Coping with an Eating Disorder in a Pandemic

“Some people say anorexia never goes away. It just stays with you. I guess that’s true. I’ve just learned how to restrict it’s thoughts instead of food. My name is Genevieve and to bypass the risk of sounding condescending or paternalistic, I’m going to share with you tips on how I’m trying to get through this pandemic with an eating disorder.”

1. Changing Priorities

The fear of gaining weight and my body changing is VERY real. But I’m not making this my priority. I remind myself of a time when I was in hospital for over a month, lived off cinnamon scrolls, gained weight, but then lost it all when I was better. Bodies are resilient and change all the time, but never not to protect me. Diet culture takes this autonomy away from us, but I choose to trust my body. I’m not taking a before and after shot, and I’m not even going to weigh myself. I’m doing this because I am not my weight or a “before” and “after” shot. (Also, I get people are trying to dispel the seriousness of the situation by using humor, but posts of before and after shots of quarantine weight gain feeds into people’s fear and is thus fear mongering.) It’s a scary time for everyone and I’m not going to allow the fear of weight gain to contribute on top of this. At the end of the day, survival is more important. Because when this is all over, I’m not going to notice how much weight my loved ones have gained, I’m just going to be so glad I’ll be able to hug them and rejoice that they are still alive and with me. I’m sure they will feel the same about me too, cause your life, my life, anybody’s life means A LOT more than just your body size.

2. I’m allowing ALL foods

As uncertainty looms, it’s essential for me to create that safe space within and part of that means ensuring enough calories, so my mind and body know I will not starve it, now or at any other time. Bodies are incredibly resilient and can survive without certain foods for a time, but they won’t survive without ENOUGH calories. I get that some foods are hard to get right now, so I’m going to focus on ENOUGH calories over the types. I’m going to remove morality associated with food and avoid labelling food “good” or “bad”. I will seek comfort from “comfort foods” and do as much “stress eating” as I need. Sometimes I will respond to stress by eating all day. (Diet culture has tried to teach me that this is something “wrong,” but I’m not going to agree with something that has never helped me, unlike ice cream). Similarly, some will respond by not eating at all. The important thing is to be mindful of this and know that not eating will create more stress. To avoid this, planning helps, but also know that the body will adapt. If you allow yourself to eat all day one day, know that you may not feel as hungry the next day. Or if you don’t eat enough one day, you may find yourself extremely hungry the next. It’s important to honor these cues. As I did in recovering from extreme bouts of anorexia, I experienced extreme hunger and the only way to get through it was to plan food and keep snacking consistently to let my body know it is safe and there isn’t going to be a famine. Enough calories and balanced blood sugar throughout the day, through frequent snacking and combing foods (a little fat, protein and carbohydrates with each meal/snack) will also mean I get better sleep. And sleep and enough calories will help us all cope better and hopefully be kinder (because “hangriness” – hunger + angriness is real) to each other right now. (I also get that not everybody has the ability to get enough food right now, which is a real struggle in itself).

3. I’m keeping some routines

Eating disordered or not, most people and if not, all will be distressed about not going to the gym. I’m going to take this as a time to rest and to bring back what movement was like when I was a kid. I’ll think “when did joyful movement turn into exercise?” and I will seek to recreate the experience. Consistency matters, so I’ll allocate the same time I set aside for the gym to recreate “joyful movement” or what some may just call, play.

4. I’m engaging my mind to distract me from my anxiety

I’m choosing activities that really engage my mind. Can’t be thinking of the worse case scenarios when I’m engaged in a really good book right? Singing, drawing, netflixing are also activities that work for me. Other activities may work for you. (I’m also going to acknowledge that learning a new set of skills or anything, is going to be pretty darn hard when working on surviving is pretty darn hard as it is. Know that it is okay to just work on that. The whole notion of productivity is rooted in capitalism and you do not need to put any extra pressure on yourself right now, when there already is enough. However, if you do find some activities to be calming, do so.)

5. I’m choosing connection over isolation

Eating disorders thrive in isolation. Each time anorexia had me in its deepest grips, I had almost no contact with friends and family. Part of that was because I had no energy and I allowed myself to wallow in my own grief. Somehow, I forgot that I am a worthwhile person. So, to those who may feel alone, I hear you. All we can do is take things a day at a time. The truth is not one of us knows what tomorrow will hold. This is scary, but all of us are in the same boat. And so, I am reminding myself of what I have now, rather than what I have lost. And for me, that’s being here today and having my loved ones with me.

Many of us have had our whole lives upended. Changed forever. There will be no return to normal for any of us. But the most important thing to remember from all of this is: THIS is a burden. Everything you carry right now is a burden. You however, are not. YOU ARE NOT A BURDEN. You have worth from just being alive. And I encourage you to reach out or start a conversation with your loved ones. My routine has been changed forever, but my new one involves daily facetime sessions with my best friend (thank you) and checking in on friends and family daily. Our lives have changed, but maybe, maybe all of this will bring us closer together and make us stronger.

Diet culture is lying to you

Counting calories, over exercising, using the terms “good” and “bad” foods, fat shaming, skipping meals, constant fitness tracking, weighing food, daily/frequent weighing, avoiding entire food groups, eating less and feeling hungry, trying to find ways other than food to suppress your appetite, constantly striving for weight loss. All of these are not normal. However, Diet culture, now carefully masked as wellness culture, normalizes ALL OF THIS. All of this behavior starts off very innocently, and is often praised and applauded. But then they become obsessive, harmful and sometimes can lead to death.

I would know, because ten years ago, I woke up to my loved ones crying & staring at me from a hospital bed. No one knew if I was going to wake up. I was lucky. Anorexia is no joke. Out of all the mental illnesses, it is the leading cause of death.

My story starts off innocently as well. I started dieting when I was about 12. It was easy to skip meals when I had scheduled athletic training at lunch and was caught up in my studies. That habit lingered on towards adulthood, where I’d overschedule to skip meals. Then I got caught up in numerous restrictive diets. Each time, I’d look for other people’s approval of my food choices, instead of listening to my own body. I gradually became more and more afraid of food to the point where it took me hours to drink just one glass of juice, while crying. Severely over exercising and under eating in correlation meant my brain didn’t have enough energy to even be aware, of the fact that what I was doing was disordered. Consequently, I remained trapped.

Here I am today though. I’m at a healthy weight, *yay* but that doesn’t mean too much when it comes to eating disorders. (E.g when I first started recovering, I was 77lbs/35kg and because I experienced “extreme hunger,” I put on weight fast, so when I jumped on the scales at the hospital, I was deemed as not underweight enough to have inpatient treatment.) When someone asks me to eat out, I’ll still be terrified, but considering anorexia has been with me most of my life, that’s normal. I just don’t feed those lies anymore. I feed myself now and defeat those thoughts with love. Love wins each time. Each time, anorexia wants to tell me lies, I think of my loved ones. I think of how many times I’ve broken their hearts from my eating disorder and swear I’d never do it again. To those that told me I was getting “too thin” and “too obsessed,” you’re with me always. Your love is what wins each time and keeps me brave.

I’ve realized it’s normal to want to know what is healthy, but it’s not normal to let that control you – your food and exercise choices, shouldn’t be governed by which one has the least calories/carbs or will burn the most. And no amount of control will make you happy. You’ll still have the same problems when you reach your target, cause diets don’t solve problems, let alone cure low self-esteem. Diet culture tells us to “restrict your energy intake, your appetite is to be feared, destroy yourself at the gym, and forget about your social life.” Yet this isn’t health. Health is connection, good sleep, stress management, joyful movement, enough food, preventative medical care, therapy and access to respectful care free of stigma. Health also comes from treating ourselves with kindness, and we can’t do that if we are constantly punishing our bodies.

Finding ‘wellness’ with anorexia

“Some people say anorexia never goes away. It just stays with you. I guess that’s true. I’ve just learned how to restrict it’s thoughts instead of food. My name is Genevieve and this is a short excerpt of my experience with wellness.”

Growing up as mixed race kid, I found myself subjected to so much bullying. I felt like I didn’t fit in anywhere. I thought that if I made myself thinner, I’d be accepted. I subscribed to this version of wellness/health we see around us.

Today we are too busy chasing happiness and health, with endless cardio, pumping weights, work, obsessing over the latest diet, constantly restricting and depriving ourselves of things that bring us joy, in the name of discipline. And instead of getting peak wellness, we get peak exhaustion. This very state of exhaustion has become a status symbol. This whole emaciated ripped look, adorned, revered.

Is it burnout or is it depression? Either way, restricting and depriving ourselves will only reduce our energy. Without enough energy, it becomes hard to be rational about how unhealthy and disordered this way of living is, and so the ‘wellness’ cycle continues.

In my recovery with anorexia, a push and pull struggle that has lasted 15+ years, I kept trying to find the answers in diet and exercise. I played it by the rules, counted calories, meal prepped, you name it, I did it. But none of this really helped me. Instead of reconciling with my culture and my identity, I was making myself smaller.

With the help of years of professional counselling, I’ve learned that food is about love and culture. I remember my mom cooking for me and me refusing to eat, although I was dangerously underweight. Mom would cry, “I’m not trying to kill you.” Hers wasn’t the last heart I broke from anorexia, but I’d swear it would be the last.

Contrary to popular belief, diet and exercise isn’t the cure for all that ails you. At least for me, it was getting back in touch with my culture, through connecting with family and visiting cultural museums. I learned about my mom’s struggle as a refugee person in war torn Vietnam. There were no diets back then, there was just survival. Thinness wasn’t a sign of success, but rather a sign of malnourishment and poverty. Food was seen as hope and a means to build a new life away from destitution.

We can’t erase the past and the trauma, but by eating enough, I give myself and my mom a chance to have a better future, every single day. Food may not have any nutritional value, but it’s true value comes from the memories and traditions entangled within them. The stories they tell and the wonders they continue to inspire…

My weight, not merely a number anymore, but a telling sign of how much I am loved and how much I am able to give love, not just to myself, but to others. For me, I need to eat enough to get my mind off food and more towards giving myself energy to live and live to be a crux of support to those I love. For me, this will always be more important than being thin. And the less you focus on weight, the more you’re able to see what life is about, until eventually, you are too busy enjoying life to care what others think of your weight as well.

Life is final. Yet we spend all this time chasing wellness, when we forget who made us well in the first place and who will continue to make us well. This extreme individualism is leaving us vacuous. Once we have those chiseled abs, what do we have other than that? (Were those two gym sessions a day worth it when we barely have seen a friend/family member in weeks?)

We need each other. Yet choose compulsive exercise and restrictive eating over a good meal together. The notion of wellness takes us away from looking after each other and in turn, ourselves.

In the past, whole villages survived, because everyone made a contribution. As the saying goes, “it takes a village to raise a child.” It wasn’t a matter of survival of the fittest, but rather a case of survival of the kindest. This is what we need more of, not more “wellness,” and certainly not a “wellness barbie”.

This very version of wellness we see, all over social media wellness, rarely, if ever, is wellness. True wellness is looking after ourselves, but not to the point where we don’t have energy to look after each other. True wellness is understanding that to be well, we need to look after each other. Humans are a social being and WE cannot have WEllness without each other.