(Note to all you anal-retentives out there: I realize that the view of eating disorders as an “addiction” is still up for debate. I just couldn’t think of another suitable word. So sue me, it’s late and I’m not feeling that creative. Save the emails, or don’t, I am running low on toilet paper.)
This is the addiction that should have parents quaking in their boots: EATING DISORDERS; the “hidden” disease. What would most parents of teenagers notice more; food missing in the pantry, or alcohol missing from the liquor cabinet? Most would quickly answer the latter. Some of that is simply due to media attention. It seems that every other Dr. Phil episode/news cast/Dateline special is featuring teens sinking to new depths of alcohol or drug depravity, but little attention is paid to their ugly stepsister, the “ED’s”. And the attention that is paid is often highly dramatized. People with ED’s are depicted as emaciated skeletons. The truth is that not all of us look like war victims. We are your sisters, daughters, mothers, and sometimes brothers/sons. In many ways ED’s are the safest addictions around. There is no need to break the law; like with drug addictions or to go and purchase alcohol; read drunk driving, underage drinking and a plethora of other problems. No, with an ED even your parents can be your “drug” suppliers. You can “use” in public. Hell, you can “use” in front of your grandma, and if you are good, nobody will be the wiser. Try doing that with heroin. (You won’t be invited to many more holiday dinners, that’s for sure.) Another way in which eating disorders are uniquely accessible (or hellish, depending on where a person is in recovery) is that our “drug” of choice is uniquely accessible. An average American eats three meals a day. For a person in recovery or trying to fight their ED that equals three opportunities to go completely off the wagon. Imagine giving an alcoholic a glass of booze three times a day, then telling them that they can only take a sip each time. Or giving a drug addict their drug of choice, but telling them to only use half. Complete “abstinence” from food is not possible (read: anorexia). Ours is a unique drug in that it is one that every healthy person on the planet also consumes, and if we want to be healthy, we must too. What makes ED’s so easy in the beginning of our disease is what makes them so hard to recover from: accessibility. So pay attention, if we seem a little off to you parents, maybe we are. Sorry Dr. Phil, but we don’t have to be teen crack ho’s to have a problem (but if you’re a twin teen crack ho now THAT’S good tv apparently). Remember ED’s might be “easy”, but they might not be so easy to see from the outside.
