A tool that can help: Journaling Exercise for ED

Currently I am ready the book
"8 Keys to Recovery from an Eating Disorder: Effective Strategies from Therapeutic Practice and Personal Experience" by Carolyn Costin (Author), Gwen Schubert Grabb (Author)
It a very good book and I'd like to share some thoughts and exercises with you that you can do at home. Its' hard when you recognize the stage of change you are in but continue to feel helpless & ashamed for having the disorder. The book address the reality that you really have two parts of yourself, your Healthy Self and your Eating Disorder Self. Your Healthy Self is the part of you that struggles with ED, the self that is underneath the behaviors. Everyone has a Healthy Self.

Its important to contact and your ED Self and being to learn from it, have a discussion with ED and begin to transform it'. A great way to do this is to journal before engaging in one your ED behaviors (before bingeing or purging or skipping a meal). You are not being asked to journal instead of engaging in the behavior but rather before you do the behavior. Its important to access the part of you (your ED self) that wants to continue the behavior- this is an important step in making more conscious choices. So the exercise is to create an internal dialogue between your Healthy Self and your Eating Disorder Self.

For example:

1. Eating Disorder Self (ED): The only way I can feel OK with myself is to restrict and exercise.
Healthy Self: Even when you exercise and restrict you still dont feel OK with yourself. Yes, it numbs you from your emotions temporarily, but those feelings do go away, they always come back..it's only a quick fix

2. ED Self: I had such a hard day. I deserve to eat whatever I want. Nothin will make me feel good as this.
Healthy Self: YOu did have a very hard day. You need to do something fun or find something to help release your stress, like a bath, yoga, you can have a piece of cake..but having the whole cake will feel good while you're eating, but afterwards you feel ashamed and even more stressed out.

3. ED Self: Even when I am at a healthy weight I will be miserable, so I might as well be thin and miserable than fat and miserable.
Healthy Self: YOu can't predict how things will feel at a healthy weight b/c you have not been there long enough. All you know for sure is that you are absolutely miserable and alone when you are sickly thin.

4. ED Self: If I dont loose weight, I cant' ever be happy.
Healthy Self: YOu mind is in control of your happiness, not your body. There are plenty of people who weigh as much or more that you who are happy. IF you work on making yourself happier in a variety of ways you might focus less on food. You can do it!

WRITING ASSIGNMENT:

"Get you jornal and write down several of you recent ED thoughts. Try writing back to each eating disorder thought from your Healthy Self. It might help you to ask yourself how you would respond if someone else expressed these thoughts to you."

Please post how this goes for you!

Warmly,
Kellie Montgomery, LMFT