One thing we all have in common, and which is perhaps the greatest contributor to our eating disorder, is our ego. “Ego” in this sense is our need to derive approval, agreement, or even admiration from others.
Perhaps as children we were taught that doing what is pleasing to ourselves is selfish. Or, perhaps our first explorations into our sense of “self” and uniqueness did not meet with support or approval from our parents. Perhaps we had to grow up too fast. Or, as it was in my case, perhaps as children we believed that if we were “good kids,” our parents would love us more or take better care of us. For me, I developed my model of a “good kid” from TV shows like The Brady Bunch. The only difference is that I, of course, would never make the silly mistakes the Brady kids did. I would be perfect. And, then my parents would love me.
Of course, no matter how hard I tried, they continued to fight, continued to do all the self-destructive things they did, continued to neglect themselves and my sister and me. I grew up trying ever harder and yet ever failing to get my desired result. As a child, I learned to compare my behavior against that of the Brady children, whom I judged to be “good.” I learned to judge my success at being like the Brady children against the love and care I got from my parents. Because I so rarely got my desired result, I learned to see myself as a failure, or at least as someone who needed to try harder to please others. I never learned to just “be me” or that I was good enough just as I was.
Every once in a while, I would act out from my frustration with uncontrollable rage and anger. Of course, that behavior met with even more disapproval, making me feel like an even worse failure. Perhaps my eating disorder developed as a quieter way of dealing with all the pent up emotion that this messed up perception created on a daily basis.
And, yet, I continued to strive to be what I thought everyone else expected me to be. Why? Simply because I never learned any differently! Not until I began working with my coach at age 34 did I realize how my ego had defined my life and my goals and how it kept me crippled.
It may seem strange to hear that we bulimics have a huge ego problem, particularly since we’re generally quite humble in our opinions of ourselves. We usually consider ourselves fat, stupid, clumsy, whatever. But, think about why we think these things – because we’re always comparing ourselves to others! We’re dependent on others’ appearance, intelligence, grace, etc. to determine our own, as a measure against theirs. If everyone else were truly fat, stupid, clumsy, we would feel fantastic! We would feel worthy, valid, “good.” But, sadly for us, there will always be someone thinner, more intelligent, more wonderful than we are. And, as soon as we’re aware of that someone, we again deem ourselves worthless failures.
I can promise you that if even if we somehow managed to become the thinnest, most perfect people with everything that society deemed desirable, we would still be beating ourselves up. Why? Because you and I will never stop comparing ourselves with others – we don’t know how or even why! One disapproving or scornful look or comment can make all our successes and material goods completely worthless to us. Not only that, but we’ve only achieved what everyone else said we should achieve. While, perhaps all we really wanted in life was to paint, to sail around the world, to write, to work to save homeless animals, homeless people, to work with children. We never figured out what we needed or wanted – unless we could get full approval and support from those we most admire in our lives. We never learned how to feel good about ourselves, just being ourselves. In fact, when I began working with my coach, I barely even knew what I wanted out of my life – except for all those things that society says I should want –whether I truly wanted them or not!
How many of the below points sound familiar to you?
· we’re dependant on others’ positive reactions and support for us to feel good about ourselves,
· when we “fail” to get our desired reaction of approval from others, we feel like failures or worthless, bad people,
· we can’t impress or even please everyone all of the time, so we’re set up to fail at least some of the time. Even if we do please others, it’s rare that they will act in exactly the way we had hoped or envisioned them to, so we are very often disappointed,
· we suppress our own opinions, wants and needs for what we assume others think, want, need, and expect of us,
· over time, we lose our own sense of what’s right or wrong and what’s meaningful or important to us,
· internally, we develop a sense of frustration, anger and/or resentment because we work so hard to get our validation from others, but we don’t always get it,
· every once in awhile, our suppressed anger and resentment can explode out of us uncontrollably. Inevitably, this makes us feel worse about ourselves, our value, and our lack of control,
· as we get older, we may find it’s easier to be alone than to continue working so hard at gaining others’ approval or risk facing disapproval,
· we may have what we consider a great idea. But, if someone expresses doubt or disapproval, we often abandon our idea altogether. And, we usually don’t pursue our ideas at all until we get support and validation from others,
· we may buy ourselves something that we really wanted and that makes us feel really good. One disapproving look or comment and we lose all confidence in our choice. It never brings us the same happiness again.
Think about how ego has affected you. Remember, it’s not your fault that you look at life in this way. You didn’t have a choice about the things you learned or didn’t learn as a child.
So, now you may be able to recognize ego in your decision making and actions, but the next questions to consider are: How do we learn to escape ego as a main determinant in our lives? How do we learn to trust and depend on ourselves for guidance and direction, rather than others? How do we learn to consistently see value, goodness, and significance in ourselves even though others inevitably will disapprove? How do we ensure that we’re doing what we want instead of what others expect or want? And, lastly, how does getting rid of ego help us to recover?
To be continued . . .
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