27/02/2025
A coping mechanism
For the person with an eating disorder, controlling or abusing food and their body is their way of relieving distress and achieving some degree of control and/or coping in their life. Their world feels like an unsafe and unmanageable place, and for many complex reasons, an eating disorder provides them with a sense of safety and support.
The metaphor of the ED as a crutch can be very helpful in grasping a fuller understanding of how EDs can be a coping mechanism to keep them safe and gives something to lean on. We need crutches if a bone in our leg is fractured or broken and they serve a purpose, to help keep us safe and stable as we continue to move about while the bone heals. If we were to suddenly whip the crutches away from someone who is in the healing process, then the inevitable will happen … they will fall over. They serve a purpose, just as the ED serves a purpose but for a limited time. Once trapped within the eating disorder, people often feel they need to maintain it in order to survive. They don’t know how they could cope without it.
The impact of the overuse of the crutches is that if the person becomes dependant on them, they will never learn to walk without them and will live a restricted life. What helped them, now starts to hinder them and have consequences. The same is true of the ED - what once helped the individual manage their lives, is now keeping them stuck and is stopping them experience the fullness of life and freedom.
However, if the crutches are gradually taken away and the person, as they heal, manages for short periods each day without the crutches, the time will come when they can walk without them completely. It is therefore important that family and friends (and the sufferer!) have realistic expectations of the pace of progress that recovery takes. Don’t try to whip away the crutches too soon and instead gradually encourage your loved one to learn to walk without them.