On the effects of food moralization
Tw: self reflection on a relapse of mine that mentions restriction, food moralization, as well as some specific disordered habits I had at the time.
It’s really crazy looking back on myself a semester ago when I was in the middle of what was actually a pretty big relapse for me, but I didn’t recognize it as one because it had ‘been worse’ for me. I didn’t realize how little I was eating, and aside from that, how much of my day was dedicating to obsessing about food. Obsessively thinking about the next time I would be able to eat, circling the dining hall for 30 minutes at a time panicking more with each round because I just *couldnt* find food that didn’t make me want to jump out of my skin. I remember eating odd things solely because it was “safe”.
I remember comments from friends that seemed to come out of nowhere, questions of “aren’t you going to eat more?” or “is that all you are going to eat?” Which baffled me- because I didn’t view my amount as small. Or I’d get comments on what I ate, because yeah some weird food combinations came out of avoid inflaming foods that made me uncomfortable. Maybe I didn’t feel safe eating a hamburger, but that day it felt fine to eat 10 apples?
It’s amazing how an ED will taint your perception on reality. I had even convinced myself that hunger pains were not hunger pains to the point where I still forget to eat because I fail to regognize hunger queues.
On top of that I had all these little rules for each time I ate, how much water I drank, kinda of food to mix and match so that it would feel “cleaner”. At my point of relapse last semester- I wasn’t even consciously trying to lose weight, which is another reason I didn’t identify it as a relapse. I was just trying to eat “cleaner”. Eventually I viewed almost all eating as dirty.
I notice I tend to still have tendencies like that that stick around, even at my place in recovery. Sometimes I’ll spend hours deciding what I want to order when I order out, thinking about what would “feel good” when everything I see gives me that familiar skin-crawling feeling of guilt and discomfort, of feeling dirty. I’d sooner eat frozen vegetables because it somehow becomes “tainted” when cooked (now I eat them because I like them like that so that’s wild lol). Come to think of it- I actually do have a fear of cooking my vegetables. Everything I eat for the most part is raw or frozen because it “doesn’t count” or whatever if it isn’t.
That’s what recovery is though, the discovery and rediscovery of these little disordered behaviors that just add up into this overwhelmingly uncomfortable relationship with food and your body. You learn to recognize them, and then to ignore those impulses and feelings and eat anyway, even if that food isn’t “pure” or whatever.
You teach yourself how to not view it in that light to begin with, or no longer looking at food and seeing calories and “good” or “bad” ingredients, but viewing them as building blocks for your body that each serve a purpose. Carbs serve a vital function in your body. Fat serves a purpose. And I’d say it’s about moderation, but it’s not. I honestly think that you shouldn’t have enough of a relationship with food to even monitor it- labeling things as off limits or moralizing it as good or bad. Intuitive eating takes care of that for you after a while, it just takes time to build. Eating what you want, when you want, at whatever portion you want takes time to build, it’s something I’m still building. But my relationship with food is a lot better now because I don’t have as much of a relationship with food. I’d don’t think and obsess over it the way that I used to. And, I trust my body to tell me what it wants and needs.
At first that meant eating weird portions of “unsafe” foods, binging, and things of that sort. The thing is you binge a lot at first, a lot, and then your body starts to trust that you are going to feed it, and then doesn’t crave those things as much. It tells you what it needs, and you trust it and choose to give it that. In turn, your body trusts that you will give it food in the future, and doesn’t binge. The goal of this isn’t to be thin. It’s to sever that obsession with food and finally allow yourself freedom from all of those rules you have felt trapped inside for so long.
My relationship with food and my body is far from perfect but it’s healed *a lot*. I have ups and downs, small relapses here and there, but recovery is a journey, one that you choose daily; hourly, by the second, even. If you relapse it’s okay because recovery is always a choice you can make again, and one you can choose to make at any moment. Aspects of recovery too. Like in my example before- eating 10 apples in one go is definitely odd, but it is better than eating nothing.
Start by eating what you can stomach and then start to tackle fear foods. Maybe you aren’t ready to commit to intuitive eating, but you can push yourself to eat a sandwich today. Any step away from your eating disorder is progress.
This whole thing is one long jouney. It takes time, it takes work, and it’s hard. I’ve come farther than I have before, and it’s cool looking back on how far I have come. I have much to go but I’m more healed than I have been, and that’s awesome. Through intuitive eating I’ve been able to mediate the effects of food normalization, and have this better relationship with my body. It’s been a process but I’m glad I’ve reached a moment that I can pause, breath, and reflect on how far I have come.
