Freed Beyond

Comfort Zone - Cosy Cabin or Gilded Cage?

For those experiencing an eating disorder, their behaviours have provided what feels like a safe and secure place away from the dangers that they perceive are out there. It helps to shield them from emotions and experiences that are too difficult to face and can provide immediate relief from the discomfort experienced when any potential threat comes on their radar. It allows the sufferer to remain firmly within the safety of the boundaries they set which becomes their comfort zone.

This can sound idyllic – a safe space where one can curl up away from the harshness of reality but all may not be as it seems. For what started out as a cosy cabin in which to retreat to safety can become a gilded cage that traps you and removes you from living your life. It can inhibit learning, deny the experiencing of new things, it will rob you of finding your purpose or of chasing your dreams and ultimately results in missing out on living your life in all its fullness.

Recovery involves focusing on what you want to move towards that gently allows you to move beyond your comfort zone, one small step at a time. This builds the courage to face your fears moving gently towards growth with the result of building your confidence, tolerance, resilience and enables a strengthening of all your relationships.

A coping mechanism

For the person with an eating disorder, controlling or abusing food and their body is their way of relieving distress and achieving some degree of control and/or coping in their life. Their world feels like an unsafe and unmanageable place, and for many complex reasons, an eating disorder provides them with a sense of safety and support.

The metaphor of the ED as a crutch can be very helpful in grasping a fuller understanding of how EDs can be a coping mechanism to keep them safe and gives something to lean on. We need crutches if a bone in our leg is fractured or broken and they serve a purpose, to help keep us safe and stable as we continue to move about while the bone heals. If we were to suddenly whip the crutches away from someone who is in the healing process, then the inevitable will happen … they will fall over. They serve a purpose, just as the ED serves a purpose but for a limited time. Once trapped within the eating disorder, people often feel they need to maintain it in order to survive. They don’t know how they could cope without it.

The impact of the overuse of the crutches is that if the person becomes dependant on them, they will never learn to walk without them and will live a restricted life. What helped them, now starts to hinder them and have consequences. The same is true of the ED - what once helped the individual manage their lives, is now keeping them stuck and is stopping them experience the fullness of life and freedom.

However, if the crutches are gradually taken away and the person, as they heal, manages for short periods each day without the crutches, the time will come when they can walk without them completely. It is therefore important that family and friends (and the sufferer!) have realistic expectations of the pace of progress that recovery takes. Don’t try to whip away the crutches too soon and instead gradually encourage your loved one to learn to walk without them.

Numbing

For someone experiencing an eating disorder it can be incredibly overwhelming to feel their emotions. Due to high levels of sensitivity, sufferers can feel negative emotions really intensely and deeply and are compelled to make them stop at any cost. One of the aspects that can feel like a benefit to a sufferer is the numbing that the ED can provide for emotional experiences. This can feel like a huge relief from the overwhelming emotions but as with all “benefits” of an ED, they are short lived and have major consequences.

Did you know that if you numb from the difficult emotions, you are actually numbing to all of them? Emotions are not a pick-a-mix situation that you can choose all the good ones and leave out the ones you don’t like. When you numb your emotions through ED behaviours you block the ability to feel moments of joy & happiness, experiences of laughter and fun, feelings of love & peace all in an attempt to create a barrier to the difficult emotions such as sadness, anger and fear.

This numbing prevents you from living, experiencing and participating in the fullness and joy that life can hold. One of the aspects of recovery from an ED is learning what your emotions are and how you can work with them so that once what was terrifying becomes part of how you experience life, enabling you to connect with your loved ones and the world around you and allowing warmth to return to a heart that had become frozen.

Hiding from life/identity

Struggling with an eating disorder often feels like living behind a mask. The eating disorder can very subtly become a part of our identity and it can be hard to see your true self. This can lead to a distorted view of self and isolation from your true self but also from friends and family. Living or existing in this way takes a huge toll on the sufferer, the carers and the community around you. Many people are hurting through suffering themselves or through watching a loved one suffer with eating distress.

At Freed Beyond we know and can testify to the absolute truth that recovery, which is lasting and full, is achievable for those living or existing in life with an eating disorder. It is possible to build an identity that does not involve the eating disorder. This can be difficult to comprehend and it does require a first step. Following on from this there is a commitment from yourself with support from others to step out from behind the mask and to live life free and to thrive.

To those who haven’t personally experienced an ED it will sound strange to say that it has benefits. However, understanding the benefits of an ED will help family, other carers and even the sufferer to accept that there is purpose to the ED and that learning to live without it takes time and can be scary. It’s like taking off a warm cosy blanket on a cold day which can feel unbearable. Follow our posts throughout this week for Eating Disorder Awareness Week and learn about some of the reasons why it feels beneficial for an ED to be in place for the sufferer but also on the flip side, where each benefit has serious consequences.

Happy New Year from all of us at Freed Beyond.

In the middle of all the activity that this season brings here are some useful tips to protect your peace this Christmas.



*source unknown

Some helpful tips for carers of those experiencing EDs this Christmas.

We are delighted to offer our 6 week Freed Foundational Course via Zoom for those experiencing eating disorders or supporting someone who is.

(The course is run for people 18+ but we can accept individuals from the age of 16 if they have a carer join the course along with them).

The programme is designed to educate and resource participants and is led by both counselling professionals and those who have lived experience of the journey themselves.

To celebrate the launch of Freed Beyond we are offering the course at a discounted rate of only £25 per session (£150 total).

If you would like to register your interest you can do so via our website (link in our bio).

Places are limited so if you are interested in participating please get in touch.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx2wrrl0ex6o

Eating disorders: Christmas can be 'the perfect storm' There has been an increase in people seeking help for eating disorders in Northern Ireland, according to Freed Beyond.