Trigger warning: eating disorders
This week I want to be a little selfish and self centered. Let’s talk about that one toxic relationship I have, with food.
After another long day, as I am finishing a whole pint of ice cream, a large bad of chips and a can of soda, I’ve realized that I have developed the most toxic relationship I have ever had in my life. Remembering a conversation about finishing buckets of ice-cream with a friend earlier this week, it seems like although I’ve always thought this was an internal struggle, I was never alone.
It is a fact that while everybody shares a relationship with food, some people’s are simply healthier than others. Lately I have been hearing more and more people talking about their struggles and relationship with food. On one side, this normalized my unhealthy behavior but it also struck me as to how much of an impact food has in influencing most of our daily lives.
For me, my relationship with food started to go wrong the first time I attempted a “diet”. Developing an eating disorder a few years ago, food had completely taken over my life and even after recovery, the anxiety still lingered. Even today, I will still have to face and battle the thoughts in my brain, just to walk further and further away from the eating disorder. After years of struggling with weight loss and body images, the obvious unhealthy relationship I have with food had affected my life to the point I simply couldn’t over look anymore.
My toxic relationship with food is just like every other text book toxic relationship with human beings. While it seemed to be providing me comfort on the surface, ultimately the relationship was extremely manipulative and abusive. On top of everything, it pushed my self esteem off the cliff and made me feel worthless. Yet, no matter how much pain and damage this relationship is causing me, I can never manage to leave it behind. Now I know I can never “break up” with food by simply cutting it off. But, what else can I do to stay way from the damage that my relationship with food is causing?
The answer to this question is, I wish I knew. Unfortunately, if I do know the solution and answer, I wouldn’t be here addressing my struggles. The one difficulty about maintaining a “healthy” relationship with food is that it exists in so many grey areas. I have my better days when I can eat a bucket of ice cream feeling simply happy and satisfied without feeling guilty or anxious about my body images. On those days, food can do no wrong to me. But then there’s days when I will be having an anxiety attack just because I had a latte, when I am no longer me, but a puppet controlled by food.
Despite talking about a toxic relationship with food, I do think that food itself was not the root of my problems. That will be an other argument on how the social culture surround us has shifted the purpose of food, and we can leave that for an other time.
My attempt to make peace with food usually leads to practicing self love and self compassion. Easier said than done, sometimes I get blinded as well by the voices in my head whispering negative self talk. However, that is the thing about life, sometimes we learn but we forget, we fall but we get back up again and keep fighting for our beliefs. In the end, my toxic relationship with food is a battle in my head, it is something I will have to eventually face on my own no matter how much support I can get from friends, family and professionals.
This was more than just a vent session. In those days when I get caught up by my own thoughts, it is always someone else sharing their experiences that changes my perspective and allows me to normalize my behaviors and emotions, but most importantly to be reminded that no matter how bad things are you are never the only one, you are not alone.