Long-term Impact of Anorexia on Spirituality

Contributor: Sara Newhard, LMFT, Therapist, Eating Disorder Program Coordinator, Timberline Knolls

Anorexia affects an individual on many fronts—spirituality is one of them. Long-term impacts include:

Sense of Personal Worth

For many with anorexia, their sense of value is based on how “well” they restrict at a given moment and how thin they perceive themselves to be. They often believe they are undeserving of God’s love or grace. Shame is also an overwhelming reality for many.

The hamster wheel of trying to compensate for these deep feelings of lacking value or being wrong at their very core often spins them deeper into perfectionism and unrealistic and unhealthy expectations of themselves.

Comparison is a common (though often unconscious) mode of relating to the world for those with this illness. They constantly compare themselves to others regarding appearance, size and eating patterns. This measuring stick robs them of seeing value in others. The spiritual reality that we can’t truly love others or show them grace or communicate value to others if we can’t love ourselves, see our own worth, or receive grace is often the case.

Hope

Spirituality and hope are inextricably tied. With anorexia, the object of hope becomes the disorder, “skinniness”, and the number on the scale. This shortsightedness eliminates any reason for fighting for recovery, dreams, purpose, identity, and/or a future. Spirituality grants a much larger perspective and helps everyone see beyond themselves, which grants purpose, identity, and a reason to preserve; it grants hope.

Gratitude

Mindfulness and appreciation of the small things in life that bring joy is a practice that is challenging at best when a body is malnourished and thoughts are fixated on body image, shame, food, and/or calories. Gratitude is tied to various spiritual facets including a correlation between gratitude and self-image, gratitude and relationship with others, even the ability to surrender.

Connection and Community

This is a key aspect of spirituality. Conversely, a common component of anorexia is isolation. This is often a combination of both intentional effort and unintentional consequences. Many individuals with an eating disorder seek to avoid others during meals and turn down offers to go out to dinner. Furthermore, the discomfort during parties or gatherings when food is present may also prompt additional avoidance of social gatherings.

The simple inability to concentrate on anything other than the plate of food across the room often keeps an individual lost in their own thoughts rather than being able to engage in normal conversation. Although loneliness is often overwhelming, the alternative of community seems even more painful; therefore, isolation continues and shame grows. The very thing that the individual needs is spiritual connection and the love and compassion of another.

Surrender

This freedom of surrender and admitting we are not ultimately in control is the antithesis of anorexia which desperately seeks control. This spiritual idea of surrendering to God is terrifying to many; yet, this act of letting go and surrendering is the very step that leads to recovery and fullness of life.

Distorted View of Morality

This involves ideas about what makes one good, “righteous”, or “holy.” Anorexia propels one towards a spirituality of asceticism. This can lead to the belief that self-denial is the goal and that those committed to self-deprivation are superior, more devout or more righteous.

These skewed spiritual beliefs can become so entrenched that it is very difficult to disentangle spiritual truth from eating disorder lies and then appropriately live out a balanced, spiritual, and disciplined life without moralizing every aspect of food.

Finally, the very understanding of the character and nature of the individual’s higher power can be negatively impacted. It can be very difficult for a shame-based individual engaged in restricting behaviors and perfectionism to believe that their higher power could be loving, gracious, benevolent, or generous towards them (perhaps towards others, but not towards themselves).

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The opinions and views of our guest contributors are shared to provide a broad perspective of eating disorders. These are not necessarily the views of Eating Disorder Hope, but an effort to offer discussion of various issues by different concerned individuals.

We at Eating Disorder Hope understand that eating disorders result from a combination of environmental and genetic factors. If you or a loved one are suffering from an eating disorder, please know that there is hope for you, and seek immediate professional help.

Last Updated & Reviewed By: Jacquelyn Ekern, MS, LPC on July 21, 2016
Published on EatingDisorderHope.com