Eating Disorder Thoughts

Accepting and Embracing Thoughts

What are Eating Disorder thoughts? According to Michael Roizen, MD Eating disorders in their extreme form seem to burrow into the brains of their victims, take over their thoughts and grow stronger every day. People with eating disorders build a “fat box,” where every comment, every situation, is filtered through the box and distorted, so that it comes out as a criticism or demand. “You look great today” becomes “You usually look fat.” “You look so healthy” becomes “You’re eating too much.” “I love your hair” becomes “I can’t find anything nice to say about the rest of you.”

EDs also take over their victims’ self-perceptions. People become unable to see the “real” image of themselves in the mirror, seeing someone much larger or  with a distorted body shape. People with severe eating disorders often go to sleep thinking about food and wake up thinking about food. Every bite is an internal struggle. The “eating disorder voice” grows to be much louder than the individual’s true voice, and constantly berates and threatens. “You are a fat pig with no control!” “If you eat that cookie, you’re going to be totally disgusting!”

Read Below an article by Richard Kerr from Bulimia Help on how to challenge, accept and embrace your ED thoughts.

Accepting and Embracing Thoughts

 

Bulimia can make you malnourished, stressed, anxious, emotionally drained, chronically tired and obsessive. In this state it is no wonder that you are much more prone to experiencing negative thoughts and feelings.

Sometimes bingeing can help you to MOMENTARILY escape from those uncomfortable thoughts and feelings but you'll probably find that they always seem to come back just as strong after not much time at all.

This has a little to do with how having bulimia effects your brain and a lot to do with how you think about those thoughts!

With restriction (remember bulimia is a form of restriction) the activity of the brain shrinks. When this happens your natural brain chemistry becomes disrupted causing you to experience anxiety, depression, irritability, obsessiveness and low self esteem which can increase those dreaded negative thoughts!

But it is important to acknowledge that even people who are fully healthy and have never had bulimia still experience negative thoughts. That is because it is normal to experience negative thoughts from time to time.

It is how we REACT to those negative thoughts that makes the real difference!

In fact any attempt we make to control these feelings will ultimately fail.

Why?

Because we have very little control over how we think and feel. Thought suppression studies have proven that the more you try to suppress a thought, the more the unwanted thought keeps popping up.

Having unwanted thoughts and feelings IS VERY NORMAL. These thoughts and feelings are a normal part of everyday life.

The best method of managing negative thoughts and feelings is to acknowledge their presence and let them be, without having to analyse or judge them.

REMEMBER they are just thoughts, you do NOT have to act on them!

Practice opening up and making room for difficult feelings, urges and sensations. Allow them to ‘flow’ without a struggle. You don’t have to like or want these feelings all you have to do is  make room for them and accept them to be there even though they are unpleasant.

Try following these 4 simple steps:

1. Let your thoughts in.

From now on if you have an unpleasant thought or feeling, you are NOT going to tell it to “Go away”. You are NOT going to try to suppress it. The more comfortable you can become with accepting negative thoughts the better.

2. Befriend your thoughts

Rather thank thinking of those thoughts and feelings as the enemy you should embrace them. This may be hard at first because you are so used to trying to shut them out but with practice you will learn that you can comfortably sit with those negative thoughts without having to become defensive towards them.

3. Watch your thoughts

Observe them as they pass by with no judgment.  Understand that those thoughts may be present but you never have to act on them.

4. Move your attention

Once the negative thought passes try and get back to what you were doing and get on with the rest of your day.

Understandably this does take practice but very soon you will find yourself in a unique position of control. You are no longer a victim of fearful thinking, but a decision maker in what you will or will not be concerned about.

SUGGESTION: Keep practicing! Once you learn to accept negative thoughts they will lose the 'special power' that they have over you because you no longer fear them.

2) Challenging negative ways of thinking...

Sometimes you should challenge negative ways of thinking because this will help you to break away from self destructive thought patterns.

This does not always have to mean putting a 'positive spin' on negative thoughts, and it NEVER MEANS trying to cover up those negative thoughts with good ones.

When you challenge negative ways of thinking you try to look at things for what they really are. This can be important because a lot of people with bulimia and other eating disorders tend to use 'all or nothing' ways of thinking.

What is 'all or nothing' thinking?

QUESTION: Do you ever find yourself saying the words ‘always’, ‘failure’, ‘hopeless’, ‘never’, ‘impossible’ or ‘ruined’ when you have a less than perfect day?

QUESTION: If you binge or purge early on does it automatically mean the rest of your day is ruined?

If you answered yes to either of these questions then the chances are that you are using 'all or nothing' ways of thinking. People sometimes call this 'black and white thinking'.

The truth is bulimia often causes us to think only in absolutes, when the reality is very few things in life are absolute.

Sticking rigidly to the confounds of 'all or nothing' thinking can make recovery much harder. You can never enjoy the small victories and skip through the unpleasant pitfalls if you are always seeking out a ‘perfect recovery’ because it simply does not exist.

How do you break free from 'all or nothing' thinking?

1. Looking out for ‘warning words’ in your own thinking'


2. Make a list of the most popular words that trap you in all or nothing thinking


3. Challenge yourself to look at the whole picture next time these 'all or nothing' thoughts arise.

REMEMBER: Challenging thoughts is never about trying to change or suppress them. It is about accepting them and letting them flow but also sometimes about allowing other thoughts to join them to form a more realistic picture.

An example of 'all or nothing' thinking could be:

I relapsed after five days, it was terrible, recovery is impossible, I will always be that person who never gets better.

An example of challenging 'all or nothing' thinking could be:

I relapsed after five days, it was terrible, recovery seems impossible, I feel like I will never get better. I must have made progress too though because I lasted for an entire five days without bingeing.

Task for today

The next time you experience negative thoughts and feelings try not to run away from them - instead practice accepting and embracing them by following the 'four simple steps' that have been outlined here.

Source: www.bulimiahelpmethod.org