Overcoming Compulsive Behaviors: Steps to Life-Giving Transformation

Trapped in an Illusion of Control.

I remember a pivotal moment when I realized that the "control" I thought I had over my body and my food was an illusion. I believed I was in control, but in reality, the very thing I thought I was controlling was in fact controlling me.

During that time, no one knew about my eating disorder. This is often the case for many people who suffer from eating disorders, as they do not always fit the stereotype of a sickly thin individual. I was not emaciated or outwardly unhealthy. I ate food and had energy. No one thought of me as sick, or was worried about me. On the contrary, I was frequently praised for how healthy I appeared. I looked the healthiest I ever had. I worked out routinely and consistently fueled my body with nutritious foods. Candidly, I was known as the "healthy friend" and was often asked for diet and workout tips. People applauded my "self-discipline," with comments like, "I wish I could be good like you," "You look amazing," and "You are so healthy!" No one realized in truth I was in a prison of disordered eating and compulsive exercise.

One day, on one of my daily walks, the skies were clear, and the sun was perfectly warm on my face. It was a day ideal for eliciting feelings of peace, warmth, and gratitude. Yet, as I walked, I was less aware of the radiance of the sunbeams and more entrapped by the pain in my hips and the ache accompanying me on my every step. With the freshness of sunshine on my cheeks, I found myself crying. I wept because I desperately wanted to stop walking. I wept because I dreamed of stopping but doing so felt impossible. I wept as I reflected on the fact that everyone was so impressed with my self-discipline and that all I wanted was for someone to tell me I didn’t have to work so hard to be lovable.

The Realization

I didn’t know it on that walk. But later, as I became healthier, I became aware that all my efforts to embody the picture of health and beauty were driven by my largely unconscious desire to be worthy of love and acceptance. I had unwittingly tied my worth as a human being entirely to my weight and physical appearance. So, on that sunny day, with tears streaming down my face, I kept walking because if I stopped, I believed would soon find myself to be worthless.

What started as me innocuously controlling my dietary intake and physical activity quickly and imperceptibly became me being controlled and even imprisoned in my own mind—again--the control I thought I had was actually a lie.   I wish I could say I stopped walking that day, but the reality is it took me several more months, professional help, and a much more honest evaluation of myself to get me to stop. I didn’t heal in that very moment, but that was one of my first realizations that if I kept going the way I was going, I would lose everything that made me enjoy life.