Perfectionism: An Eating Disorder's Bestfriend

A few days ago I listened to this Ted Talk by Brene Brown (It is awesome, I would definitely recommend watching it). She starts off by talking about the "vulnerability hangover" she experienced after her last time doing a Ted talk ( Her original Ted talk was amazing too. Here is that one) and telling the audience about a breakdown she had once gone through. Listening to this brought me to an 'aha!' moment. I realized that this is exactly what I have been experiencing the last few weeks...a vulnerability hangover. You see, I've been avoiding my blog lately and every time I have thought about writing another post, I get major anxiety. In 2 months time, I have shared some of the most private and intimate and dark parts of my soul on a public blog, a PUBLIC BLOG! I've shared things that even some of my closest friends didn't know. It has been both wonderful and terrifying. I have had moments of feeling so free, and other moments of wanting to pull the blankets over my head and never show myself to the world again. Being vulnerable and opening up to others has always been a struggle for me, and maybe sharing so much in such a short time was 'too much too soon.' I don't know. I do know that I want to continue my blog. I do know that I don't want to forget why I started this blog in the first place    to share my life lessons with my own children. My hope is that putting myself out there in this way has helped others in some small way. If so, then all the anxiety and discomfort of being so vulnerable is worth it. The ironic thing about my post today, is that it is about 'perfectionism.' I have known that I was going to write about this topic since I first started the blog, but part of the avoidance in writing the last couple weeks is that I wanted to write this post perfectly. I have been grateful for all the positive responses I have received in regards to my blog and my writing, but I have realized that my perfectionist mind has led me to believe that every post I write must garner the same response. That I must live up to the compliments people have given me. I recognize the fallacy in this, and that is why I forced myself to sit down today and just start writing. So, now after that rambling introduction, I present you with my imperfect post on perfectionism:

When I left college to go to treatment, and word began to spread that I had an eating disorder, many people in my life were shocked. I can't tell you how many times people  told me that I was the last person in the world they would think to have an eating disorder. They would say, "but you're so confident." After all, I was the girl that had it all together. I was the straight 'A' student, the athlete, the goofy girl who wore silly outfits, the 'perfect' mormon teenager. I didn't swear, drink, or do drugs. My room was obsessively organized. I wanted to be the perfect daughter, the perfect sister, the perfect friend. I'm not telling you this to brag, there is nothing to brag about here. This drive to do good in my life did not come from a healthy place. It came from a very sick place, from a place of deep self-hatred. What I presented to the world was not real. While people thought I was the 'perfect' teenager, I was behind closed doors purging 15 times a day and cutting myself with razor blades. I wore a perfectly crafted 'mask' that I felt I could never, ever take off. If people saw what was behind that mask, the jig would be up. They would see the 'horrible' person I thought I was.

I did recognize that people around me weren't perfect and that they didn't need to be for love and acceptance. For some reason, I believed the same rules didn't apply to me. In my mind there was something inherently wrong and bad about me. My obsessive drive to be perfect came from the false belief that I had to 'make up' for being so bad and so wrong. This disease of perfectionism entangled itself to every area of my life, nearly suffocating me to death. Nothing I did was ever good enough. I graduated high school with a 3.97 GPA, and I was ashamed of that because it wasn't a perfect 4.0. With the same token, I could look at others with much lower GPA's and think how accomplished, intelligent, and wonderful they were. I believe the difference between a healthy drive to succeed and perfectionism lies in the motivation. My motivation was in seeking the self worth, the acceptance, and the love that I felt I was not worthy of. It can be a dangerous thing to tie your self worth to your accomplishments. To change the way I had viewed myself for so long required a massive paradigm shift. This post describes the beginnings of that shift.

Once I realized my Heavenly Father and my Savior accepted and loved me just the way I was, it opened my eyes to the fact that others might do the same. Much of my treatment was focused on getting to a place of self acceptance and self love. The women I lived with for 2 months helped me to see that I could take off my mask and be vulnerable and share my weaknesses and still be loved. Not just be loved, but experience human connection like I never had before. When you wear a mask you can't ever truly connect with the people around you. When I took off that mask I also realized that my weaknesses were their weaknesses. None of them were perfect, and it was actually all their imperfections, their humanness, that made me love them so much. The joy of realizing that I didn't have to meet some criteria to be worthy of love from God and love from others is indescribable. It was as if I had broken free from heavy chains that had tied me down for so long. I was still a very driven person, but now my drive came from knowing that I was worth all of the success, happiness, and accomplishments this world had to offer.

My desire to follow the Savior no longer came from fearing his judgement, or because I needed to earn his love. I knew that his love was always there for me no matter what. Instead, I began to follow him because I loved him. I finally realized that I was okay exactly as I was. Let me say that again...I was okay exactly as I was. These are simple truths that I have to remind myself of on a regular basis. My perfectionist mind always finds a way to creep back up on me, immediately causing unhappiness in my life. It has been that perfectionist mind that has brought about anxiety concerning this blog. The thoughts arise that this blog isn't good enough, I'm not helping enough, I'm not posting enough, my grammar isn't perfect enough, etc, etc, etc. The results of this type of thinking always lead to giving up. A major component of perfectionist thinking is this idea that everything is all or nothing, black or white. You can never live up to expectations so why even try? Perfectionism is extremely defeating and we live in a culture that spreads it like wildfire.

Now, does letting go of perfectionist ideas mean to stop setting goals and stop trying to better ourselves? No, of course not. Joy can be found in putting ourselves out there and pushing ourselves beyond what we thought we could be. The change is in the motivation. The paradigm shift I experienced was a change from this mindset:  "I have to do better because I am not good enough," to this mindset, "I can do better because I am good enough." Sometimes changing our thinking is as simple as taking out all the 'shoulds' and 'have tos' and replacing them with 'cans' and 'want tos.' I have also worked very hard at letting go of my extreme fear of failure. The truth is, when I look back at my life, it is my failures that have taught me the most about myself, about others, and about my Savior. One of the books I read in the Center for Change was called, Feel the Fear and do it Anyway. The title of the book became quite the catch phrase in treatment, and I probably heard it at least daily. It is something I still tell myself today. This phrase actually played a big part in helping me gather up the courage to start this blog. I will use it again to allow myself to publish this imperfect post about perfectionism. A post that I haven't obsessively proof-read a million times. A post that shows how imperfect I really am. A post that leaves me open and vulnerable to the judgement of others. A post that may or may not resonate with others. Yep, feel the fear and push publish anyway...

Food Deprivation-Why It Doesn't Work

Today I wanted to talk a little about the 2nd principle of Intuitive Eating. In their book, Tribole and Resch call this principle 'Honor Your Hunger.' The basic idea of this principle is to keep your body adequately fed and to learn to recognize the first signs of hunger (before that hunger becomes excessive). I remember the first time I read this chapter of the book while in inpatient treatment. The part that stuck out to me the very most was the description of a starvation study conducted during World War II. I completely related to everything described and it was a very enlightening experience. I came to a total realization and understanding of the biological and psychological consequences of trying to starve myself for all the years of my eating disorder. 

World War II Starvation Study

The study was conducted by Dr. Ancel Keys, for the purpose of helping famine sufferers. There were 32 participants who were all men. These men were chosen because of their "superior mental and physical health." The men were studied for the first three months while they practiced their normal eating habits. During the next 6 months of the study, their calories were cut down to an average of 1570 calories per day and they were required to lose 19-28% of their weight (Resch, Tribole 2012). Here are some of the shocking side effects these men experienced:

• Metabolic rate decreased by 40%
• They became obsessed with food (heightened cravings, talking about food, collecting recipes)
• Eating styles changed (at times the men gulped down their food very quickly and other times they would draw out meal time for hours)
• Several men couldn't adhere to their diets and reported episodes of bulimia
• Some men flagrantly broke diet rules. One man ate several sundaes & malted milks, and even stole penny candy. Another 'lost control' and ate several cookies, a bag of popcorn, and 2 bananas.
• Some men exercised for the sole purpose of getting more food rations
• Personalities changed (apathy, irritability, moodiness, and depression)

(Resch, Tribole 2012)

The Refeeding Period: After the 6 month starvation part of the study, the men were allowed to eat how they pleased. I found this to be one of the most interesting and telling parts of the study. It took the men an average of 5 months before being able to normalize their eating to what it was before the study. During that time their "hunger was insatiable." They had weekend binges where they would consume between 8,000 and 10,000 calories. This type of behavior had never been observed in any of these men prior to the study. Remember, they were chosen because of their "superior mental and physical health" (Resch, Tribole 2012).

Another thing that was so shocking to me about this particular study was the fact that these men were eating an average of 1570 calories during the starvation portion (Resch, Tribole 2012). Now, granted I am a woman and women usually need less calories than men. Still, the fact that this number seemed so high for a 'starvation study' and the men experienced such severe side effects was shocking to me. Many of the diets people participate in these days contain significantly less calories than this. In my eating disorder there were times that I would go days with absolutely NO CALORIES. When I did allow calories, the intake was so low it could never have sustained me and I only allowed calories from "good" foods. Then I would wonder why after doing 'so well' on this type of restriction (for a certain amount of time) I would ALWAYS end up uncontrollably bingeing and purging. I truly thought I had some character flaw that caused me to binge. I never stopped to consider that what I was experiencing was the result of me trying to override one of my most primal and necessary drives as a human being. It cannot be overridden. You may be able to temporarily suppress it, but you will suffer the backlash and consequences of doing so. Our bodies were divinely designed by a master creator. We all have several mechanisms that drive us to seek out the necessary calories and energy we need to survive and thrive. Our creator also put in place mechanisms to help us survive periods of famine. The body cannot distinguish between a person that is truly living through an actual famine and a person that is experiencing a self-imposed famine through dieting. The same biological responses happen in both cases: decreases in metabolic rate and increases in the brain chemicals that drive hunger, specifically Neuropeptide Y-the 'carbohydrate craver' (Resch, Tribole 2012). Now, I want you to stop and think about this for a minute. Think about a time when you went hungry. This could be a time that you dramatically cut back on calories or carbohydrates for a diet, or it could be a time where you just couldn't eat for some other reason (ie fasting before surgery or a procedure, being away from food for an extended period of time, etc). Did you obsess about food during this time? How did your body react when you came off your diet or when you could eat normally again? How intense were your cravings for carbohydrates? Did you eat more than usual?....Failing at a restrictive diet has NOTHING to do with willpower, and EVERYTHING to do with our primal and biological drive to eat. PERIOD.

Let's go back just a little bit to the 'refeeding period' of the starvation study. The fact that it took these men 5 months (on average) to normalize their eating shows that there are not just biological consequences to dieting and starvation, but psychological ones as well. Resch and Tribole state that "the psychological terror of hunger is profound." This 'terror' can have lasting effects on a person's psyche. In the book it mentions that orphans adopted from poor countries will often obsessively smuggle and hide food. There are also a large number of survivors of Nazi concentration camps who are now obese. Hunger from dieting may not be as 'terrifying' as being starved for reasons out of your control, but the psychological results are very similar. Chronic dieters often binge in-between diets, as they fear they will not be able to eat certain foods or certain amounts of food again (Resch, Tribole 2012). In recovery, I went through my own 'refeeding period.' As I have mentioned before, I struggled a lot with binge eating early on. Even after being in recovery for several months, and having my body biologically fed, I still suffered the psychological effects of starvation and dieting. I was still obsessed with food, and still felt the need to eat as though it may be my last meal. Getting through this part of my journey will be discussed in later posts as I explain the other principles of  Intuitive Eating.

What 'honoring your hunger' looks like in my life...
The principle of honoring your hunger has become etched into my very being. After working so hard to get through the biological and psychological consequences of my eating disorder, I never EVER want to go through those things again. This principle goes right along with rejecting diet mentality for me. Now that I have experienced what it feels like to not be controlled by food, I would never want to compromise that for a diet or a return to my eating disorder. I've become very in-tune with my hunger signals and what my body is craving. Some days I am more hungry so I eat more. Other days I am less hungry so I eat less. It's as simple as that. I try to never let myself get ravenously hungry, and I always allow myself to eat until I am satisfied. I've learned to trust my body. I trust that it knows what and how much it needs. This does not mean that I am perfect at this principle, or any of the principles of Intuitive Eating for that matter. That's the beauty of this process, it doesn't have strict rules to follow. It is meant to be a learning process. One thing that I do have to be extra careful with in applying this specific principle, is to not use a temporary loss of appetite as an excuse to restrict. There have been times in recovery where I have completely lost my appetite. It usually happens when I go through periods of deep stress. It can be easy to slip into a mind set of justifying restricting myself since I don't feel hungry during these times. I've learned that I must use a second person (my husband) to keep me in check, and make sure that I am getting enough food and nutrients until my appetite returns.

In Conclusion...
If you have ever felt like a failure because you couldn't stay on a diet, I want you to think about the men in the study I discussed above. Think about what dieting did to them. Think about the biological mechanisms that you tried to override while dieting. Think about the other 95% of dieters who 'failed' too. See that your own 'failure' with diets has nothing to do with your character or willpower. See that you are not a failure, but a human being created by an all-knowing Father and that is definitely a good thing.

Sources

Resch, E. & Tribole, E. 2012. Intuitive Eating: A Revolutionary Program That Works. St. Martins Press: New York, NY.