In recovery from eating disorders, it's useful to think and talk about the eating disorder (ED) as a separate being. Unfortunately, "Pro-Ana" and "Pro-Mia" sites use the female personifications Ana (for Anorexia) and Mia (for Bulimia) to covertly encourage ED behavior. As a result, people in recovery are often reluctant to voice female personifications of EDs, lest they be mistakenly lumped in with the pro-ED "movement."

The go-to personification in treatment (popularized by certain books about recovery) tends to be "Ed" - a male figure. However, not everyone in recovery experiences their ED as male. In fact, since the majority of people with EDs are female, and experience the ED as an aspect of self, it makes perfect sense that it would often "feel" female. So, where are all the recovery narratives where the ED is female?

They are missing, but I'm on a quest to find them, to introduce a wider array of options for people going through recovery. If you experience your ED as female, I hope you will share a bit of your journey with her - as a story, letter, poem, or whatever feels right to you. It need not be Ana or Mia - some of my favorite alternatives have been Edie and Edna, but whatever you call her is welcome! I hope to ultimately create a book for others in recovery, and "reclaim" these metaphors from the pro-ED camp. Contact me at reclaimingana@gmail.com for more information, or to share your story!


Friday, July 20, 2012

Sharing a Body

Thank you so much to everyone who has shared something, and I hope others will also send me their thoughts and experiences!

Here is a segment of one woman's contribution. She describes what many seem to experience: that having an Eating Disorder is like having a second person or personality sharing your body and mind. Well, sharing is perhaps too generous - it's more like the ED usurps your body and mind, seizing the controls, and trying to edge you out, until you're like a shell of your former self.

I never thought about my Anorexia as male but also not so much as "another" female. It was more like her taking over me, like a program on a computer would run it and take over its functions.

I wouldn't really call her anything because she was me and I was her to the biggest part. I would therefore describe my relationship with her like living with two personalities, only that one of the personalities was so strong that it left no room for the other.

Search for the second personality in you. Search for the person you used to be. Remembering the dreams and aspirations for life that I used to have, helped me a great deal to keep going during recovery.

The good news is, as this writer reminds us, that you're still in there, even when the ED is dominating your mind. Recovery hinges on recognizing your real self in there, and beginning to resist the ED's controls - perhaps, to use her metaphor of ED as computer virus, to get some anti-virus software for the mind. Do you feel like you're sharing your mind and body with an ED? If you've felt that way in the past, how did the real you edge the ED out of the driver's seat?
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