Recovery from anorexia comes with a deep sense of shame, because it feels somehow like a failure. Caroline Knapp has referred to this as “the post-anorexic riddle of identity, a sense of wild shapelessness.”
Aimee Lui writes accurately that;
“Eating disorders sabotage identity… You’ve failed to reduce yourself to a perfect object…
“For years you’ll move along just fine, gaining weight, gaining confidence, gaining all the trappings of a thriving life, and then, unexpectedly, a shadow of your past will resurface in the face of a long-lost friend or a moment on revived anxiety, and your bright new self will cringe, yearning for that old mask of perfection.”
Sheila Reindl has valuable insight into this area as well:
“We all have to integrate the light with the dark… the noble and ignoble aspects of ourselves. That’s a normal developmental task. It’s just harder for people with eating disorders.”
Source: Lui, Aimee. Gaining: The Truth About Life After Eating Disorders.
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