A Letter to Anyone Living Through the Pandemic With an Eating Disorder

Reminders for those of us struggling with eating disorders in self-isolation.
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There is a brief and beautiful moment when I wake up each morning. Sunlight streams in through my bedroom window, glowing green from the maple leaves it shines through. I wake up in a home I love, doing work that means the world to me, ready to tackle the day ahead.

It is the moment before I remember that I will need to eat.

As a fat person, and as a person who struggles mightily with an eating disorder, I know the way that even small tasks can become a minefield. Getting dressed isn’t just getting dressed—it’s facing that sinking feeling that comes when rigid jeans cut into softening flesh. For many, taking a shower means facing the bathroom scale, and the stinging tears that so often follow when you finally step onto it. Even small meals are accompanied by a creeping sense of dread.

I know the fear of a quarantine-triggered eating disorder relapse, and the reality of it. Waking up to news of food shortages, food supply chains breaking, grocery stores suddenly presenting the new, thorny danger not just of a mental illness but now a viral one too. Stocking up on groceries for fear of food insecurity, then feeling haunted by the food you have. Water, water, everywhere, nor any drop to drink.

I know the quiet, vast numbers of us who are struggling with body dysmorphia, orthorexia, anorexia, bulimia, binge eating, and more. I know what it feels like to be afraid simply to eat. And I know what it feels like to know, to your core, that even if you told your loved ones, they still wouldn’t understand.

Our wars against our bodies are entering new phases of shock and awe. But in this moment, we each have two simple jobs: to keep ourselves and others alive. Eating disorders are serious mental illnesses with troublingly high fatality rates. They are real, and they are terrifying. And while many of us are struggling mightily with our own eating disorders, it’s important to remember that the context surrounding those eating disorders has shifted dramatically in recent months. While we are afraid about the food we eat, many are afraid for their lives. Indeed, many of us fear for both.

We are in the midst of a pandemic, unlike anything most of us have seen in our lifetimes. Collectively, we are up against a deadly virus. And to save ourselves, and the most vulnerable among us, each of us have radically reconfigured our lives.

Everything has changed. But even in the midst of massive layoffs and unemployment, a life-threatening pandemic, and so much more, many retain a laser-like focus on our own bodies, trying desperately to retain their shape, stunt their growth. Despite the consequences surrounding us, our own changing bodies seem to be the hardest thing for some of us to accept.

I know, too, the deep desire to control your body. My own eating disorder looms largest in moments when I’ve lost control: the loss of a job, of a loved one, or in this case, of physical contact with the people I love most, and sequestration from a city that now feels like a ghost town. I know what it’s like to be faced with the impossible decision of managing your mental health or fighting a body that changes against your will. Many of us are faced with that choice every day we’re in self-isolation, left only with our own toxic thoughts.

For those of us with eating disorders, our homes can feel like minefields, full of prompts to eat, to stop eating, to regret eating, to hate our bodies, to disassociate. Under self-isolation, we are confined to those minefield homes, and the growing fear that we will become casualties of them.

It can be difficult to remember, but our bodies are miraculous things. In this moment, some of us will eat more, some less. Our bodies may change in ways we struggle to understand and embrace. But they are doing the quiet, miraculous work of keeping us alive. Our task, herculean as it may seem, is to let them do just that.

The way through this trying, troubling moment is deceptively simple: to extend ourselves as much grace and compassion as we can. Eating disorders whisper vicious messages about our worth, our intelligence, our capacity to be loved. They present an enticing and false sense of control, mastery over an unruly world in a frightening moment. And when those messages slither into our minds, they grow and grow and take up more and more of our thoughts and hearts.

For those of us with eating disorders and body dysmorphic disorder, self-love can feel like an impossible mandate. But self-compassion is something gentler, more attainable. It is not a mountain to climb, not a destination to reach, but a regular practice of exploring the parts of ourselves we wish were different with curiosity and understanding. Self-compassion allows us to radically accept the changing world around us. It is the discipline of a tender inquiry into the real pain and trauma that leads to our reactions to that changing world—even when those reactions are maladaptive.

Remind yourself of what is underneath those disordered thoughts—the real concerns that precede such a looming fear of simply eating a meal or having a body. What, precisely, are you afraid of? Does your fear of fat rest with a health concern? If so, according to epidemiologists and health care providers around the world, staying at home is the best thing you can do for your health right now. Are you afraid of becoming unattractive to your partner? Talk it through with them directly, and stay mindful of what you’ve heard from them explicitly, and what you might be projecting.

If you haven’t got the emotional capacity or energy to look beneath those thoughts in the face of your eating disorder, extend yourself some compassion by doing things that bring you comfort, and that pull you out of the closing-in walls of disordered thinking. Watch a movie you love. Schedule a video call with the people you love most to talk about anything but food and bodies. Reread an old, beloved book, or start a new creative project. Extend yourself enough compassion to give yourself a break.

When there are so few distractions, so many coping mechanisms snatched from us, and when love from partners, friends, and family feels so distant, it’s on us to extend to ourselves the tenderness and compassion we need. It isn’t just some abstract mandate to “love ourselves” or “look on the bright side,” which can feel both impossible and toothless in the face of a merciless eating disorder. After all, none of us need to be eternal optimists or paragons of self-loving virtue in order to believe that our bodies are worth feeding or our lives worth saving.

In this moment, when so much is uncertain, feeding ourselves is a simple act of nourishment and compassion. As difficult as it may feel, eating what we can, when we can is a gentle way to give ourselves more space to cope with the tectonic shifts in all of our lives. And approaching even our most disordered thoughts with a nonjudgmental curiosity, as small as it may seem, helps us get closer to the root of what’s really troubling us, so that we can more effectively care for ourselves. It is difficult, essential work. And right now, it’s a matter of survival.

For more information on eating disorders as well as resources that can help, visit the National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA). The NEDA helpline can be reached at 1-800-931-2237. For 24/7 crisis support, text “NEDA” to 741741.

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