Three Attitudes Underlying Anorexia

“A controlling environment that values high achievement is often linked with anorexia,” said the psychologist to me. As someone who suffered from a severe and unexpected anorexia when I was 14, I found this interesting. Looking closer at my behaviors and environment when I was that age, I would describe my behaviors as obedient and defiant to the controlling environment. I was pleasing and disagreeing with it at the same time. Starving myself to have a toned body was me acting to please my high achieving controllers, but starving myself too much to avoid being strong was acting defiant to my high achieving controllers. In another element, I imagine anorexic people pick up on their environment being threatened by strength, which means starving myself so much that I became weak was also a form of pleasing my environment. 

In summary,  disordered eating works to achieve three things:

1. Pleases people who value high achievement

2. Defies people who value high achievement

3. Pleases people who want you to be weak and are threatened by your strength.

A solution is to perhaps make yourself more trustworthy and therefore a less desirable target to control. Or switch up your environment. 

A final note: a “controlling environment” actually translates to a “threatening environment”.