Shame

One aspect I have not talked a lot about is the element of shame associated with an eating disorder. In fact, as I sit here and start to type, I feel shameful even talking about shame. But that very element is why a disorder like this can go on and exist under the radar for YEARS without discovery. Each and every person that is consumed by an eating disorder is crying for help, but we are too ashamed to ask for it. So we continue our self-destruction of eating and vomiting, eating and vomiting, sometimes just vomiting. And all the while hating ourselves for being so weak that we would need such a wretched habit in order to cope, in order to lose weight, in order to survive it sometimes seems. It says something when I can’t eat 20 gummy bears or a mini-candy bar or a normal sized meal and not immediately think it is going to make me fat and I want to just get rid of it. It also says something that the first thing I think of when I hear a negative comment, or a mistake is pointed out, or someone confronts me that I all I want to do is purge. Purging food and purging emotion – it is all the same. So I do and then the guilt and the shame for having “done it” yet again floods over me as a cold shower of reality. “You are THROWING UP Kate! Stop it! What are you doing to yourself?!?!?!” Wanting to stop yet feeling fat and disgusting and slightly self-satisfied over “taking care of” the “problem” of simply eating and enjoying food. I feel shame when I eat. I feel shame when I can’t deal with negativity and mistakes. I feel shame when I throw up.

A friend commented to me today that I have made so much progress the past year. Of course I instantly retorted I didn’t feel like I had progressed at all. Perhaps until I get a hold of my perfectionism, I will never be good enough for myself. I will never make enough progress. I will never simply allow myself to, of all things, be happy.