Eating Disorder Treatment: There’s No Perfect Option

Perfect - sometimes I think that the very word (along with should, but that’s a story for another time really) needs to be wiped clean from our vocabulary. While I’m not a particularly religious person, I do hold fast to certain truths, one of which is that we, as human beings, need to focus on being the best that we can be even though, well, even though good enough is as good as it gets; perfection is reserved for the creator, for God, and it’s in seeking perfection that we alienate ourselves and get further away from our true selves.

“Practice makes perfect,” they say. “Oh isn’t that just perfect,” we ask when we find the centerpiece for a dinner party, or things work out better than we had hoped that they would. The whole concept of perfection and striving for it is so intertwined with eating disorder behaviors that it’s always odd to me when people are looking for a perfect solution, the perfect eating disorder treatment program, the perfect form of recovery when there aren’t any bad days and life was like it was before the illness took hold.

Ironically enough, if things really had been as perfect as we’d like to imagine them, most of us wouldn’t have developed an eating disorder to begin with. Whether we try to blame the media, society darlings, parents, peers, the “culture” and trends of the day (or ourselves), if things were really great, well, they wouldn’t get so awful.

And yet, it still happens: people still look for the perfect treatment option:

(source) the search for something “perfect”, the desire to find the “perfect” program, the urge to reach the “perfect” size or be the “perfect” person in any way at all is a symptom of an eating disorder. We humans are not designed to be “perfect”. Our design is that of a human being with all our flaws and contradictions. There’s something wonderful about being like a kaleidoscope, an endless colorful variety of perspectives, intact and whole.

Perfect is a symptom - the quest for perfection is often just another eating disorder behavior: but it is cultural; it has that edge to it. We all want to be better than we are; we all are driven to do a little bit more, to make more money, to get a better job, to do better in school. Better is one thing though; perfect is something else altogether.

Striving for perfection is a way that we distance ourselves from ourselves, from our humanity, from what makes us real. It’s taken me a long long time to realize that I’m no different from everyone else: I’m fragile but strong, I’m fragmented but whole. And the best part is that I know that’s okay.

Tags: eating disorder behavior, eating disorder treatment, imperfection, perfectionism