I was recently interviewed about my practice, using Chinese medicine to help those who want a healthier relationship with food. Check it out here.
Health Problems After Eating Disorder Recovery
Imagine unlocking your front door and walking into your home to find it turned upside down, completely ransacked. The mess and damage are so extensive, your place is hardly recognizable. Lamps are knocked over and broken. Shards of glass from vases litter the floor. The drawers are open and the contents spilled everywhere. Tables are tipped over on their sides, and the couch cushions are torn open. Worse yet, some of your belongings are missing. Valuable items from your locked safe are gone altogether.
This can be what it is like to return to your body after having an eating disorder. You may no longer engage in eating disorder behavior or thoughts, but the illness has taken a physical toll. The thief, the illness, may have vacated the premises but has left an awful lot of damage and even stolen some things. And you are left with the mess and have to clean it up.
The Problem with Diets
My grandmother had what the family called a Fibber McGee room. If you don’t know this term, it is a reference to an old radio comedy series called Fibber McGee and Molly. In it there was the recurring gag of the closet, which was stuffed to bursting so the contents would spill out whenever the door was opened.
Letting Your Body Win
My dog is, um, unique. She’s a delicate flower, shall we say. She has a lot of fears and phobias: new people, new places, flies, garbage trucks, bicycles, my hiccups (just mine), my wife’s cough (just hers), and (developed just recently) June bugs.
So when we moved to our new neighborhood Tuxedo had a rough time, especially when I would try to take her for a walk. It was a mess. New noises and new smells were just too much. We would venture out, and inevitably she would put on her brakes and refuse to move. She became seventy pounds of “Nope!” and I couldn’t argue (and I certainly couldn’t carry her).