For most people, eating disorders are a great mystery of our time: an enigma to the medical and psychological professionals as well as to those who have had to live with the bizarre and often tragic behavior of its victims and the sufferers themselves to cannot explain their actions. Paradoxically, much of the mystery has arisen less because we lack the knowledge or wisdom to understand what drives people to destroy themselves, but because we are all too ready to explain their behavior in some of the most authoritative and misleading clichés of our culture.
In a world so fixated on images, so prone to reward selfishness, so ready to equate success with self-promotion, it is hardly surprising that eating disorders are often construed as simple vanity taken to an extreme.
I believe that these conditions and the behaviors they engender can be fully understood, provided one takes the necessary steps to look beyond the obvious. There can be an understanding of how the interplay of social situations and psychological dispositions lead people to this particular “rational irrationality.”
My hope is that we can continue to enable, by therapeutic process, these victims to create a new interpretation of their world so that they see that self-destruction—the unconscious impulse toward suicide that lies beneath the symptoms of eating disorders—is no longer a necessary response to their misperceived role in society.
To all of my dear friends who have faced these behaviors and succeeded, I applaud you. To all of my dear friends who are still struggling today, I share with you the hope that you can and will be well.
Much love,
Peggy Claude-Pierre
5 comments:
Hi Peggy.
It's a very interesting test about ED.
It fills me with dread and re-surfaces old memories when I hear victims of eating disorders labelled as selfish. These beautiful individuals would have to be the least selfish people. Unfortunately there is too much ignorance within those who know no better and those who don't want to know better. I remember on one of my many admissions, a nurse questioning me on why I was in a psych hospital. I wasn't "sick", I had an eating disorder. Why didn't I just eat? I was taking up a bed for someone who was "sick".I already felt worthless, that I was taking up space, and didn't feel like I belonged in this world. My negative mind had a field day and I lost hope. Thankfully there were some staff who could see my struggle and wanted to help beat my chosen path of self-destruction.
I would like to offer and to help hold the hope that there can be a life without the constant anorexic struggle and negative mind. There is a beautiful life out there waiting for you, I know this because I am now experiencing it! I still struggle at times with my negative mind but for the most part I can now fight back or ignore it. I really do love life now! xx
Hi Dear,
I send sunshine your way today and positive energy. Biggest love.
Dear Lee,
Thank you so much for your positive input. Hope is such an imperative against the 'negative mind' that I have devoted a chapter to it in my next book. It is so important to realize that what other people think about you is not as important as what you think about yourself. What you think about yourself, in a positive way, ultimately leads to peace and love. Big hugs.
Eating disorders is a situation when individual experience severe disturbances in his or her eating behaviors, like there is extreme of reduction in their food intake or extremes in overeating. There are two types of eating disorders named Anorexia nervosa and Bulimia nervosa. It is mostly seen in stage of adolescence or even in young adulthood. Females are more likely to have this type of disorder than males. People having eating disorders are likely to have depression, anxiety disorder etc.
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