Liar Liar

Our brains lie to us…a lot. 

We tend to think that our brains are ultimate truth tellers. That everything we see or experience is the absolute truth. Except there are a lot of times when our brains are in fact big ol’ lying liars that lie. This is especially true when it comes to eating disorders and how we relate to our bodies. 

This doesn’t mean you are “crazy”, or that you can’t trust yourself under any circumstances. It just means that sometimes you have to break into your own stream of consciousness and do some fact checking. 

Have you ever said something like “I logically understand XYZ, but it just doesn’t feel right” or “I understand that for other people, but I’m different”

If you have, then you have already experienced a cool thing about the brain! We can hold two ideas or narratives at the same time. We can understand two different realities, which is of course where we usually stop. We believe things really ARE different for other people, that we are the exception to the beliefs we have for others. This is also where our brains are generally lying to us. While there are some very RARE exceptions, in general, we are actually not that different in most of the times that we claim we are. 

So how does this happen? How do eating disorders and disordered body image happen? Very slowly, over time. We didn’t just wake up one day and decide to have an eating disorder and think that was an awesome way to live our lives. Maybe it started with your parents constantly mentioning how only good children eat their veggies and clean their plates. Or casual comments when you took seconds at thanksgiving dinner. Maybe it was your favorite tv show as a kid having a character that was always “trying to lose 10 pounds” and being labeled the fat character (despite the fact they were still very thin). Maybe it was losing weight due to an illness, and everyone complimenting you on how good you look after. It also could be related to much more traumatic things. Assault, abuse, neglect. It could have been one incident, or it could have happened over years. All of these things change our brains. 

Our brains don’t set out to make us miserable. There isn’t some little gremlin up there causing chaos for the fun of it. Our brains at the most basic level are wired for survival and safety. They want to keep us alive, and if they find something that gives the right feedback, it will latch on to that thing and find ways to recreate that. So things start to slide from not taking seconds at thanksgiving to avoid Aunt Martha’s comments, to only eating half a portion in the first place because then she will have even less to comment on, in fact she might not even notice you are there. Then it becomes more of an everyday thing because it worked over the holidays, right? 

We see so many movies and tv shows around the whole make-over concept. Once our main character loses some weight and gets a new hair cut, suddenly she is respected at work and their love interest finally really sees them…So we think that is how it will work for us too. We know it’s a movie and that isn’t how life works, but losing a few pounds couldn’t hurt, right? Then you work really hard and make yourself miserable by eating almost nothing, or maybe visiting the porcelain god on occasion…but you also start getting compliments. You are getting noticed by people, and that feels good! Acceptance is a form of safety! So your brain says that you need to KEEP GOING to keep that acceptance and safety. So you do…and then one day the thought of grabbing pizza with a friend sounds like the scariest thing you could ever do. Because you might gain weight, and that might lose your acceptance, and that isn’t safe. 

There are hundreds of different versions of this. Thousands even. I’v laid out some pretty simplistic ones for the sake of brevity, but they are usually more convoluted and twisty. That is part of why eating disorders are so tricky. They are great at adapting and changing, all while maintaining the narrative that keeps you under its control.  

So how do we get off this carousel of hell? This is where therapy and coaching can come in. Therapy can help you do the deep dive into the cause of all of this, and really help to identify the narratives your brain is telling you. Therapists can help you find those traumas and hurts and help you heal them. This can take a very long time, as some wounds are very deep, and long held beliefs are hard to shake. 

Coaches are here to help you continue the work you are doing in therapy (or with other team members like dieticians and doctors) in your everyday life. We are here to help you recognize when those narratives are popping up and help reroute them back to the direction you want to go. 

For example, let's say I do an evening check in with a client- they are anxious because they are eating a challenge food and they are sure that by eating it they are going to gain weight and won’t be able to fit into their clothes. 

Their brain has taken the idea of eating a single food and turned it into their entire body changing enough overnight to need a new wardrobe. This is the narrative that keeps them in a smaller size, and therefore makes them more acceptable to those around them. 

This is where I come in, to help disrupt that narrative and bring a little outside perspective into the mix. Oftentimes we just believe what we think without stopping to consider there might be other options. 

I might ask things like “would you be judging your best friend if they ate that food?” “If your partner gained a pound or two from eating something they loved, would you think badly of them?” I may also point out that eating one single food, no matter what kind of food it is, cannot biologically change your body significantly in one meal (assuming you aren’t allergic to it.) Even if you binged at the buffet, one meal is not going to significantly or permanently change your body. 

We would spend time together talking through these things, and hopefully after a while, they start to notice on their own when these thoughts and narratives start to come up, and use the tools we’ve worked on to course correct themselves. 

To sum up, our brains lie to us a lot. Not everything we think is true; and you don’t have to believe everything you think!  It can be very tricky to recognize and disrupt those narratives on your own, and there is help out here in the world that is ready and willing to help you do that work so you can live a happier, less chaotic life with food and your body.