The need for control is a double edged sword. On the one hand, the more we know about the world, the safer we feel. Conversely, the less we know the more uneasy and scared we feel. Thus the need for control is deeply rooted in fear and those exact fears will be different for everyone.
Today I’m going to discuss:
- Why eating disorders perpetuate a need for control
- How attempts to exert control often negatively impact our lives
- Understanding the different facets of control and how these show up in eating disorders
- What can be gained by letting go of control
- How to start letting go of control so you can recover and reclaim your life
Show Notes
This episode is proudly supported by my upcoming group program Healing Hypothalamic Amenorrhea, an 8-week, hybrid group and 1:1 coaching program, with supportive materials, hormone nourishing recipes, recovery friendly workouts, and workbooks designed to help you recover your period while improving your relationship with food, exercise and your body. Enrolment opens on October 5th and the course begins on Monday October 17th and is available to participants worldwide. If you want daily coaching support and a personalised approach to your recovery, then this is the program for you. For all the details and to sign up head to www.sarahlizking.com/healing-ha/ or click the link in the show notes.
The need for control is a double edged sword. On the one hand, the more we know about the world, the safer we feel. Conversely, the less we know the more uneasy and scared we feel. Thus the need for control is deeply rooted in fear and those exact fears will be different for everyone.
Today I’m going to discuss:
- Why eating disorders perpetuate a need for control
- How attempts to exert control often negatively impact our lives
- Understanding the different facets of control and how these show up in eating disorders
- What can be gained by letting go of control
- How to start letting go of control so you can recover and reclaim your life
First let’s start out with a bit of interesting research.
Going back to the late 1900s, a researcher, educator and physician named Hilde Bruch, started to discuss the role control had in the emergence and maintenance of eating disorders. It was specifically through her work that the behaviours associated with anorexia nervosa were understood as one’s attempt to achieve “mastery” in one specific area of life in an otherwise chaotic existence.
In these situations, it is thought that a fixation on controlling one’s eating patterns “benefits” those who have eating disorders by enabling them to avoid their unpleasant emotions in the absence of more adaptive coping mechanisms. However, when someone’s obsession with exercising self-control over their eating habits becomes unregulated and unrestrained and inevitably takes control of them, the eating disorder develops.
In essence, instead of you having the control, the control then controls you and it’s a vicious cycle.
When you feel the need to control every element of your life, including your diet, exercise routine, and physical appearance, your life might suffer in a number of ways. Among these detrimental effects are:
- Increased stress and anxiety around changes in your schedule that could impact food, or your exercise routine
- Rigid rituals and routines that you feel compelled to do every day
- Feelings of low self-worth when you can’t uphold your high standards of control
- Lots of time, energy and effort spent planning and executing disordered behaviours that help you maintain the illusion of control
- Less social connection and isolation from loved ones as eating out or going outside of your routine feels too scary
- More self-criticism about your body or worth based on how well you are able to exert control
One of the hardest things about eating disorders and disordered eating is often they develop for very rational reasons. Nobody one day decides to wake up and just get a mental illness for fun. In this case, control and the eating disorder behaviours that allow for that illusion of control may have come into a person’s life when things felt chaotic, uneasy, and unsafe. In a time where your life may have had so many unknowns, the eating disorder provided comfort and stability. You were simply doing the best you had with the coping mechanisms that made sense to you at the time.
I often look back on the time in my life when my own eating disorder developed. I was living on my own, working two jobs, studying full time, trying to be good enough for a relationship where I felt inadequate, and navigating trying to make friendships after leaving high school. It was a time of great uncertainty and despite how crazy busy my schedule was, controlling food and exercise felt like the only thing that kept me grounded. Or at least that’s what I was telling myself. But the slippery slope of disordered eating quickly became a full blown eating disorder, and the need for control completely overtook all areas of my life.
So how do you overcome the eating disorder’s need for control so you can recover? First we have to understand a little more about control itself through a psychological principle called the locus of control.
The locus of control theory is a rather straightforward idea. There are many actions and outcomes in our life and each of us will give these outcomes a certain locus of control. According to the theory, we will either position the location, or locus, internally or externally.
If we externalise the locus of control, we are more likely to attribute the result to fate, luck, or chance. If we internalise the locus of control, we are more inclined to think that our own actions determine the result.
Where we put that locus, according to psychologist Julie Rotter who developed the idea, will either reward or punish our actions. An internal locus of control will result in that behaviour being reinforced, which will result in the behaviour continuing. The activity will cease if there is an external locus of control; otherwise, why would we keep trying if we have no influence over the outcome?
Interestingly, studies have revealed that women with eating disorder pathologies tend to have higher levels of externality. If a person believes they have little control over anything in their life or what happens to them, it’s understandable why they might turn to the eating disorder to elicit some form of control and feel safe in their otherwise chaotic experience. In simply terms, this often sounds like “I can’t control anything else, but I can control my food, my exercise and my body and so I will.”
The problem is because so much time, energy and attention is diverted to these three areas of food, fitness and body weight shape and size, the areas of work, relationships, studies and other areas of life become neglected which almost feels like a self-fulfilling prophecy reinforcing the theory that a person has no control over their life or how it looks.
I imagine that many of you are nodding your heads in agreement with what I just said. You want to stop this cycle of being in control, but you don’t know where to begin. So today I’m going to discuss a few typical anxieties that keep that demand for control alive and how to overcome them.
Common fear #1: The fear of losing control
It seems that what maintains people in their illness is their concern that they might no longer be able to use their preferred coping mechanism in the face of hardships in life. This may be the part of you that doesn’t genuinely want to heal, focusing on the idea that “if you do, you will be overweight,” and possibly even lose your identity, and this thought leaves you with a sense of dread.
Common fear #2: The fear of losing control over your body
When clients begin working with me the one thing they often fear is weight gain. But it’s not the weight itself, it’s what the weight means. The true fear is “If I gain weight, I will have failed in the one area that I felt I had control over.” Other concerns are what will happen to my body and life if I begin to actually enjoy food? What if I recover and then find that I can’t stop gaining weight? What if I need to purchase larger clothing? All of these are valid and need to be tackled in order for recovery to be successful.
Common fear #3: The fear of judgement from others
What if others make remarks about my weight? (Whether for the better or worse, I will lose their support and they will change how they view me.)
Common fear #4: The fear of losing control over your identity
Without my eating disorder, who will I be? (It will be challenging to present my new identity as a recovered person to the outside world.)
How am I going to handle the outside world? (I won’t have anything to use as cover and will be unprotected.)
Common fear #5: The fear of losing control of your emotions
You might feel your eating disorder is your safety net and letting go of that control can feel scary. You might think to yourself How else will I feel special? How else will I manage my emotions? Without my eating disorder, how else will I punish myself?
It can be hard to accept that recovery is possible or even beneficial when these kinds of thoughts and fears start to take control. But what is the ultimate cost to your life if you continue to live in the comfort of your eating disorder or even in a stage of quasi-recovery?
The list of negative consequences is endless, and truthfully you deserve to have a life bigger and better than what your eating disorder is giving you.
If you’re prepared to relinquish control and fully recover, here are some tips on how to get started.
- Create a new routine
Your eating disorder may have given you strict rules around food, and exercise such as what you’re allowed to eat, when, how much and more. To have more freedom in the long run, we need to start breaking away from the rigidity of your old habits and formulate some new ones. This means making a routine that allows for regular and adequate eating but is not dogmatic. It encourages you to listen to your body, your hunger (if and when it’s there) and expand the types of foods you eat over time.
1. Opposite actions
You’ve probably heard that doing opposite actions to what the eating disorder is encouraging you to do is essential to recovery. Every time it tries to elicit it’s control on you, dig deep and challenge yourself to do the opposite instead. Remind yourself why recovery is so important to you and that these new healthy behaviours will become easier over time.
2. Arm yourself with better coping strategies
Get help and support from a coach or health professional who can help you build more effective coping strategies that you can use in place of disordered eating behaviours. This is by far the most important aspect of your recovery. You need tools to help you manage emotions, urges, physical discomfort and so much more. With the right advice you’ll be able to employ these strategies in the moment instead of letting your ED take charge.
3. See yourself as a whole person
You are still you without your eating disorder. Recovery isn’t about “finding yourself” as much as it is about coming back to yourself. Reconnecting with joy and laughing out loud with your friends, exploring hobbies and interests, and finding the joy in social eating and making memories will allow you to see your life and yourself as more than a collection of body parts.
4. Practice radical acceptance
Radical acceptance is helpful in preventing pain from turning into suffering by accepting difficulties in a non-judgemental way. In other words, radical acceptance is a type of mindfulness where you accept and surrender to what life has given you right now without fighting it. In recovery this is essential because a lot of change can cause discomfort. Fighting that change and the associated feelings is often what can make recovery feel intolerable, which is why learning and understanding how to practice radical acceptance can be so helpful.
As always I know these podcasts are loaded with lots of information so take some time to absorb it all and remember you can always come back and listen again whenever you need.
Additionally, if you know you need help and assistance in letting go of the need for control and reaching the full recovery you deserve, please reach out to me via the contact link in the show notes to discuss if recovery coaching is right for you.
Until next time be sure to look after yourself and I’ll be back very soon with a fresh new episode you can wrap your ears around.
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