This post was a collaboration with The Desi Condition. Check out their site for information on their podcast and art collective, which especially emphasizes mental health in the South Asian community.
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Before I turned 18 years old, the holidays were a time I looked forward to with deep anticipation and pure excitement.
Two (sometimes two-and-a half!!) weeks off from school.
Hot cocoa with whipped cream paired alongside one of many classic holiday movies on primetime.
Spending entire days with other kids in the neighborhood, playing to our heart’s content knowing that we’d get a free pass to stay up late at this time of year.
But all of this changed for me immediately after Christmas 2009. My spiral into an eating disorder began along with a new decade, and it eclipsed the happiness I normally felt during the holiday season.
The next round of Thanksgivings and Christmases were made miserable, thanks to an incessant voice chiding me to keep my servings of Dad’s green bean casserole and tofu wild rice stuffing small. In the years that followed, I made sure that a set of measuring cups was placed alongside my fork and knife—I could not get off track, even for one day.
This went on for six years, until finally in 2016, I had my epiphany. I had chosen recovery, and was on a path to healthy weight restoration.
Still, the incessant thoughts kept nagging as I helped myself to servings of Dad’s home-cooked food like never before, and my body image had reached an all-time low. Fighting with an eating disorder is a strenuous, mind-numbing battle, and it’s only felt worse during the holidays.
My fight eventually paid off. I can say with a content mind, body, and soul that I have beaten my eating disorder. The thoughts still pop up from time to time, but the way I manage those thoughts has developed considerably.
We are all not on the same path however, and my heart goes out to anyone still struggling with their ED at this moment—especially during this particular holiday season. The stress of COVID-19 and the socially isolating lockdowns it has caused can be a huge road-block to recovery.
If the girl I was from 2016 was struggling with her ED recovery through a COVID-ridden holiday season, this is what I’d encourage her to do, given her unique situation:
If living with family/roommates who are aware of your struggles—and willing to help…
Your ED is probably rejoicing at the fact that large gatherings for Christmas dinner or New Year’s Eve parties are not happening this year (at least in a fashion that is approved by society…). But perhaps the people who you are currently living with want to have some sense of normalcy with a festive dinner, and ED does not approve.
If they are indeed a supportive bunch, vocalize the thoughts running through your brain. Allow those around you to understand your current anxieties and offer care in a way that will help you make it through the day. Tell them about your calorie fears, how having measuring cups next to you makes you feel assured, or why you need to know if your “safety foods” are part of the menu.
Hopefully you’ll then find yourself with a team. The day will feel easier, and perhaps more enjoyable, once you have unloaded your deepest fears and anxieties onto people who want to help you tackle them.
If living with family/roommates who are unsupportive, or if you are living alone and unable to see your family/support system in-person due to lockdowns…
If you are living in a household with people who you don’t trust or cannot be vulnerable around, you have every right to excuse yourself from spending your time with them, but don’t let ED win either.
EDs thrive on making their victims suffer in silence, but planning ahead will help you from succumbing to that. Plan out a holiday dinner for one, with foods you enjoy (and not necessarily “safe foods”).
Even this can be a challenge if you are at it alone, so make your dinner a virtual one. Call up another friend in lockdown isolation, maybe even family (parents get lonely too…), and plan on your menus together. If you trust them, have them help you brainstorm ideas on what foods or meals to purchase that challenge you, as well as foods you are comfortable with.
And most importantly, create a plan with those you trust in case you feel you might fall prey to post-meal restricting or purging behaviors. Having a designated person to call in case you feel the urge to restrict or purge hours after your meal is the ultimate prevention tool against relapse.
Fighting an eating disorder takes an incredible amount of energy. Waking up each day and choosing recovery over and over until one day it sinks in…that is hope, gasping for air.
You may not have your epiphany this Christmas. The voices may still have a hold on you all the way through New Year’s…maybe well into 2021, when the fear of COVID diminishes with the rise of vaccinations. The world will continue to go on, but you may still not be ready.
Understand that your journey is valid, and keep fighting until your epiphany does come around. Take this moment to celebrate the fact that you’ve made it this far—you’ve survived a global pandemic while also sorting through personal struggles you may have not been able to voice.
Give yourself this moment. No matter how many times ED tells you you don’t deserve it, I’m here to tell you that you absolutely do.
