What’s Your Why?

For people who struggle with eating disorders or addictions or mental disorders ... you don't just wake up one morning and think to yourself, “I’m going to have an eating disorder today.” Or, “I’m going to become an alcoholic today.” No! There has to be a “why” that drives your disorder or addiction. Maybe you know your “why” but maybe some of you don’t. I will share with you mine, and maybe that will help you know yours. It’s vital that you understand and know your “why”. Think of it as the engine that drives your disorder. If you are someone that is trying to recover then you have to understand what is driving your disorder or addiction in order ro recover. Once you understand it and know it ... then you will be able to turn it off and shut down that engine that drives you to do what you do. I can't tell you what a huge step this is to one‘s recovery!

So what’s my why? I’m going to first tell you about the “why” that drove my anorexia and then tell you about the “why” that drove my bulimia.

What drove my anorexia was the fact that my life was out of control. See, I am a homebody, a daddy’s girl and I did not want to be a musician. So in 2012 when we moved to Nashville, away from my home and my dad to pursue our music ... I needed something to hold onto because my life was now totally out of control. Food was the perfect choice because food came with me no matter where I was at, food was always something I could control. My anorexia was a way to be able to numb the pain in life. Being able to starve myself wasn't painful during the time ... because it helped me cope and control my life. Starving myself became a source of energy and power in my life. It wasn’t till I started recovering that I realized how much pain I actually put myself through. My body to this day has scars from the damage I did to it by starving myself. 

Another thing that drove my anorexia was the fact that I never wanted to be fat. I was called fat when I was little and since then I was always paranoid of being overweight and fat and so I controlled everything I ate. Even though when I was anorexic, I never saw how thin I actually was. I will look back on pictures, (in fact I did it just the other day) and I couldn't believe how thin I actually got. I never, not once, thought I was thin when I was anorexic ... I always thought I just needed to lose more weight. It was never enough. I always had more weight to lose. I truly would have died from anorexia if God hadn’t saved me.

Bulimia. What was the “why” that drove my bulimia? Bulimia was partly a repercussion of my anorexia. I think some of my bulimic years was my body trying to regain the years I had lost starving myself. And that is a true fact. Some people who go through anorexia and start recovering will suffer from binge eating or bulimia because their body has been starved for so long. Our body's natural reaction is to go and eat enormous amounts of food because our body has been starved for so long. And that’s definitely part of what drove my bulimia ... at first. 

It took a good few months for my body to actually start gaining weight even though I had been binging for months. It wasn't till I noticed that I was actually gaining weight ... that's when things started changing. See in the early months of binging after my anorexia, I knew my body needed the food. Yes it was hard admitting and knowing my body needed food but it was all ok because I wasn’t gaining weight, I was just getting food that I had needed for years. But by the time my body had gotten what it needed and I had gained the weight necessary to becoming healthy again ... the cycle of binging was created and became a cycle that was nearly impossible for me to break. Once I knew how powerful that cycle was and once I saw how stuck I was in another disorder ... it was like I knew I couldn't fight it so I just embraced that fact and traded one disorder for another. 

What drove my bulimia was the fact that I hated myself. I never wanted to be fat growing up and now what I feared most when I was anorexic was now a reality and in order to cope with that reality I needed food to now numb my pain. I couldn't restrict anymore so I just kept going to food instead of away from it. And I still at this point in life didn’t want to be a musician ... I knew I had to be … but I didn’t want to be and so I was still using food to control my life that was out of control. Food was still a form of control … just in the complete opposite way. 

It took a couple of years to see and understand my why to my eating disorders. I want you to see that no matter if I was anorexic or bulimic ... I was going to food because I:

1. Hated how I looked and who I was. 

2. Life was out of control and I needed to control my life.

3. Needed something to numb the pain in my life.

Those were the “whys” for both my eating disorders. And if I dissected each one of those reasons you would see a whole host of more reasons that drove me to food. Think of those three reasons as the main root and from that main root are a thousand little roots that branch off and bury themselves deep deep down. Those are the roots that kept me so stuck and imprisoned to my eating disorder.

Once God revealed to me these core roots, I started seeing that that was the reason I needed food in my life. Once He showed me that before time began He created me to be a musician, it wasn’t a mistake. Once He showed me that I was worthy and loved just as I was...no matter what the number on the scale was. Once I understood that even though I will have things I have to suffer through in life ... He was more than enough to get me through and carry me through those dark days. Once He started showing me these things, that’s when I realized that I didn’t need food to get me through in life. That’s when the “why”, the engine that drove my eating disorder, started dissolving and started losing its power over me. That’s when I started seeing recovery become something tangible instead of just a road I kept trudging along on hoping one day to make it to this “so-called” recovery. That’s when freedom and victory became more and more of a reality.

Hopefully you can really see how vital, and important it is to understand and know your “why” that drives you to do what you do. Like I said in the beginning, it doesn't matter if it's an addiction of any kind, an eating disorder or mental disorder. As my therapist always said, “You don’t just wake up deciding to have an eating disorder/addiction. But! You do have a choice to get out of your eating disorder/addiction.”

So ... what’s your “why”?

~ Natalie