I am full because I can’t think of one thing, not one, that is better than what’s in my mouth. And so I kept eating to avoid the ending of goodness. — , This Messy Magnificent Life – A Field Guide to Mind, Body, and Soul
After required to choose a memoir and write a clinical case report paper for my abnormal psychology class, I have recently started to read books.
To be honest, growing in a family where TV is the most important and largest asset, I neither like nor have a habit of reading. Watching Korean drama such as Stairway to Heaven and Sweet 18 with my mom and watching American TV such as Prison Break, Lost and Fringe with my bad brought my rich emotions and imaginations. TV, images, and sounds are what I associated with happiness and belonging. Books to me, however, are bought for academic (do homework), social(remain popular among friend groups) or emotional purposes (release parents’ anxiety not raising kids properly) and only used only when necessary.
Of course, the reasons I write is not to say how much I have changed or fallen in love in reading (though highly recommend Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia written by Marya Hornbacher). I am writing to express that watching TV, getting vivid information quickly makes me crave for instant satisfaction. Combined with my impulsive and sensitive personality, highly emotional and volatile parental influences, I have gotten used to acting before think and generated fears toward not able to get something immediately.
Therefore, I eat to react. I have and am still in eating disorder recovery.
Marya Hornbacher wrote her book Wasted at age 23. She “balances personal, family, and cultural factors underlying eating disorders with carefully researched findings on bulimia and anorexia. Her story is “one of a young woman in free fall toward death, told from the perspective of one who has found a way to turn back to life.” When I read the book, I could relate to her so so much.
Family factors, we are both the only child, getting too much hyper attention and entangled in the family. We both grow in a chaotic family, fulfill the misdirected emotional needs of one parent (for me it’s two), and fear abandonment. (Sadly, Marya had an emotionally distant parent. that’s why she also had anorexia and fear intimacy). Personality factors, we have strong self-awareness, imaginative, intelligent, and overly competitive. Cultural factors, Marya believes in American culture, thinness is associated with positive attributes such as self-control, discipline, sexual liberation, assertiveness, competitiveness, and affiliation of higher socio-economic class. Fat is associated with weakness, laziness, and poverty. And I feel growing up I do get affected by U.S. pop culture and did not get crazy with my body until age 18 in college. I can feel, “people had frenzied adoration of anorexic body and violent hatred of fat on themselves and others.”
I wish to have more time to tell you. And tell you how much I have grown since leaving China, leaving my parents, and how much I still struggle. Even though each one gets an eating disorder for different combinations of factors initially, he or she definitely has engaged in behaviors related to food and body image – go on a diet, lose weight, restricting, etc. Then it becomes a habit, and then an addiction. It affects your brain chemicals and blends into part of your identities.
Last Friday, I was studying with my friend Jun and listening to her understanding of eating disorders. My initial reaction is to criticize. Jun asked: “You don’t think we understand, right?”
I took a pause and shocked.
Yes, I don’t feel like people understand. It’s deeply rooted, requires patience and perseverance. If you simply remove it, what remains is terrifying emptiness. Even though the fear of emptiness is not real, your body still believes it’s real and makes a flight or fight response.
It’s freaking hard to let it go. And I don’t feel like I am ready to fully let it go.
But it’s moving forward. In March 2018, I told my therapist Shannon that I am still a perfectionist but I no longer push myself that hard and wish others to reach my standard. She was surprised and excited, telling me it’s her first time hearing me say that. Something grounded me. In July 2018, I said to my journal “I no longer feel I so desperately need others’ approval. Happiness exists in me.” And yesterday, I facetimed with Daisy and helped her sort out experiences to write her master of counseling personal statement. I told her I changed a lot this year, feel more peaceful, more alive.
菠菜大大说，人生之道，基础的基础就是”见自己。“ 见自己，就在于这每天活着，每天活着，喜怒哀乐，都是修行。活着，难过，想通，快乐——然后，循环，就是一种胜利(See yourself. Seeing your self lies in living every day. Experiencing the pleasure, the anger, the sorrow, and the joy, is to live. Live, cry, understand, feel happy – and then move in cycles. Living, experiencing, in winning. -Buo Cai)