Possible causes of anorexia and eating disorders

Difficult one.

Or is it?

One of the first things my therapist told me was that the adjectives I used to describe myself - fat, ugly, disgusting, etc. were actually meant to describe objects.

I was, she assured me, not an object. I was a person, and should perhaps look for more appropriate descriptions regarding myself.

I could start by trying to describe my feelings, she suggested.

Wow. Was I backed into a corner or what?

Anorexics don't allow themselves to have feelings, never mind discuss them.

But there I was...and I'd paid, so I thought I'd better get my money's worth and dig deep for some of these elusive feelings.

It didn't take me long. This was my first step towards recovery and I've never looked back.

Except, of course, to ask myself Why.

Why would I, and so many others have adopted this pattern of behavior in the first place?

Because I saw myself as an object, of course! But why?

We are onions, I learned, multi layered, multi faceted beings.

Those who develop eating disorders have been taught to view themselves as one dimensional - as an object.

I really had, until then, never realized that I had always viewed myself in purely physical terms. Yes I knew that other parts of me existed. My brain was ok, I yearned for spiritual fulfillment, I knew how to love, or thought I did.

The truth is that none of these were as true as they are now that I can see beyond the cage of self-negation within which I used to live.