I’ve realized that the roles I take in many of my relationships tend to be very fixed. In some cases, that makes sense. I’m the parent to my kids, the professor to my students, the client to my therapist and dietitian, and the patient to my physical therapist. These roles have an inherent imbalance, which is as it should be.
Other relationships, though, I’d like to be more balanced. I don’t have to take on a fixed role. I can be the caregiver when they need it, and they can support me when I struggle. Even those changing roles don’t have to be rigid. Perhaps we both work through something together. Perhaps we work side-by-side to assist someone else. Perhaps we together seek help for a problem we have in common.
I’ve written before about the black-and-white nature of my eating disorder, but that’s by no means the only area of my life where I find myself needing to find a middle ground rather than accepting a false binary choice.
Last night, something really tough happened, eating-disorder-wise. Honestly, I think it would have been tough for almost anyone. I reached out to a few people and felt better, but I still felt such a strong need to demonstrate my feelings with actions. Yes, I said it hurt, but it hurt so much that I felt I needed to restrict to show how much it got to me. I felt like if I ate a normal snack, that said that I wasn’t hurt by the event.
I thought back to a conversation with a friend the other night, though, where he said:
ED pushes you to make yourself feel bad and then make others “feel bad” or sorry for you. You don’t have to have people feeling you’re a victim or “sorry for you” to want to be your friend. You’re a really great person- that’s why people like you.
My eating disorder was telling me that I needed to not only talk about being hurt, but to act on it. To show in a physical, tangible way what had happened.
But I don’t need to do that.
I don’t need to put myself in a bad position in order to show people that I’m hurt. I can “use my words” and participation in a conversation as an equal. I can be hurt without reverting to that scared child mentality, the one where I tried to show I hurt because I felt that my words weren’t being heard.
I don’t have to put myself into the victim mentality, and I don’t have to create circumstances that show my feelings. I can tell others, and they will listen.
Not only that, but I can tell myself, and I will listen. I don’t need to restrict to convince myself that I’m hurt. To convince myself that I’m not “making it up”. Ironically, the part that was “made up” in some way was that I was forcing myself into a role that I was used to. I am the victim, the scared child who can’t express what’s going on inside.
But I’m not.
I tell people that I’m not a man and I’m not a woman; I’m just me.
I realize now that I’m not a victim and I’m not a “savior”; I’m just me.