Write to Restore: The Rules

Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels – it is impossible to eat and be thin.

The scale never lies.

Thin = strong, healthy, disciplined, beautiful.

Failure = Weakness.

It’s really difficult to understand the mindset and unsettling behaviors of an eating disordered person if you’ve never experienced them or been close to someone who has. This is because the rules only make sense in that world. Lies replace logic, numbers become obsession, and scales are the only measure of true worth – that’s pretty much the bottom line. Everything is black and white, good or bad. It’s all or nothing – a world of absolutes. There is no such thing as a mistake. One weak moment indicates total failure. Rigid guidelines and unattainable standards are used as a method of control.

Where did I get these ideas? When I was my thinnest I was more sick and unhealthy than I’d ever been before or since, yet that’s when people told me how good I looked, how wonderful I was, how strong and disciplined I had become. My delusions were reinforced through the reactions of others. My sense of value was siphoned through the filter of anxiety and depression. My actions were based solely on feeling.

Thin doesn’t always equal beauty, strength, health and resolve. Sometimes it represents dysfunction, control, conformism and self-hatred. No one knew I got my new body by flushing the old one down a toilet and by starving myself to death. Everyone took me at face value, believed my lies – that made it really easy.

I would stop at nothing to achieve the acceptance and praise of others, to feel loved, to feel comfortable in my own skin. I felt that I had nothing to offer. So when my body betrayed me and stopped responding to dieting in the way I felt it should, I started taking extreme measures. If it wouldn’t go down without a fight, I’d beat it into submission. To stop losing weight would be failure and I couldn’t handle that. So, I created the rules.

The rules were safe and comforting; the rules were tyrannical and relentless. Rituals and habits with food became a controlling force in my life – I used them in attempt to manage my feelings of inner chaos. Every decision I made was based on feelings. That’s how it starts – trusting feelings, delusions, and rules that exist only in your own mind, justifying actions that you know deep down are not okay.

What I didn’t know then but now understand: Numbers don’t give you value. Bodies come in all shapes and sizes; some of them aren’t designed to be skinny. There is no way to make up for every mistake you’ve made. The people who truly love you don’t care what you look like. We all need grace, and not only do we have to accept it from Jesus, we have to give it to ourselves. We have to accept that there are things we cannot control and trust God to handle the details. We cannot create order in our chaos, and we mustn’t let emotions rule our lives. Feeling is not fact. We must choose to believe truth no matter how we feel. And what is the truth?

Jesus loves you just the way you are. He made you the way you are on purpose, and He has a plan for you. You are beautiful in His eyes, He is the lover of your soul, and there is nothing that can ever separate you from His love. His standard is the only one that matters. His strength is perfect in your weakness. He is the light and way out of darkness. He will help you if you let Him.