Show notes
Welcome to the Season 4 premier of the Love Food Podcast! I am so glad you are here. Let's dive into exploring a history of complicated family dynamics, genetic ties to eating disorders, trauma, and feeling stuck in binge cycles.
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This episode is brought to you by my courses: PCOS and Food Peaceand Dietitians PCOS and Food Peace. You CAN make peace with food even with PCOS and I want to show you how.
This episode's Dear Food letter:
{CW: trauma, ED behaviors}
Dear Food,
I don't really know exactly when my relationship became complicated with you, or quite how it came to control my life. I remember when I was in my early teens, being the one to say diets are bullshit, and not thinking about what I ate. Being anti-diet culture was practically a part of my identity, and such is where my values sit today, but I live in complete contradiction.
At some point in my teens, I started restricted and using my vegetarianism to always choose the salad option at school. But it wasn't controlling, it wasn't overwhelming; it felt more like a natural reaction to being at an all girls school in the society that we live in - an image-based thing. Sometimes, it was reactionary, in spite of my (well-meaning) mother who would always tell me that 'soup is a starter not a meal', and check if I was eating enough despite her smaller portions. (I later learned she had a struggled with anorexia for years, and would still struggle to eat in times of stress.)
I developed anxiety and depression by age 16, which ruled and ruined my sixth-form life. Perhaps it was the exam stress, the family troubles - growing up with a drug abusing brother who was in and out of school, in and out of home, in and out of hospital (not that I was always told straight away). We had a complex relationship with my father, who always vied for my brother's attention and allegiance against my mother. I tried to be always neutral, always loving of all parties - because I was, and couldn't not be. But with this came a lot of pain, a lot of confusion, and the earnest desire to always tread this precarious, and often punishing line. Of course, when I couldn't - and can't today - there is guilt. I was a straight A* student until the slump during my sixth form years, when my energy broke, and I scraped my way through the last 2 years. I used to be, and still feel like I should be, the person who was able to succeed at anything and everything without dropping the ball - but suddenly I could do nothing, and have struggled ever since. Around this time I realised there was probably something wrong - a cause. Through an explosive conversation with my mother, I was pushed to a consultation with a therapist and given the diagnosis - anxiety and depression - but didn't receive further help.
In my first year of uni I tried to access help myself, but was turned away by the uni counselling services after a few sessions, saying they didn't know how to help me as I had already thought everything through so much myself. It was in this year I had a few episodes of bingeing and purging. This continued around occasional periods of stress, such as exams, but not as a regular method of coping.
In second year, my mental health worsened. Restricting, binging and purging became a secret indulgence, but never something I saw as a problem as it was so sporadic. I had difficult relationships with my flatmates, though I had stronger friendships elsewhere, I felt alone. I became so ill I had to defer my exams. I worked towards the summer session, hoping I could somehow manage. But two weeks before I was due to take them, I was raped.
Utterly broken, I moved back in with my parents for a few months, during which time I tried to use food to console myself while I tried to process what happened. But when a close family member was admitted to hospital with terminal cancer, I began majorly restricting. When they passed away and my family fell apart, I moved back to my uni town and started a new job, trying to get my life back on track. Pretty much all the friends I thought I had were no longer there for me. I managed to access CBT for 9 weeks, but developed bulimia in an dramatic way, binging and purging at least 3 times in a day, at one time losing a stone in a month. This continued through another exam deferral, and another.
I fought for a year to access treatment, being passed from waiting list to waiting list, rejected for being too symptomatic, too complicated or not fitting criteria. Along the way, I met someone who truly loves me and cares for men and helps me through these struggles. When I am with him, I eat normally and don't purge, but will find myself in tears most evenings because of food. My weight is stable at a healthy BMI, but I am miserable in my skin, mentally exhausted, and absolutely terrified: of this relationship with food that dominates my life. I cannot have food around me and resist it, regardless of whether I am hungry - I am so anxious about when I might need to eat, that I am constantly aware of a hunger, and I cannot discern the emotional from the physical. I know I use bingeing and purging as both a means of occupying myself when I am alone, as an emotional control and as a form of self-harm. And what started as a tool has grown like a weed to something that I am constantly aware of, and bothers me even when I am happiest. I love to cook, and often cook with my boyfriend, but cannot enjoy a meal without resenting myself and being overwhelmed with frustration as a result.
In a month, I will finally be starting treatment (psychotherapy with a trauma focus), but I am worried about managing my relationship with food during this time, as I know it will be a gradual process, and not the focus of my treatment. Additional private treatment isn't easily an option for me. I am also worried about the strain I place on my boyfriend, who is always there for me, but who cannot fight the battle for me, no matter how much he may want to try.
I am trying to keep the willpower to fight for myself, to maintain the relationships I have left and succeed in my final chance to pass these exams in just a few months. I desperately need peace with you food, so that I can have more energy to make peace elsewhere in my life.
Yours,
Terrified & pleading for a truce
Show Notes:
Do you have a complicated relationship with food? I want to help! Send your Dear Food letter to LoveFoodPodcast@gmail.com.
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