You Can't Get Eating Disorder Help... Unless You Do These Three Things

The three suggestions you'll find below for how to get eating disorder help will probably not surprise you. They are no great discovery; they represent no superhuman insights. But sometimes, it's helpful to be reminded of a few common sense truths...

Suggestion #1 - Be the Captain of Your Soul

Anyone with an eating disorder who has taken that huge first step to health - admitting she has a problem - is naturally going to seek help from the outside. That's a courageous and wise thing to do. It's certainly true that knowledgeable and caring loved ones and therapists can help. A lot. But, ultimately, all eating disorder treatment starts within.

That means going beyond that important first step, toward the next one that's almost as big: taking charge of your treatment.

There are several ways to do that. One is simply not to wait for help to fall into your life; seek it out. Another is to believe, because it's true, that you can tell the difference between good treatments and bad. You don't need to be an expert to know when something is hurting you or helping you. Experience will show very quickly what works for you.

Suggestion #2 - Listen to Yourself

There's an implication in suggestion number one we should explore: listen to yourself. Sometimes you hear "listen to your heart." Good advice, but it's incomplete. Your emotions alone won't tell you what to do.

They need to be heeded; their role in health is essential. But you need to be guided by your mind, too. After all, out of the many causes of anorexia or bulimia an important one is that your emotions are sometimes at war with your reason. Bringing the two into harmony is a major onramp on the highway to health.

How to do that?

It's not easy. But a process of accepting better and better all the emotions you have is one key. You'll discover gradually which of them encourages beneficial choices and which move you to self-destructive ones. (Professional therapists often use a method called Cognitive Behavior Therapy, but that's just a fancy phrase for what we've just described.)

Suggestion #3 - You Must Act

Most therapy, whether carried out in a professional setting or alone at home, consists of counseling, i.e. communication. That exploration of the roots of shame, incorrect evaluations of body image, frustrated relationships, and more is essential. But there comes a time when you must go further; you must act.

Simply knowing which incorrect thoughts have led to unhelpful emotions that motivate destructive choices is one thing. But at a certain point, and the sooner the better, you must choose to change those choices. You must decide to act differently.

That is difficult, especially at first. But, the more you change your actions, the healthier you will become. That will create a positive feedback. It reinforces that your thinking has improved and your emotions are more in harmony.

Some therapists call that a positive upward spiral. They distinguish it from the negative downward spiral of irrational thoughts, unhelpful emotions, and destructive choices that maintains an eating disorder.

Conclusion

The root causes of eating disorders is sometimes difficult to discover in a particular case. Fortunately, to get eating disorder help it isn't necessary to become an all-knowing expert. Sometimes, a little common sense can go a long way.