulnerable. My relationship was him was my first relationship as an adult, and I had shared so much of myself with him. I hoped to spend my life with him. I loved him, and I believed he loved me and wanted the best for me. Eventually, I came to believe that I owed these things to him. I believed that I could and should change to make him happy, so I embarked on my weight-loss journey. I internalized those messages, and as the pounds dropped off, I felt even less worthy of taking up space. I lost control and became completely obsessed with food, exercise, and weight loss. I lost my sense of self and my connection with my values.

In case you believe my ex-boyfriend’s lie, I want to be perfectly clear. Your weight is not your worth. Your weight does not determine your success in life. Most of us actually need to eat a lot more food than diets might make us think. Not all men want to be with super thin women. Who you are, not what you look like, makes you a beautiful person. Your body knows what, how much, and when to eat; let it guide you. You cannot sanely change your weight beyond your weight set-point-range, and you should not try to. 

If you are struggling with food and body, please remember that you, like me, are worthy of love and respect exactly as you are, no matter what size your body is. It is not your fault that you have struggled, and you do have the power to recover.

If you are struggling with an eating disorder, please reach out to the National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA) Helpline: (800) 931-2237.