Homework for Lindsay, Week 1:

Testing Your Thoughts

Thoughts may be 100% true, 0% true, or somewhere in the middle. Just because you think something is true, doesn’t necessarily mean it is true.

Thought: “I’m losing the thing that makes me a Good person (i.e., restriction)”

What is the situation?

The more I continue to engage in the program and eat consistently, the more I feel like I’m losing my ability to restrict, which is the thing that makes me feel (1) like a Good person, (2) like I am capable of difficult things, (3) like I am disciplined and able to control my impulses, and (4) like I am able to regulate my feelings and cope with my emotions. At the core of it all, I am terrified that if I don’t restrict, I will indulge to an extreme degree, in all aspects of my life, and that I won’t be able to stop myself.

What am I thinking or imagining?

I am scared that restricting is the only thing that makes me successful, disciplined/regulated, and a Good person, so by moving towards recovery, I am giving that up. I am imagining that without restriction, I will spiral into a state of dysregulation, ambivalence, and greed, where I don’t care about anything, don’t have the motivation or discipline to push myself, don’t have the ability to regulate my emotions or cope with my feelings, don’t have any interest in living, and am completely disorganized and out-of-control. I also imagine not being able to stop myself from indulging in things that I see as “off-limits,” like food, self-care, leisure, and pleasurable activities. It feels like I have spent my whole life building a wall to keep my actual wants and desires contained, and if I take down that wall, I will just want to indulge all the time and not be able to stop myself. It feels like my ability to deny myself enjoyable things is what makes me so productive and good at school/work, so losing that ability is very scary to me. It’s also embarrassing and shameful to admit that I even have a desire or interest in eating or in doing pleasurable things, and at my core I am scared that I have no ability to consume food or do those fun things in moderation—I would just keep on going and never stop. It feels like everyone else naturally has something in their brain that says “alright, I’m satisfied now,” after a certain amount of having something good. It feels like my brain doesn’t have that—and even though my wise minds knows that this can be a biological side-effect of long-term restriction, I still can’t make myself trust that my hypothetically recovered self will ever feel “satisfied”; I will always want more because I am undisciplined and indulgent at my core. Even writing this down is shameful to me because I have never admitted to myself or anyone else that I actually have these wants.

What is the cognitive distortion?

• All-or-nothing thinking, catastrophizing: Even if this thought were true (which it’s not), it’s a very extreme way of thinking. It’s likely that I will experience some dysregulation and feel somewhat out-of-control, but probably not to the catastrophic degree I am imagining.
• Disqualifying the positive, mental filter: I’m not factoring in all the ways in which restriction is detrimental to me, and therefore am discounting the benefits I could experience from eating consistently.
• Emotional reasoning: I know that this thought is my ED brain being scared and trying to preserve itself. It’s not objectively true that restriction makes me good or successful or disciplined—it’s just how I feel.
• Labeling: I know my ED distorts my perspective of what labels like “Good person” and “disciplined” mean. My ED brain considers these as my “values” even though the way the disordered part of me defines them is not actually representative of my core, non-disordered beliefs.
• Tunnel vision: This thought uses a very narrow set of criteria to define a “Good” or “successful” or “disciplined” person; mainly, it is factoring things like academic achievement, productivity, ability to control what I eat, and ability to restrict myself from “indulging” in pleasurable activities. It’s not accounting for things like being a good partner, having a strong community, or honouring my core values.

What makes me think the thought is true?

• When I started restricting, it made me more disciplined at doing all the things doctors were recommending I do to solve my chronic pain, like physio exercises, core definition, and anti-inflammatory diets. When I lost a lot of weight and they noticed how much exercise I was doing and how much muscle I had, it felt like they stopped blaming me for my pain.
• When I don’t restrict, I overindulge. I know any ED dietitian will say that this is a biological reaction to restriction and malnutrition...and I know it’s so “typical ED nonsense” of me to say, “but it’s different for me,” but that’s still how I feel. Plus, it feels like I have this tendency in all aspects of life, not just food. I think part of this feeling stems from growing up with Danielle, Nancy, and my cousins, and seeing them be so “naturally good” at being disciplined in terms of eating, studying, socializing, money, etc.
• When I started restricting, I also stopped getting in trouble for losing things, forgetting things, missing important details, etc., because I became so obsessive and detail-oriented. Plus, I started receiving positive reinforcement for being so precise about everything. It feels like “nature’s Adderall” in a sense.
• Restriction makes me feel more productive in my activism and helping my community, like getting UBC to divest from fossil fuels, creating the Youth Climate Ambassadors Project, making my gender-affirming care navigation guide, starting the MEAL research advisory council, facilitating the Asian diaspora workshops, and organizing the UBC Climate Emergency and Climate Strikes. I did all these things while not eating and it feels like that’s what made them possible.
• When I am restricting, it feels like I am more focused and disciplined in getting my work done and being productive, because I have learned how to deny myself treats or enjoyable things and just focus on doing what needs to be done.