Living in the Grey

All or Nothing is Not Always the Right Approach

In college, I took a lot of speech classes. I am an introvert and a data geek so I thought it would be helpful for career purposes.

Debate was probably one of the most useful classes, other than my accounting classes, that I took during my four years at IU.  Every topic that we debated, we had to debate both sides.  At first, I thought it was going to be so difficult to argue both sides of an issue.

As it turned out, I discovered that it was not challenging at all to argue both sides (and that was even before the internet). Virtually every topic had pros and cons, so debating each side was not that difficult.  That class taught me such a valuable life lesson. It taught me that nearly every topic and argument that exists has two sides. It taught me that because of that, striking common ground is invaluable. It of course required that we debate or argue based on facts, not based on opinions.  This of course was also a valuable lesson and I would conclude helped to shape my way of thinking and evaluating situations. Objective evaluation requires looking at facts.

And that is how I live....in the grey...or in the middle.  I am not associated with a political party because of that.  I have issues that I believe in and no party on earth values all the issues that I value.  A lot of people then think or judge me to not be passionate enough...all because I am not extreme or because I have not chosen a "side".

The truth is, I am passionate about many things. They just don't fit in a box or have an extreme exclusion of the opposing side.  I try my best to live this way even when things happen that are out of my control. When something bad happens, I pray for a good outcome.  I try my best not to judge anything...people, issues or objects unless I am evaluating something for my well-being or that of my family.  When we judge something as good or bad, we tend to pick sides....opposing sides which lead to an exclusion of possibly an entire reality. We don't need to look far to see that our world has become very divided into sides even on the most irrelevant of subjects which is sad in my opinion and has lead to a lot of broken relationships and disharmony....the reason I don't watch the news. I have enough of my own struggles without watching other's fight or disagree over opionions and not even facts. Things do not have to be deemed good or evil, they may just be for us or not for us.  Believe me, I do understand and believe in morals and basic truths but when we are dealing with things of a different nature, I believe we have to objectively evaluate and challenge our thinking and others possibly as well. Most things fall in a spectrum or continuum and extremes are not usually the best solution.

When it comes to eating disorder awareness, recovery, diets, and fitness,  you name it and it is no different. Do this, do that, don't do this, don't do that. Keto is healthy...keto isn't healthy. Push harder, rest more.  Keto is not healthy...by the way. Post before and after pictures to inspire....do not.  I say do not:). There are much better and less potentially harmful ways to inspire.

In my recovery, I went down my own path (like I always have) after I was put in contact with my dietitian. I took my time, added professionals as needed. I didn't go the traditional route of going solo or going into a facility program as I knew neither would work for me....and those are the two ends of the spectrum.

It has been my own path and my own pace and it has been slow but progressive and I am healing from the inside out....both physically and mentally. This healing has not just helped my eating disorder, it has helped my entire person. I feel like through the process, I have found myself possibly for the first time....and I still have much to do. If I had been at a center where I was told that I could not exercise or that I must eat a certain way, I would have been expelled. That was not for me.  Every step I took was at my pace. I was in control or at least felt in control:)

Once the reality of my situation hit me (I am one of the 6% mentioned below but spent most of my life as one of the 94%), I prayed hard for healing, wisdom and guidance. It came, not all at once but it came. I had thought that I might suddenly have all the right thoughts to recover. It didn't happen that way. God put the right people in my path. He put the support system in place for me to heal.

The lesson is this, an all or nothing situation would not have worked for me.  I had to continue living in my grey zone to heal. I ran but I ran less. I Jazzercised but I Jazzercised less. I ate. I ate more. I added carbs and fat. I didn't throw out the scale but eventually, I moved it out of sight. I didn't tell everyone right away, but eventually, I did. I will admit to still needing to heal my body image and not define my success by trying to be perfect and always falling short.

Sadly, when it comes to living in the grey, I cannot seem to do it when it comes to my love or opinion of myself. Our body image does not need to be and should not be love or hate, it just is your body...can it not just be grey?  A temple of the Holy Spirit is good no matter how it looks. All of us are made in His image and likeness....why is it so hard to treat it as such? As usual, I do not think it is just one problem but many that cause some of us to feel we need to look differently to be loved. 

It cannot be solved overnight but that is why I am so passionate about awareness because awareness will lead us to a place of recognition and hopefully prevention....similar to programs in schools for  drug and alcohol education, we need overall education and awareness in our world about eating disorders.

Please see third bullet below, less than 6% of those with an ED are underweight......we CANNOT go by how someone looks to know if they are in trouble. In addition, many who are underweight are not even thought to be in danger as our societal view of healthy is so warped.

I hope you will help me:)

To read some statistics on eating disorders, click here:

https://anad.org/get-informed/about-eating-disorders/eating-disorders-statistics/

The below is taken from ANAD.org

General Eating Disorder Statistics

• Eating disorders affect at least 9% of the population worldwide.¹
• 9% of the U.S. population, or 28.8 million Americans, will have an eating disorder in their lifetime.²
• Less than 6% of people with eating disorders are medically diagnosed as “underweight.”¹
• 28-74% of risk for eating disorders is through genetic heritability.¹
• Eating disorders are among the deadliest mental illnesses, second only to opioid overdose.¹
• 10,200 deaths each year are the direct result of an eating disorder—that’s one death every 52 minutes.²
• About 26% of people with eating disorders attempt suicide.¹
• The economic cost of eating disorders is $64.7 billion every year.²