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Why your eating disorder is a coping mechanism

Dear readers,

Your eating disorder is a coping mechanism. There I said it and I bet that you may have heard that before. Either in therapy or some other blog you read. It’s a good thing to understand as a person suffering from an eating disorder that this is the case for you. But also for people who are trying to help you (dietitian and general practitioners).

Maybe it’s a good thing to define the word coping first, because we all use it so easy. So in the Cambridge dictionary coping is defined as ’to deal successfully with a difficult situation‘. There is something damn funny about this definition. Because most people who have healthy coping habits, can successfully deal with difficult situations. But if you choose your self destructing habits, you can often fool yourself that this is the right thing to do.

EVERYONE HAS SELF-DESTRUCTING HABITS!

the thing is, they come in different sizes. But you can choose to use them or to let them be. You do not always need to do what your thoughts tell you to do. For thousands of years eating disorders have been around. Princes Sissi and the Swedish princes Victoria had them and there’s is nothing to be ashamed about. You should however be active in teaching yourself better coping mechanisms. Here’s a list with bad types of coping. The assignment for you is to see which one or ones you use and be creative with replacing them with new coping ways.

For example: I always smoke when I am nervous > coping is smoking > If I am nervous I will do a little sprint of 30 seconds to relive the tension.

Bad coping mechanism:

  • smoking
  • drinking alcohol
  • drinking fizzy drinks
  • chewing gum
  • too much exercise
  • cutting yourself
  • not eating or little eating
  • eating way too much
  • eating lollipops or having toothpicks in your mouth non-stop.

Not everyone with these coping mechanisms have eating disorders. But it all comes down to one thing: FACE WHAT YOU FEEL.

Hope this helps,

Queeny