Eating Disorders Awareness Week 2023

Eating Disorders Awareness Week:
February 1 to 7, 2023

Eating Disorders affect people of all genders, sexual orientations, ages, socioeconomic class, abilities, races, and ethnic backgrounds. That is why, from February 1st to 7th every year, Eating Disorder groups across Canada unite to commemorate Eating Disorder Awareness Week (EDAW) with a national week of action focused on educating the public about Eating Disorders.

It is a time to escalate awareness of the impact of Eating Disorders, the dangerous stereotypes and myths, and the supports available for people living with or affected by them. Learn more and lend your support by visiting the National Eating Disorders Information Centre (NEDIC) or Sheena’s Place. 

 

The pain and silencing of anorexia & exercise addiction

My years of living with anorexia and an exercise addiction were hell.  Mainly because of the shame of thinking I was responsible for my situation, and due to the emotional pain I was in. There were so many “well-meaning” professionals who discredited my experiences and added to my sense of guilt and self-judgement through words and actions of blame, anger and intolerance towards what was clearly a severe mental illness.  It was extremely difficult for me to understand how I had gotten to this hell scape and for so many others in my life I was perceived as being “stubborn”. It was a deeply dark and lonely place.  The significant lack of self-worth and overall confusion were intensely distressing and impossible to explain and led to some extremely harmful behaviours. All these years later I still feel my soul ache as I write these words. What was remarkable was that the emotional pain overrode the physical pain I was causing because of the exercise addiction. I was simply numb. Overall, I felt like a stranger to myself and that I had been dismissed by a system that was meant to help me.

 

Living in my body: on the dance floor

Fast forward to today. I’m a dancer. Dancing has been a major part of my healing and it’s in large part responsible for what helps me stay well.

Every time I dance, I tell my body “I will never abandon you again”. Not through words, but through the presence I offer it. I give my body that reassurance through the care and respect I show it by tuning in and listening to it. It’s easiest for me to do that when I’m dancing and practicing my connection to sensation, my body’s foundational language.

It wasn’t always that way, and it took a long time to get to this point. During my years living with adult onset anorexia and an exercise addiction I had essentially disowned my body.  My body was simply a vehicle to carry my brain around in. I hadn’t been taught to tend to it or care for it and if anything, I had been taught to manipulate it (thanks, diet culture).

What I prioritized (and so did the world around me), was my intellect. Expressing emotions was a sign weakness in my books, something to be ashamed of. The only part of me that mattered was the part that could achieve high grades. It was in part due to the drive and determination to get those high grades that my physical health was compromised at the age of 19 when I was given a likely diagnosis of Multiple Sclerosis. I put so much pressure on myself to achieve (thanks, capitalism) that I was not living a full or balanced life.

Eating disorders advocacy

I have recently joined an Eating Disorders Collective whose mission it is to organize for improvements to what are primarily clinician-driven initiatives around eating disorder prevention, treatment and public perception. The people with lived/living experience with eating disorders need to have a voice!

When I presented with anorexia at the age of 30 I was an enigma. It was very difficult for professionals to know how to help given that I didn’t fit in a tidy diagnostic category. Add the exercise addiction to the anorexia, and I really stumped the therapists and doctors I saw. On top of that, I knew that western medicine would not be the only answer and so insisted on creating my own unconventional treatment plan. That was unusual and not acceptable – it was not felt that I could have a say in my own treatment. Yet I knew what was best for me but I was being encouraged to override that and accept cookie-cutter treatment.

All this to say that eating disorders are complicated. No two cases will be the same and there is so much more than meets the eye. My exercise addiction? It was in part fuelled by hypo-mania. It took forever to get a diagnosis of Bipolar Disorder which was key to addressing the excess energy and irrational thinking. If it had been considered early on, I would have been spared so much grief and suffering.

Lack of understanding of concurrent disorders, addictions and mental health conditions persists in the field of eating disorders today. Issues of childhood trauma and complex family dynamics along with peer pressure and weight stigma are not always considered or addressed. On top of that, the field of eating disorders (and medicine in general) is rife with fatphobia and racism which impact who receives treatment and what quality that treatment might be. Our colonial society considers eating disorders to be an individual problem removed from the society that created them and yet doesn’t treat them on an individual basis.  These all lead to inadequate identification, treatment and public perception. And they strip people of their dignity and humanity.

For all these reasons and more, I am committed to speaking up and speaking out to support change and help others with eating disorders. I don’t want anyone to suffer at the hands of dysfunctional systems in the ways that I did.

Thanks to Chloë Grande (a Canadian mental health blogger, writer and speaker) for inspiring this post with her informative and personal piece which you can read here.

Eating Disorders affect people of all genders, sexual orientations, ages, socioeconomic class, abilities, races, and ethnic backgrounds. That is why, from February 1st to 7th every year, Eating Disorder groups across Canada unite to commemorate Eating Disorder Awareness Week (EDAW) with a national week of action focused on educating the public about Eating Disorders.

It is a time to escalate awareness of the impact of Eating Disorders, the dangerous stereotypes and myths, and the supports available for people living with or affected by them. Learn more and lend your support by visiting the National Eating Disorders Information Centre (NEDIC) or Sheena’s Place.