I needed my eating disorder.
Shocked? Good.
Now stoke the flames of confusion for a minute because I’m not going to explain that right away.
Remember game days in high school? On the day of a big basketball or football game, the halls buzzed with fervency. It was the only day in most public high schools that anyone wore a uniform. Football players wore ties and button-downs. Cheerleaders wore their skimpy skirts all day long.
The night before, Coach had informed them of the dress code. Following those rules gave each member of the team or squad a sense of identity and belonging.
That’s why I needed my eating disorder.
One of the most obvious ways that anorexia manifested itself in me, was a long list of self-imposed rules.
I must never run less than I did before.
I must never workout for less than 90 minutes.
I must never have more than X fat grams in a day.
I must eat only X calories.
I must never eat restaurant food.
I must never let people see me eat.
That last one was a biggie and in effect was the king of rules. By rigidly keeping that rule, I set myself apart from everyone else. My private list of do’s and dont’s gave me shape in this world, carved out my unique niche and proclaimed to everyone that I was not just one of the crowd.
Growing up in a godly home, I was told “you’re special”. I’d made paper snowflakes in Vacation Bible
School and memorized cute songs about how no two snowflakes or people are alike. “God so loved the world,” was part of my earliest vocabulary. But I needed so much more than John 3:16. For me, the critical turning point from self-starvation to life was coming to not only pay lip service to my individuality, but to internalize that truth.
It doesn’t always help me to believe that God loves the world, because I don’t want to be lost on the globe. I don’t want to be one of the crowd. I need a God who counts hairs (Luke 12:7), I need a God who calls one single Chaldean out of the masses (Genesis 12:1), I need a God who selected 12 uneducated men to be his best friends, I need a God who knows my name (Isaiah 43:1). I don’t only want to only be loved. I want to be seen!
I needed to believe that I am special, unique and exceptional outside of my tightly structured cage of rules, that I wouldn’t disappear when I relinquished the disorder I called my own.
I love the story of Hagar, a little, despised, slave mother who had been thrown out by her jealous mistress. And as she lay panting in the desert, watching her only son wither away, God found her. God did a miracle that day. He provided for Hagar and her son. But after, she didn’t rejoice so much in that He loved her, she rejoiced that God had seen her. (Genesis 16:13)
That’s the God I needed. That’s the God who found me. That’s why I don’t need an eating disorder anymore. I am seen!
God, Dust and Freedom, by Jincy Gibson
Atheist Objects to Christian Faith as Key to Recovery, video resource
Captivating, book by John and Stasi Eldredge