My patient wrote this very lovely and wonderful reflection on how therapy with me is helping her, even though she chides me for not knowing a thing about eating disorders. I asked her if I could share it with the world so that others may know what therapy can be like, sometimes:
Bulimia is one of my dirtiest and one of my best kept secrets. It leads to feelings of shame, disgust, and, what’s worst for me, isolation and crushing loneliness. My eating disorder tells me, “people won’t like the whole you especially once they really know you (who could like someone so gross)!” It tells me, “Maybe they only like the silly, smiley person you put out for the world.” So I play the role of someone who doesn’t have their own issues and someone who can be there for others and hold their pain, heartbreak, and anxiety without asking anything in return.
I’ve been in therapy for years with so many therapists, but recently therapy has begun to take on a new meaning. My therapist doesn’t get all the credit, but he deserves a lot of it. I began this new round of therapy to actually address my insomnia and debilitating panic …and oh my eating disorder, duh!
I had suspected, and with my therapist’s help, finally learned that so many of these symptoms were trauma. Therapy has helped me begin to see that my eating disorder’s voice doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Instead, it is the voice of multiple traumas manifested as bulimia, my eating disorder trying to protect me from uncomfortable feelings or people that will hurt me. However, it left me with an inability to face those things that hurt me in the past and an immediate and reflexive repulsion to doing or thinking about anything that might make me uncomfortable me today. But, I’m slowly learning that avoiding pain and relationships actually leaves me in even more pain …and even lonelier.
The other night after a session I began to really think about all of this. I was able to see that I am in fact likable and I do have friends. I make my therapist laugh, sometimes at the ridiculous things that come out of my mouth, but sometimes because maybe I am genuinely funny (maybe).
I also learned that the ways I cope don’t make me a bad person, a weak person, a gross person, or an unlovable person. What is truly healing about therapy and my therapist is that I am allowed to be sad, happy, angry, silly, narcissistic, petulant, avoidant, and lonely without judgement and even acceptance. Sometimes I do deserve an eye roll or two. He definitely gives me much needed feedback and reality checks, but I can be myself with the eating disorder or without it. All parts are welcome.
We need people in our life whether that be parents, siblings, friends, mentors, or partners. When we don’t have these relationships or when they hurt us, we feel insignificant, unlovable, and alone. To help me heal and begin to trust again, my therapist takes on many of these different roles at different times. This begins to make me whole, and at the end of the day, all we need is for people to see us and acknowledge us (even our most shameful parts).
I feel grateful that I have a space where my fragmented self (my eating disorder included) can be laid out and talked about. I want to remember therapy and my therapist as a person whom I trusted and finally opened up to, who didn’t reject me, and most importantly who kept a space in their heart for me. It feels scary and good at the same time.
I show up every week because I don’t want to be alone, I like being authentic, and I appreciate that he in turn shows up for me and bears witness. In a way I believe us showing up is how we honor each other’s existence and importance as humans. Therapy will be the place where I was accepted and began to accept myself. The hope then becomes that I can take these feelings and begin to experience that with others.