Anger is a huge theme we see in recovery, and learning to manage express anger in a helpful way is such a vital tool for any body. Anger is an emotion that is scary for many, often because it’s expression has previously been observed coupled with violence or inappropriate behaviour. However this need not be the case- there are appropriate ways to manage feelings of anger. Expressing it through art is one fantastic example.
There is also such a thing as righteous anger: there are things that SHOULD make us mad. Eating disorders are one of those things.
“I am angry that I starved my brain and that I sat shivering in my bed at night instead of dancing or reading poetry or eating ice-cream or kissing a boy” – Laurie Halse Anderson, Wintergirls“
I’ve never had anorexia. But I know it well. I see it in the street, in the gaunt and sunken faces, the boney chest, the spindly arms of an emaciated woman. I’ve come to recognise that flat look of despair, the hopelessness that follows, inevitably, from years of starvation” – Harriet Brown, Brave Girl Eating
“So there you have it- my sorry tale. That’s how something I thought I controlled ended up controlling me” – Sarah Darer Littman, Purge
The siblings of one of our clients was asked to complete an art assignment on something that makes her angry. She chose the difficulty of self acceptance.
“For an art assignment at school we had to do something that we were angry about so I naturally did something that was close to my heart. Not so much I was angry about anorexia as a condition, but more the effects and the broader theme of self-acceptance and how so many people struggle with that.”
Her amazing picture is above. She has kindly donated this to be displayed in our waiting room.
“The zipper is halfway up her face- rendering her lips tightly shut but the top is unzipped where the black tendrils the poisonous presence of the eating disorder is slowly leaving and although her collarbones still stick out but the warm flush of health and the feeling of peace internally is shown by her eyes being shut. The dress of magazines represents the negative portrayal of body image presented by the media and how this imprints upon the consciousness of the person reading it. “She’d die to be someone else” shows the futility and lack of self-acceptance that can be lethal. “
Many thanks to this remarkable young lady, for sharing this with us and her willingness to let us use it to help others who are struggling.
This year we will post some further images that clients/ sufferers/ family members have provided us with. These make up part of the “Anti Eating Disorder League” that we have in our office. We collect “pro recovery” poems, letters and stories to speak back to the covert pro anorexia/ bulimia propaganda, as well as that which overtly surrounds us in mainstream media. Our “Anti Eating Disorder League” is inspired by the well known “Anti Anorexia/ Anti Bulima’s Archive of Resistance“: narratives of people who have taken a stand against the oppressive regimes of anorexia and bulimia in their own lives and are prepared to share their stories with others who are struggling with these problems. The narrative therapist, who founded this concept notes:
“Anti-anorexia allows us, if we listen carefully, to hear what Anorexia has to say and how it says it. But it does not tell us its purposes or causes. That is for all of us to find out. How does anorexia enter a young woman’s life, impersonate her for a period of time, before becoming her cruel ventriloquist? What is so frightening is that the words coming out of so many mouths in any number of mother-tongues are so much the same…Anorexia not only claims its innocence but goes further than this. It now promises these young women the means to escape the very web in which it has ensnared them. They are told that the strict adherence to anorexia’s regimes of rules and regulations will ‘set you free’. They are soon to learn that they can never satisfy anorexia and are now on a ‘diet to death’. Each and every attempt to reach the anorexic standard, and their inevitable failure to do so, unwittingly tangles them more into the web. And the web now starts closing in on them, slowly but surely squeezing the life out of them. – David Epston
The “Anti Eating Disorder League” provides a forum for sufferers, family and therapists to better understand eating disorders- and be armed for battle against them.
If you have any artworks, poems, diary entries, letters etc that you would be happy to contribute to the Anti Eating Disorder League we would love to hear from you. There are also times where first hand contributions about recovery can be invaluable. We occasionally require people who are willing to discuss the reality of life with an eating disorder for the benefit of other people’s recovery, or to respond to a media request. Please note that we welcome creative contributions from anyone, however we only forward names of people who have completed treatment and are recovered to speak to other sufferers or the media.
