Preface
My interest in disordered eating evolved out of my clinical work with women’s issues in therapy, those issues related to the experience of being female in our society today. Disordered eating emerged as a struggle prevalent among women. As more and more girls and women with eating disorders came to see me, I found myself fascinated by them because, contrary to what I had been led to believe by my colleagues and what much of the literature had indicated, they were not terribly difficult, resistant clients but some of the brightest, most talented, most creative people I had ever met. This, however, was not how they perceived themselves. They saw themselves as incompetent, worthless, and unattractive. Intrigued by this discrepancy between my perception and theirs, I listened carefully to their stories.
By offering up their life stories for scrutiny, these women were hoping to find some clues, some answers, to the origin of this mysterious obsession that consumed their lives. One woman would tell of the abuse she suffered from her father, while another would describe a father who encouraged her and applauded her every accomplishment. One woman would describe an alcoholic mother who was preoccupied with survival and had little nurturing to give her while another would tell of her experience with a doting, sometimes overprotective mother. There were women who suffered the loss of a parent through death or divorce and women whose families remained close-knit units. For every tale of woe there was a tale of a life with few apparent hardships.
While no particular pattern emerged from the details of their stories, I began to notice an underlying theme, a certain flavor to their diverse experiences that remained constant. The common thread seemed to be a pervasive sense of not quite fitting in, of not quite seeing things the way others did, of being a “misfit.”
I learned that as very young girls, these women were bright and gifted and had an exceptional ability to perceive subtle realities. More often than not, a woman who struggled with disordered eating was once a girl who saw the invisible, who read between the lines, who sensed when things were not right. She noticed when people said one thing but did another. She could discern certain patterns of behavior and anticipate what was to come next. She knew when someone was being insincere or dishonest.
Her family, for one reason or another, did not appreciate her gift. They did not want to be confronted with discrepancies in their behavior or to address what seemed to be odd concerns or avantgarde ideas. They did not want to deal with her ultrasensitivity to emotional undercurrents, and at times they were threatened by her precociousness. Whenever she spoke the truth or questioned what was going on, she received a very clear message (often nonverbal) that this outspoken and questioning behavior was not okay and even dangerous to the stability of the family.
Since this child’s survival depended on fitting into the family, she had to find a way to dim her light so her parents wouldn’t be overwhelmed, so her brothers and sisters wouldn’t feel jealous and reject her, so serious problems in the functioning of the family wouldn’t be revealed and result in its possible disintegration. She collaborated with the other family members by taking a position that something was wrong with her perception, that something was wrong with her. After all, no one else in the family saw things the way she did.
As she searched for something to distract her from her discomfort and to diminish her perceptions, the girl began to feel the first stirrings of her obsession with food.
She may have been a young girl who intuited from her mother’s behavior that her parents’ marriage was a loveless one. This frightened her so much that she ate compulsively in an attempt to stuff down the truth that threatened to tear her family apart. Even though she suffered greatly from school yard taunts about her weight, at least she was able to keep this secret from entering her awareness on a daily basis and from being revealed to other family members.
She may have been a girl who discerned that in order to please her ambitious, workaholic stepfather, she needed to squelch her natural artistic tendencies. She discovered that keeping herself in a constant state of hunger could distract her from any need for creative expression that might cause conflict between them and interfere with her achievement of the goals he valued. Although her anorexia eventually created much concern and distress in her family, at least she was able to maintain her much coveted connection with him by hiding this “differentness” from herself as well as from him.
She may have been a girl gifted with beauty, intelligence, and lots of friends who noticed that her single mother withdrew affection whenever she became excited about her social activities and that her older sister acted resentful whenever she was successful academically. She discovered that having a “problem” with food kept their feelings of jealousy at bay because they would no longer be threatened by her “perfection.” Having something with which to struggle enabled her to join their “ain’t life tough” club and reduced the chances of their rejecting her.
For each of these girls, an obsession with food and fat created a new focus in her life. She could count calories and agonize over every pound rather than feel her deeper pain and fears. As she intensified her struggle with her body, her fear of being different and seeing things that others did not, and the feelings of loneliness that come with not quite fitting in, receded into the background.
Problems with food and fat, as painful as they could be, appeared to have a simple solution compared to the other problems in her life. All she had to do was stick to a diet and everything would be okay. Messages from the media in a culture obsessed with thinness supported this belief system.
As she became more deeply embroiled in this struggle with food, fat, and dieting, however, this “simple solution” became more and more elusive. She knew what she needed to do (lose more weight), but couldn’t figure out how. And so she developed an image of herself as flawed, incompetent, and helpless. Once again, the society she lived in supported her contention that she was, indeed, inadequate because she lacked the willpower she needed to control her body.
The gift of her vision became buried beneath layers of self-doubt and self-loathing.
Upon becoming a woman, she found herself with a capacity to sense when things weren’t quite right, to pick up on subtleties in conversations or tensions in relationships, to notice patterns in behavior or inconsistencies between what others said and did, but her interpretations of what she perceived became distorted by her self-doubt and low self-esteem. If she detected hostility beneath a friend’s “helpful” criticism, she decided that she was being too sensitive. If her husband seemed troubled and withdrawn, she figured he was upset with her and no longer found her attractive. If she became angry at her mother’s attempts to manipulate her, she assumed that she was overreacting.
And she would quell her emotional distress with thoughts of food.
With her eating behavior out of control and her self-esteem shattered, she found her way to the Anorexia and Bulimia Center of Hawaii, which I had cofounded with two other women. Upon entering therapy, she entered the labyrinth of recovery.
A labyrinth is an ancient and mysterious archetype. It consists of one pathway that loops back repeatedly upon itself, reaches the center and then winds its way back out again. Unlike a maze, there are no barriers, false turns, or dead ends. In many ancient religious traditions, the labyrinth was a powerful symbol of the journey of life, death, and rebirth. It was used as a meditation tool whose path would lead to one’s own center and then back out into the world.
The women on the road to recovery from disordered eating began with a journey that required them to follow a twisting, turning, winding path to their centers. It required them to leave behind old perceptions of themselves that they had adopted from others and to reclaim their own inner authorities. They had to listen to the voice from within to give them guidance and support as they searched for their true thoughts, feelings, and desires. They found themselves letting go of all expectation of linear progress, disengaging the rational mind, and embracing the power of their emotions and intuition.
By listening to myths, fairy tales, and old folktales, they learned the language of metaphor, a language they needed in order to understand and absorb their inner truths, to find their own mythic reality, and to understand the deep wisdom of their personal stories.
As they walked this labyrinth, there were times they felt trapped, lost, bored, disoriented, frustrated, or anxious, but they kept on going, placing one foot in front of the other. Finding their centers, the essence of who they are as women, was not the end of the journey. They then had to exit the labyrinth, integrating this new vision with a new way of being in the world.
This book is for all those who dared to view their disordered eating in a different light so that they could reclaim their visions and their power. It includes some of the old myths, folk stories, and fairy tales I use in my work, stories that have been used through the ages to help women find their inner truth.
This book is for all those women who have dared to open to their full potential, to listen to the wise woman inside of them, to speak their truth, and to help heal this earth—and for those who want to.
