September 18, 2012

Eating Disorder Symptoms and Voicelessness

We have written many times on this site about the link between conflict avoidance and eating disorder symptoms. Often people experience a sudden desire to binge or purge when they are in social situations where they feel that they just don’t have a voice. They are can’t get a word in edgewise, or they are feeling too timid to speak up.

Learning to be aware of this connection; feeling suppressed and the emergence of the eating disorder, is crucial. It’s an important step toward mastering your eating disorder. Start trying to connect what comes before you have an urge to binge or purge. Are you trapped in situations where you feel that you have no voice?

Try this little experiment: see if you can find the connection when you were in one of these uncomfortable situations.

This can be an important step in gaining power over your eating disorder. It is not always easy to see the connection, and it may not easy to start perhaps changing old habits and asserting yourself. But it can be liberating.

Please share your thoughts and experiences.

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Endorsements from Clients

  • Hello Charles! I am unsure if you will even remember who I am haha, but this is [name withheld] – I saw you in (I think) 2017 with anorexia.

  • My wife and I felt quite emotional last Monday after our short Zoom session. All three of us hugged. It felt like the end of a relatively short but profoundly enriching journey with you which started in June at your home office on Waiheke Island.

  • Dear Dr Fishman Thank you so much for this website. I have a long history of swinging between bulimia and compulsive over-eating. I am currently a compulsive over-eater.