Eating Disorder Behaviors Sometimes Creep Into My Dreams

Sometimes my mind plays tricks on me. During the day, I can keep those eating disorder behaviors that I’ve worked so hard to put behind me at bay - I don’t spend five hours working out (even when I kinda want to); I don’t purge all of the items that I don’t need or my meals; I don’t focus on jumping on the scale twenty times a day. Actually, I don’t even have a scale. But once I’m not actively focused, when I’m sleeping, my mind takes over and all of those habits and patterns prove that they’re still there.

Last night in my dreams I purged anything that I ate. Last night in my dreams, I spent time at the gym envying the buff guys their lack of body fat and the girls who had a better pace on the treadmill, smaller arms, smaller waists. Last night in my dreams, I saw myself wearing clothing that was entirely too big to hide the fact that I was entirely too small. Despite being freezing cold, I woke up sweating, in a panic, and. . . And suddenly sad because I missed it.

I don’t think that it’s a sign that I miss my eating disorder. The reality is that I have more than enough chaos in my life without adding anorexia and bulimia into the mix. The reality is that I have too much to do and too much that I want to accomplish to sacrifice genuine control for the search for the ever elusive and impossible to gain perfection that eating disorders promise. But when I dream of it, when I wake up somehow sad to have a body that’s healthy in size (albeit a bit out of shape), I know that something isn’t quite right.

I have a few ideas about what’s wrong. Part of it stems from work I think.

One of the projects that I’m working on is for a fitness company - a business that sells gym equipment and such. There’s writing, online bookmarking and posting to forums (message boards) involved. Most of the boards that I’m reading are all about working out harder, losing weight and body fat. One topic involved this guy who is training his previously anorexic girlfriend. Given her stats, I suspect that she’s still underweight. Given her menu, I think that she’s not eating enough, especially given her workout schedule. But here he is, trying to be all helpful and trying to figure out how to cut her calories, keep her working out and get her ripped. As soon as I read it, it seemed to me like, well, like he was helping her to become sick again in the guise of “getting fit.”

I’m probably reading too much into it, I’m probably bringing too much of my own perspective to the boards and the discussion and not coming at it from the perspective of the job, but with so much talk about cutting calories, getting rid of the fat and even adding fat burners and steroids, I think I’m, well, I think I’m being triggered.

I was reading that thread last night before bed, along with posts about getting ripped and cutting calories - maybe that’s what caused the dreams

Tags: anorexia, eating disorders, slimming down