To eat or NOT to eat. Humor through an Eating Disorder and the Treatment Center.

Eating disorders are no laughing matter. -But I got jokes-. I HAVE to. Otherwise this disease could have ruined me. Although, i would not suggest to anyone who has not suffered from an eating disorder to make jokes about this. This is strictly for the sufferers. Before I make "light" of this issue, I feel it is neccesary to give a little backround of my story. At the age of 16, I began to dabble in the habits of an ED. A few years later I was diagnosed with EDNOS (eating disorder not otherwise specified) because I restricted all food until friends and family began to catch on and so I ate and then began my cycle of purging. I was sent to an in-patient program in a hospital where for the first week my diet consisted of a liquid drink (much like that of carnation instant breakfast) which was filled with calories and was designed to add calories and add them quickly. After i was discharged from the hospital, I spent 2 weeks in outpatient care and afterwards I went about my life and relapsed here and there and then went away to college. I still had occassional relapses but as the years went by they became less and less of an issue. I moved from the east coast to the west coast and began working at an in-patient facility for adolescent girls with eating disorders for almost 2 years. Here is where my personal knowledge of what the eating disorder was defined for me, became a much more solidified and factual kind of knowledge. All of a sudden I was on the other end of the treatment facility and watching "little me's" describe what life was like. Through the tears it seemed NECCESARY to me to have a laugh over the horrors of what an ED can do to you, for if not... the recovery process will be a sad and lonely one.

I'm sorry to go here, but passing gas is hysterical and people need to accept this fact. As one of my favorite comedians Louis C.K. says "You don't have to be smart to laugh at farts, but you have to be stupid not to." As ridiculous as this may seem to some people, the act of passing gas in a serious group setting will break EVERY barrier of seriousness that is looming over the group. You can NOT tell me that it isn't hilarious when your friend is in the middle of talking to you and he or she leans to the left slightly and lets one rip. Now I understand that passing gas doesn't seem to have much of anything to do with eating disorders. My argument is simply this- IT HAS EVERYTHING TO DO WITH EATING DISORDERS! ha that makes no sense at all. I know this. Just hear me out. Many people that have never had to go through an in-patient program will probably not fully grasp all of what i'm saying here. Basically, you leave your comfort zone i.e. your home and move into a facility that watches you shower, monitors how many times a day you take a dump and stares you down on a daily basis. You feel as if you are inprisoned. I believe most treatment centers are similar to this but I can only testify to my personal experience.

Most treatment facilities monitor what kind of personal belongings you are allowed to access. For example many girls at the facility I worked for were not allowed to have access to a razor to shave their legs. They had a history of 'self harm' and simply could not be trusted. In a facility where the majority of clients are obsessive about how they look, you could imagine how they felt having hairy legs and underarms. I truly felt like this needed to be addressed. I exposed my legs to them and showed them how long my leg hair had grown. They were astonished! Especially knowing that I wasn't a patient and i could EASILY shave my legs. Although at the time I had no need to. It wasn't a big deal to me and it was worth it to see their faces looking horrified as I lifted my pant leg. Quickly it became hysterical to the girls to see who could grow their leg hair the longest. Eventually the girls began to feel so much more comfortable in their own skin and they didn't feel the need to impress eachother and obsess about how they looked.

So imagine a room full of adolescent teenage girls in sweats and exposing their unshaven legs and passing gas and laughing their asses off. Some of the counselors and therapists found this to be innapropriate but all I saw were girls with no walls up. With completely unguarded thoughts and emotions. No filters of what was coming out of their mouths and to put it simply- themselves.

There were a few specific group sessions that I was in charge of at the facility involing all of the clients. To be honest, I was never much of a fan of the detailed and boring literature that I was to teach them. I felt there were so many other ways to effectively spend out time together to make us closer to ourselves and eachother and use that bond to make a safe space to truly share a peice of ourselves. I was given a binder full of exercises to teach the girls about their eating disorder in terms of affecting their moods, medically what was happening to their bodies and random writing assignments. As a counselor it was my job to ensure these activities were monitored and then professionally recorded at the conclusion of each group. It is impossible to have a discussion about your eating disorder without feeling embarassed, insecure and especially vulnerable when you are surrounded by others.

During groups such as these where discussion was prevalent and "sharing" was the main point, I could always feel the tension in the room rise. Especially with the newer clients that have yet to have found a close confidant within the group. I enjoyed taking on the role as the "big sister" with the girls. I felt that it allowed me to tease and joke with them and on the other hand know when to lay the law down and be serious. An example of such would be when I would ask a client to name a feeling she was having right then in that moment prior to the beggining of group. She would quickly respond..."I'm feeling good" and would assume that I would let her off the hook. Acknowledging your true feeling in the moment was very sacred to me because it allowed you to stop and take notice of the inner feelings you were harboring and allow that to be known to others and especially yourself. Which in turn made for a more open and entertaining group session. "Reeeeally???? REEEEEALLLY????? no. thats not your feeling. We're all gonna wait until you're no longer "good" and you can tell us a 'real' emotion". She would usually roll her eyes and then take a moment to think and say "ok fine... i'm feeling..... annoyed", to which my response was "PERFECT!", knowing full well she was annoyed with me. Which allowed me to tease her and continually "annoy" her until she learned to laugh at me because at that point she was allowed the opportunity to tease me right back. THEN, and only then had she allowed her guard to come down and smile and eventually open up to the group.

• Laughter dissolves distressing emotions.You can’t feel anxious, angry, or sad when you’re laughing.
• Laughter helps you relax and recharge.It reduces stress and increases energy, enabling you to stay focused and accomplish more.
• Humor shifts perspective, allowing you to see situations in a more realistic, less threatening light. A humorous perspective creates psychological distance, which can help you avoid feeling overwhelmed.

• http://www.helpguide.org/life/humor_laughter_health.htm

An eating disorder is a complicated disease. It's inherently a mental disorder that does physical damage. What drives people to allow disordered eating to evolve into a life threatening illness is almost never what most people think it is. Most people think that when someone is suffering from an eating disorder, that it is due to the fact that they think they are fat. Of course most all that suffer from an ED do in fact think this. Although it is usually a complicated underlying issue that triggers the individual to act on bad habits such as restricting, bingeing, purging and self harm.

When you have accepted that you have a problem with an eating disorder, your first step should be to seek treatment immedietly. Secondly, open up during group therapy and private therapy sessions. Last but not least, LAUGH. It will be a tremendous undertaking to adjust to life in treatment but as soon as you're ready, laugh at your eating disorder. Some people give their eating disorder a name like Ed or Anna and try to think of their disease as seperate from themselves. Like a really bad friend trying to influence you to do bad things. Make fun of your eating disorder. Frankly, Ed and Anna are A-holes and they have invaded your life and taken over and you need to step up and take control. You allowed these "friends" into your life and whether you realize this or not you DO have the strength to cut them off. Think of it like deleting their phone number or defriending them on facebook and blocking them! Whatever kind of closure you need, take the steps to get there.

Do yourself a favor and laugh at this disease. It's a pitiful punk who makes you feel AWFUL about yourself. I can't tell you how many times I have imagined my eating disorder as a man that I just beat the shit out of and laughed at his stupid crying face while he whimpered like a coward on the floor. and let me tell you... it felt good. But hey! whatever image you want to make up for yourself is your call. For some reason my ED was imagined in my head as an abusive boyfriend that needed to get a taste of his own medicine. It worked for me when I decided that I had had enough. When you've had enough, get excited... because you'll walk away from this disease with a brand new outlook on life and along the way, the unique ability to find a way to smile yourself through the most difficult of times :)

I truly believe that the key to begin on the process towards recovery lies within finding out this underlying issue. Confronting it and making sense of it. I must be honest to anyone reading this that is sufferring from an ED or "in recovery".... I still suffer. It has been over 10 years since my treatment and I may not act on urges, but I have to continually utilize coping skills almost everyday to keep myself in check. I'm not sure i may ever consider myself 'recovered'. I am OK with that though because I'll never forget the pains of the disease and to be even more honest, I wouldn't be who I am today. Even though somedays I don't particularly "like" me, I have however, learned to 'love' me and there is a difference.