Why Fearing the Regrets Kept me Stuck in My ED
You may wonder how fearing the likely regrets and guilt I would feel if I succeeded at recovery could be a valid reason keeping me stuck in my eating disorder, especially when I tell you these fears had nothing to do with any personal feelings of being a failure or self-punishment. There may be a better way to communicate this point, but hopefully you will get the gist of what I am trying to say.
The longer my eating disorder went on, the more of my life I dedicated to it in terms of prioritising anorexia and bulimia ahead of anything else. I lived at the complete mercy of my eating disorder, which had reprogrammed my brain and taken control. I was consumed by thoughts of food, shape, and weight 24/7 and prioritised these things over everything else in my life. Sadly, it became my ‘normal’ and my baseline.
My eating disorder challenged my morals, stripped me of my dignity, and caused a great amount of pain and suffering to those around me. My family watched me navigate life alongside an eating disorder, fearing for my health while helplessly watching me being suffocated by it as it dissolved my quality of life to a fraction of what it could have been.
The decades I sacrificed in terms of time, energy, and enjoyment, alongside the huge financial burden, were the price I paid to keep my eating disorder alive and thriving. The longer it went on, the stronger my reluctance became to let it go, as I feared the regrets and guilt I would feel over all the wasted years. I battled with myself as I questioned, “If I can let it go now, why the hell didn’t I do it sooner?” This thought became another piece of ammunition that my eating disorder used to keep me stuck, subconsciously drip-feeding me the same poisonous belief over and over.
The ‘Sunk-cost Fallacy’
Psychologically, this links to something called the sunk cost fallacy. This is when a person continues something not because it benefits them, but because they’ve already invested so much into it. The time, money, energy, and life I’d poured into my eating disorder started to feel like a reason why I couldn’t stop, rather than rationalise and accept the logical and valid reasons I should. My eating disorder exploited this bias brilliantly, convincing me that walking away meant everything I sacrificed was for nothing – when in reality, sticking with it cost me so much more.
What I Have Learned (the hard way)
It is only since I have reached recovery that I have woken up and seen exactly what my eating disorder was doing and how it had indoctrinated my brain for one purpose. And that was to keep me hooked in any way possible.
No matter how many years of my life I devoted to my ED, letting it go finally gave me the ammunition and strength to free myself, move forward, and bury it in my past. I can now see the truth and have successfully challenged the subconscious fears of regret that once held me back, and been strong enough to realise it was not a valid reason to stop me reaching recovery.
I have now made one promise to myself. And that is to never give an eating disorder the power to force-feed me one single reason to go back, whatever my situation.
And it is a promise I am determined to keep!
What I could have (and wish I’d) done sooner:
- Identified that fearing the regrets I would feel over the wasted years was a key factor holding me back from recovery.
- Challenged the destructive thoughts, believed in myself, and realised I had the power to change my life for the better.
- Seen my eating disorder for exactly what it was – pure evil – and that it was using anything it could to keep control over me.
- Accepted it is never too late to recover.
