A Declaration of Independence From My Eating Disorder
The Concept
A very common practice for eating disorder treatment professionals is the idea of teaching their clients to personify the eating disorder, or separate the illness from the person. It is especially beneficial in the early stages of recovery.
People who struggle with eating disorders hear negative thoughts incessantly.
Don't eat. You've had too much already today. Why can't you do anything right? You are so stupid. Your body doesn't deserve to be nourished. You're so selfish. That's indulgent. You don't need that. You're a horrible mother. Shame on you. You're such a failure - they'd all be better off without you. How dare you even think about swallowing that. Now you've done it. You're going to have to pay for that. You are such a burden to everyone, all the time.
And on, and on, and on. All day, every day.
While some people have concerns regarding the personification of an eating disorder (and understandably so), I have found it, at times, to be helpful in my recovery and have witnessed the same in others. The danger comes when we blame our choices on the eating disorder. That's not okay. We are always responsible for our choices.
On a personal level, I tried to name my eating disorder (Luci - a female Lucifer), because I was asked to do so by some of the therapists at treatment. But it just never felt right - that was taking it a little too far for me - so I just referred to it as the eating disorder. It was more helpful for me to identify the eating disorder thoughts, and then declare what was actually truth, rather than relate to something so personified that you give it a name characterizing an actual person.
Here's how it was helpful. While processing in sessions, in groups, etc., those negative thoughts inevitably come out, because they've been disguised as truth for so many years. Perhaps while processing after a meal, I said, "That was way too much. I don't deserve it and surely didn't need it." In attempt to help separate the thoughts, the therapist might say something like, "Amie, is that you talking or the eating disorder talking?" My answer would be the eating disorder, because I know the truth. And I want to believe the truth.
The therapist would agree that it's an eating disorder thought and then ask me what a truthful statement would be, to which I would respond something like this: "I am trusting my treatment team to know what's best for me right now. It might feel like too much, but that's because I am not used to properly nourishing my body. My body does deserve nourishment, because that's God's design. He planned for food to fuel the body that He created so that I can accomplish His will for my life and bring glory to Him."It's simply a tool to help patients recognize disordered thinking. In the early stages of recovery, when you're extremely ill on multiple levels, this is very beneficial, as it's so difficult to recognize and categorize thoughts of any kind with a malnourished brain.
While I understand that the concept of personification could possibly be seen as giving the eating disorder power or using it as an excuse for behaviors - and I can see how that could be an issue without a strong therapist - I saw it as more of calling the thoughts out for the lies that they were. Actually removing their power. I wanted MY thoughts to be ones that were rooted in truth, and I was happy to identify those "eating disorder thoughts" as lies from the enemy.
Unfortunately, it's not a once and done kind of thing. It's reprocessing those thoughts and identifying truth over and over and over again.
One of the exercises I was assigned at treatment in reinforcement of this idea of separating myself from the eating disorder, was to write a Declaration of Independence from the eating disorder. Jenni Schaefer, a hero in eating disorder recovery and advocacy, first introduced this in her book, Life Without Ed (such a great book!!). Obviously, it's the historical document, personalized and modified to be the separation of the eating disorder and oneself.
I spent a lot of time on this assignment, because I wanted my independence and freedom from this horrific illness to be rooted in God's Word. I do not have to be enslaved to the destructive lies from the enemy which eventually result in death, because the Word of God tells me what is actually true. Regardless of what feels right as a result of a lifetime of negative core beliefs and experiences, I cling to what God says about me because of who HE is.
When I finished writing it, I was given permission to type it out. The therapists at treatment printed it for me, and I asked them all to sign it. After I was discharged, I asked my home treatment team to sign it, as well. It is now framed and sitting on my desk where I write everyday.I treasure it. Because it's a constant reminder that God wants me to be free - fully recovered and whole - and all of the people He's used to make this a reality in my life are scripted across the bottom. Their unique handwriting just looks like them somehow, and it's comforting to remember their love and faithful support. I often find myself just staring at it.
(Pictured below, and written out beneath the image since it's hard to read in the photo.)
Here's what it says.
Declaration of Independence
When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one woman, Amie Noelle Shields, to dissolve the bonds which have connected her to an eating disorder, and to assume the separate and equal station to which God entitles her, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that she should declare the causes which impel her to the release from bondage.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all mankind are endowed by their Creator, because of Jesus Christ, with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That whenever the eating disorder becomes destructive of these ends, it is right to abolish the eating disorder and to institute recovery, laying its foundation on such principles and in such form as shall seem the most likely to affect safety and happiness.
When a long train of abuses, pursuing invariably the same woman, evinces a design to reduce her under absolute despotism, it is her right, it is her duty, to throw off the eating disorder, and to pursue recovery for her future security. The history of the eating disorder is a history of repeated injuries, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over Amie. To prove this, let the following facts be submitted:
• The eating disorder has refused, for a long time, to allow Amie to find happiness and peace.
• The eating disorder has required a lifestyle of restricting and purging.
• The eating disorder has ravaged Amie’s life and harmed the lives of her family and close friends.
• The eating disorder has joined with the grips of perfectionism, self harm, depression, and negative thoughts and beliefs foreign to her constitution.
• The eating disorder has numbed most emotions and left Amie with an oppression of sadness and defeat.
• The eating disorder has suspended Amie’s own mind and declared itself invested with the power to legislate her world.
• The eating disorder has deprived Amie of nourishment and the joy of eating.
• The eating disorder has taken away much of Amie’s health and memory, abolished her most valuable morals, and fundamentally altered her values.
In every stage of these oppressions, Amie has petitioned for redress in the most humble terms. Her repeated efforts have been answered only by repeated injury. Amie must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces her separation and hold the eating disorder as the enemy.
Amie, therefore, solemnly publishes and declares that she is free and independent (Gal. 5:1); that she is absolved from all allegiance to the eating disorder (Rom. 6:14; Rom. 8:1); that all connection between the eating disorder and her ought to be totally dissolved (Rom. 6:9-10); and that as a free woman, dependent only upon Christ, she has the full power to eat and nourish her body (Acts 27:34; Prov. 3:7-8), live in peace (Col.3:15), and to live abundantly, doing all other acts and things which independent people do (John 10:10). And for the support of the Declaration, with a firm reliance on her Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, Amie mutually pledges to her therapy group her life, fortune, and sacred honor (Prov. 15:22; Prov. 3:5-6).
Followed by the signatures of the most incredible treatment team members in the world.
God is so very good. His truths are absolute and certain. He's never broken a promise, and He won't begin with me. I'm so grateful for recovery. I'm grateful for the Godly team He so lovingly and sovereignly placed around me. And I'm grateful for grace and new mercies every single day.
To read more about my story and recovery, click here.
