Hey, everybody! Happy Thursday
now today's question is a good one
it's all about eating disorders
and impressing your therapist
before we jump into that
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but let's jump into the question
there is so much involved in this question
now the first component
that I wanna talk about
is what she mentions
saying maybe to justify my eating disorder
and that could definitely be a component
because I've heard from many of you
and even many of my clients
have talked about
when they've seen therapists
they've felt like they needed to justify
how sick they were
or validate, you know
just how hard things were for them
by acting out in it
whether it's in session
or telling them how hard of a time
they're having out of session
just because they feel like
they aren't taken seriously
or maybe they need more validation
for what they're struggling with
so that could definitely be a component
but I would encourage you
to think about whether or not
you feel that your therapist
takes your eating disorder seriously
if the answer is yes
then I wouldn't consider this to be
the answer to why you feel
you need to impress her
with how sick you are
the second thing that I wanna talk about
is the fact that eating disorders
are crazy manipulative
and they will tell us
that we need to be
more sick, lose more weight,
do more of these things
in order to be "sick enough"
and I've done a lot of videos
about this talking about
how your eating disorder
will always tell you
you're not sick enough
and the truth is, it will never stop
telling you that you're not sick enough
we will never binge enough,
lose enough weight, exercise enough,
purge enough, there will never be
enough behaviors that we can do
to satisfy our eating disorder
because what an eating disorder does
is it helps us cope with something else
by not allowing us
to think about anything else
so we'll take over our entire life,
our entire body
where at some point
they'll be all that we can do
and it still won't be happy
keeping both of those things in mind
and taking some time to think about it
because it's gonna take us a little while
to realize whether or not
we do feel validated by out therapist
and, also, like, how manipulative
our eating disorder is
it can be really hard for us
to even accept that
because an eating disorder
like I said, is really sneaky
it can even chameleon and be like
"no, you have complete control, I never
make you do anything you don't want"
it can do all sorts of bullshit
but it's just that: bullshit
so don't listen to it
by taking both of those things
into consideration, we're able to
maybe, hopefully see more clearly
and I want you, the thing–my advice
about this, I want you to talk
to your therapist about it
I want you to come clean about it
tell her all of the thoughts
that are swirling. Trust me,
if she's an eating disorder specialist
she's going to understand
because the next step, my guess,
would be, if we don't talk to her about it
if we don't let her know how we're feeling
and how we feel like maybe we need
to impress her with how sick we are
if we don't start talking about this
then we can't actually
work on the eating disorder
because, in a way, your eating disorder
is fighting against your therapist
which is so normal
eating disorders will fight
tooth-and-nail to try to
hang on to us
that's why they're super manipulative
and change shape all the time
and by talking about it with her
it gives her the opportunity
to better understand and maybe
offer up some different tools and tricks
or maybe the way she interacts with you
can change so that you don't feel the need
to impress her so much, but please
talk about it because if we keep
going down this slippery slope,
right, we've already increased to
two sessions a week, the next step,
I'm telling you from an eating disorder
therapist's perspective, the next step
is inpatient, and I would be looking
at different programs, whether it's
day treatment, maybe it's not
fully inpatient, maybe we look for
a day program, but then the next thing
is inpatient, and how many months
can you do that, and what insurance
will cover it, and all of that
those are our next steps as we kind of
go down that slippery slope of
eating disorder treatment
I hope that that clears up and kind of
gives you an idea of where that's
coming from because it may be
all of the things that I talked about,
that could be a factor as well,
but it may just be one of them
but don't forget, eating disorders
are sneaky, and they will try to hang on
any way that they can, and don't listen
because it's only gonna lead you
down the path to more intensive treatment
and more damage to your body
but let me know, are there other things
that I left out? leave in the comments
as always this is a conversation
with our community, right,
because we work together
towards a healthy mind and a healthy body
and like I said: don't forget to subscribe
and turn on those notifications
and then I will see you next time
Bye!
Subtitles by the Amara.org community