Mind over Body

I was just talking to my daughter who is in the midst of her struggle with an eating disorder. As I listened to her (false) perception of herself and her body, I had an eerie sense of deja vu. I felt that way also many moons ago. The same words spouted from my mouth as just came from hers...minus the tears. Tears were not in my emotional vocabulary then...and are extremely rare now. I hated myself. I hated my body. I hated pretty much everything about me. And as I listened to my daughter...I had the oddest feeling.

It was a realization.
I don 't feel that way any more. It's true that I still suffer from a distorted perception of my body that comes with an eating disorder...especially when you had it for over 20 years as I did. What I see in the mirror doesn't jive with what other people see when they look at me. (At least I hope it doesn't ! ) But the emotion of hatred is gone from the sight. It's not that I ACCEPT it; I'm working to change it. But I no longer call myself the negative things I used to call myself (Fat slob, cow, etc etc) And I used to tell myself these things -- and fully believed they were true--when I weighed 85 pounds. Now, as I work to gain a healthy body, I am doing it in a wise and healthy manner....eating many, many more calories in a day than I would have ever considered eating before.

And I found myself wondering this afternoon, what changed? When did it change? What caused it? And I really don't know. But I think it was my desire to have a baby and to be healthy so that baby could be healthy. So when I got married, with this view in mind, of one day giving birth to a little bundle of wonder...I began to eat more normally. I don't know why THAT desire was more powerful to me than say, staying out of the hospital (which I hated), or being strong and healthy enough to pursue a normal life. Both of those were things I wanted...but they did not carry the "weight" (sorry for the pun) of my desire to be a mother. Because THAT desire involved two other human beings; my husband and that tiny miracle who depended on my and needed me to be strong.

So, not only did my eating disorder begin to resolve itself... but my mental illness also took a back seat. It is possible that there was some hormonal change in the fact of being pregnant that caused me to improve, but I think really, it was just that I knew that this child needed a sane mother...so I put all of my mental energy - my psychic energy, as my psychiatrist puts it- into becoming well and normal for my new daughter. I have a terrifically strong will. A psychiatrist at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital told me that I have the most powerful mind of anyone she has ever met. And I don't think she was really talking about intelligence. I just have a very strong ability to channel my mental and physical energy and all of my effort into making my body do what I want it to do for me.

Now that ability has led me into some very bizarre and dark places...which I won't go into here...but it allowed me to be well for close to 15 years. I still struggled with paranoia at times and with a HUGE amount of fear and anxiety...but I pretty well covered those up and hid them from everyone. It has allowed me also to lose enormous amounts of weight with very little effort. It has made me sick and it has made me well.

So, my daughter gave me the impetus to make myself well (and of course the grace of God and the prayers of many who knew me also played a big role in all of this)...Now I wonder; will I be able to help my daughter make herself well of the same disease? I think I will need a lot of God's help with this one.