FINDING THE FAITH TO RECOVER
Written by Sophie Conant
Anorexia was my friend. At the height of my eating disorder, she often felt like my only friend, the only person who truly understood me. I had spent most of my teenage years in a state of anxiety and self-doubt, but if I allowed anorexia to take over, I was numb to those feelings. I craved control, so inviting in the eating disorder allowed me to control every aspect of my life. Food rules, regimented exercise, and limited social interaction became my new normal. Every other aspect that had previously made up me faded away, including the faith that had previously been my comfort.
I grew up in a Christian family. Through the teachings of my parents and other role models in church I had been raised firm in the knowledge that God loved me and was in control of my life. In Philippians 4:6 the bible says, ‘Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.’ Although I took comfort in this knowledge for a long time, when my feelings of insecurity grew, I began to doubt its merits.
As the feelings of anxiety and doubt grew, the role of my faith in my life began to shrink and I began to rely instead on various other methods of control. These methods manifested themselves over the course of my teenage years into the forms that which would later be diagnosed by various medical professionals as anxiety, OCD and finally anorexia. After each diagnosis, I received various forms of treatment and therapy, and although they were effective in reducing my behaviours, they didn’t tackle the fear I had of not having control over my life.
At the start of my recovery journey, I battled with the sense that I was letting the people closest to me down. Instead of depending on the teachings of my childhood for the strength to tackle life’s uncertainty, I was using techniques that ripped holes into my family life by causing heated arguments and stress.
The feelings of guilt that resulted from feeling that I was letting my parents down added to the guilt I was feeling around food. My faith was no longer providing the comfort and security that it had done in my childhood; in fact it was now doing the opposite, so I began to turn away.
When the pandemic started, it increased my feelings of loss of control, and my motivations for recovery became less important to me. I had lost all sense of identity outside of my eating disorder, so I clung on tighter to its promises. Despite the advice of my treatment team, I was determined to start university rather than deferring my place to another year. For the past few years, my parents had been in control of making sure I was eating, but moving away from home meant that all aspects of control were on me. I had insisted that I would continue fighting on my own, but I was more than ready to let my eating disorder take the reins again. In spite of this, my first year of university was a turning point for my recovery, and looking back now I believe that rediscovering my faith played a huge role in this.
For many students, starting university in September 2020 was a difficult time to move away from home. Restrictions meant that there were less opportunities to meet new people, and online teaching reduced contact with others studying the same course. Although this loneliness was something that I experienced at times in the year, encouragement to join in with the Christian Union group on campus from both my parents and one of the girls I was placed in a flat with - a girl that would become one of my best friends - allowed me to form connections that would once again restart both my faith and consequently my recovery journey.
Instead of seeing my religion as being something that increases my guilt and another set of rules I needed to follow, I was now able to see my faith as the tool it was meant to be used for. I’ve been told many times that nobody who has ever recovered from an eating disorder will ever say that they regretted it. This is a statement that I now firmly believe to be true, but choosing to let go of something that had become a big part of my identity meant finding a new one.
My identity is now rooted in my faith. Through prayer, reading scripture and being part of a church community, I am reminded daily of a worth that is found both out of my eating disorder and the way my body looks.
Turning back to faith gave me the strength to stop numbing out my feelings, and although I now felt the negative emotions with increased intensity, now being able to feel the positive emotions made it all worthwhile. The culture and basis of my faith no longer added to my feelings of guilt – they in fact now did the opposite. During my toughest days of recovery, I could turn to God and I would find comfort. This did not mean that life and recovery was always easy; I still had many days where I would get overwhelmed and revert back to old habits, but picking myself up and continuing with my recovery was so much easier now that my firm foundation was no longer fixed to my eating disorder.
Sophie Conant (she/her) is from Liverpool, England. Through sharing her story she hopes to provide encouragement to others navigating their way through recovery. She is currently entering the 3rd year of her degree in Dietetics and enjoys cooking, climbing and practising yoga in her spare time. You can find her on Instagram @nutritiously_sophie.