Trauma and My Eating Disorder: The Why Part 2

In today’s “The Why” post I’ve decided to discuss how trauma contributed to my eating disorder. This topic was a little more difficult to write about, so I apologize in advance if I jump around a lot.

After my first week in Walden Behavioral Care’s partial hospitalization program, it was recommended to me by my clinician that I join the trauma group.

Trauma is especially important to talk about in recovery because, a lot of the time, eating disorder behaviors serve as a coping mechanism for trauma. Much like any other addiction, eating disorders serve to numb. When someone with an eating disorder is in the recovery process, they can no longer engage in eating disorder behaviors, and in turn, they can no longer numb themselves. They must face their trauma head on.

At the time, I thought my clinician’s suggestion to join the trauma group was baseless. I didn’t have trauma. I mean, I hadn’t experienced anything too traumatic in my life. I had gotten into a couple of serious car accidents, yeah, but almost everyone gets into a car accident at some point in their life. I had some weird and uncomfortable experiences with guys, but didn’t everyone? I had never been physically abused by partners or family. I couldn’t recall being seriously bullied.

I was fine.

Because the group was optional, I didn’t go. I mean, people with actual trauma would have thought that I was overreacting. I convinced myself that I would’ve felt incredibly out of place and uncomfortable.

However, in hindsight, my clinician recommended the group to me for a reason. She wouldn’t have made her recommendation if she thought I was fine.

I was not fine.

Personally, I believe that I processed my trauma the same way I processed having an eating disorder. I believed that my trauma either flat out didn’t exist, or that it wasn’t bad enough to warrant any worry. This directly compares to my eating disorder, in that I didn’t believe I had an eating disorder for years (I honestly thought I was just very anal about being healthy) or when I finally admitted to myself that I did, I still constantly questioned its validity because I felt I wasn’t skinny enough. For so long, my mentality around my eating disorder was that if I didn’t end up in the hospital, skin and bones, hooked up to feeding tubes and oxygen, that I was fine.

              Looking back, even though I didn’t believe I had an eating disorder, or when I did, thought it wasn’t bad enough, I still had an eating disorder. Even though I didn’t think I had trauma, or if I did, it wasn’t bad enough, I still had trauma. I downplayed my experiences to the point that I convinced myself they didn’t happen.

I couldn’t heal until I admitted that I needed healing.

It has taken supportive friends, family, and therapists for me to understand that the trauma I experienced was real.

              When I finally allowed myself to reflect on the abuse I had endured, a floodgate opened. All of the sudden, waves of traumatic memories overwhelmed me. These were memories that I had pushed down to protect myself in the moment. It became clear that I had experienced trauma, that I had been a victim of abuse, even if I didn’t want to admit it, even if I still have trouble admitting it.

I have come to understand that one does not necessarily need to be in a romantic relationship to experience emotional or physical abuse. Abuse in any form could come from any kind of relationship, friend or otherwise. It has taken me a long time to learn this and I am still learning and processing this.

As I have reflected in my recovery, I realized that I exhibited a plethora of symptoms of a survivor of abuse. I remember justifying every abusive thing that a friend had done to me. I fed myself a myriad of excuses including things like, oh, the friend was just “going through a lot right now,” or the mistreatment “wasn’t that bad,” or “the good outweighed the bad.” Or, in some instances, I believed that I genuinely deserved to be treated badly. (I simply must have been a bad friend.)

I also believed that my friend’s problems were always worse than my own. Another excuse for the abuse…

I allowed myself to be an emotional punching bag and… I welcomed it. I thought that it was more than okay. I convinced myself that that’s just what being a good friend was- sticking idly by no matter what, even if it hurt. I thought that’s what loving your friends meant.

Except, I was riddled with anxiety when I wasn’t around these friends. I was constantly afraid of being “dropped” at any given moment, that if I made one wrong move, I would be cancelled from their lives. Because in the end, I was abruptly, and without explanation, cancelled from their lives.

This trauma has directly impacted my attachment style. I have shifted to more of an anxiety attachment style which has, in turn, affected past and current relationships. For example, my first thought when a friend doesn’t text me back for a couple days is that they’ve blocked me, that our friendship is over. My next thought is, “No, Emily, most people will not passively aggressively block you randomly forever. They either forgot or are just busy. Breathe.”

Healing requires an acknowledgment that there is something to heal from. I couldn’t recover from my eating disorder fully until I acknowledged that I had been using it to numb myself from painful memories and experiences. Recovery is more than just eating more or stopping eating disorder behaviors. There must be a deep inner reflection. There must be tears. There must be anger, confusion, sadness, frustration, and mourning. There can’t be healing without feeling.

I physically hold stress and trauma in my body. As told by my reiki practitioner, I mostly hold it in my throat and in my lower back. When I suffered from chronic back pain, as mentioned in my previous posts, I was also suffering from unresolved trauma. As I began to heal emotionally, I began to heal physically. I had to get angry about my emotional pain, not my physical pain. The physical pain was just a by-product.

In the end, I want to emphasize that insidiousness of eating disorders. They are as complex as the people who have them. There are so many factors as well as circumstances that cause eating disorder behaviors. A lot of the time, sufferers downplay their sickness and their trauma. This is why eating disorders can be so difficult to detect. It never looks as bad as it actually is.

So please, don’t downplay your problems. Stay informed. Be kind to yourself. And stay safe out there.

With love,

Emily