Introduction

For most of my life, I have struggled with an eating disorder. It began with childhood bullying when I was six years old. This resulted in binge eating and I became overweight. When I was thirteen, I began skipping meals and exercising more and lost weight, but the binging returned. Since then, my eating disorder has taken various forms, characterised by differing patterns of binge eating, restricting, over-exercising, and binge drinking. This has led to me cycling between being overweight, of a normal weight, and underweight. 

Until recently, I believed I solely had binge eating disorder, and saw myself as a ‘pig’ and a ‘fat binger’. My understanding was that it had a ‘fat side’ and a ‘thin side’. So long as I was on the ‘thin side’ and in control of the binging, I was winning. I didn’t see dietary restriction and excessive exercise as a problem, even when they led to me being underweight.

It was only when I started strength training at a local gym with a personal trainer, who told me I wasn’t eating anywhere near enough to fuel my exercise, that I received an inkling that restricting my caloric intake whilst exercising a lot was an issue. It’s taken a few years to build a healthy diet and exercise routine, which has benefited me physically and mentally. In spite of this, I still have issues with fear of weight gain and feel large at a healthy weight.

A few months ago, whilst researching eating disorders for a novel, I found out that one of the characteristics of binge eating disorder is that it is not accompanied by dietary restriction. It does not have a ‘thin side’. I then saw the diagnostic criteria for anorexia – restriction of energy intake relative to requirements leading to significantly low body weight, intense fear of weight gain, and disturbance of body image. It had been my understanding that only people who were severely underweight were classed as anorexic, but this is not the case. In DSM-4 there was a weight criterion (below 17.5 BMI, which I reached a couple of times), then, in DSM-5 this was removed and anybody above 17 BMI could be classed as having mild anorexia. Could this be the name for the ‘thin side’, the secret serpent, who had hidden herself away, causing damage to my mind and body?

I decided to reach out for a clinical diagnosis from a consultant psychiatrist at a local eating disorder clinic. She told me that I did have binge eating disorder as a child and teenager, but that ended when I stopped binging on food when I turned twenty. To my surprise, she told me, primarily, I have been suffering from restricting type anorexia (there is a binging type too but this applies only to food binges and is followed by purging). Binge drinking is seen as co-occurring and is not classed as a food binge. The anorexia began when I was thirteen and applies not only to the phases when I was underweight but of a normal weight and overweight too. It is a mental illness and as such is defined by the psychological symptoms. To my shock, she told me that I still have it because I’m still calorie counting and have to ensure that I’ve burnt every calorie that I’ve eaten before I go to bed. Also, because I see myself as large at a normal weight and am terrified of weight gain.

My ‘victory’ over binge eating and binge drinking (I began giving up alcohol six years ago, have had a few lapses, but am now certain I’ve given it up for good) have come at the cost of being in the hold of the secret serpent.  

The recommended treatment is eating disorder CBT (CBT-E) and I’m currently in the process of attempting to access it through the NHS. I’ve had CBT before, for anxiety, and have found it to be very practical and useful. However, whilst it’s helped managed to symptoms, it hasn’t treated the cause.

I have also been exploring these insights with my shamanic mentor and writing poetry. What follows is the story of the evolution of my eating disorder as characterised by the warring impulses of the binger and the restrictions of the secret serpent. I’m sharing it as a way of processing my diagnosis and raising awareness that anorexia can occur across the full weight range. I hope bringing the serpent from hiding will help with the healing.

Age 6 – 13 – The Comfort Eating Child

The eating disorder began when I was bullied at primary school. I wasn’t fat at first, just a little tubby, with round and rosy cheeks. But this, compounded with my social inadequacy and having a southern accent at a school on a northern council estate, led to me being singled out.

I was ashamed of being bullied and wouldn’t talk to my parents about it. They didn’t know how to comfort me. Instead, they gave me chocolate. I soon learnt to stuff down my feelings by over-eating, but this had consequences in terms of the weight gain, which led to further bullying.

Even worse were the psychological effects. The cravings. Wanting chocolate so badly when, on some basic level, I knew it was doing me harm. The desire and dread when there had been a food shop or I’d gone to choose chocolate and knew that it was in the house. The horrendous feeling of losing control and not being able to stop until I’d eaten every last thing in a packet, a selection pack, or a box. Then, the guilt, the repulsion, the feeling of the fat growing all over me. The shame. The failure. The knowledge I was going to be bullied even more badly. I kept saying this would be the last binge, but it never was.

At this point, my mum suspected that I might be autistic, but my teachers denied it because there was nothing wrong with me academically. Having been late-diagnosed with autism, I wonder if I’d have developed an eating disorder if I’d been home schooled or sent to a school for autistic people.

Age 13 – The Turnaround

The bullying continued at high school. The level of disgust at myself for being overweight became so great that something within me snapped. I decided to put my foot down. No more binging. I decided to lose weight. 

I started skipping lunch and eating only half of my tea. As well as under-eating, I began cycling to the stables and worked as hard as I could at evenings and weekends. Bring on the mucking out, the sweeping, let me at that midden! I took on all the hardest jobs to burn those calories.

The weight fell off. My school skirt was soon hanging off and I had to pin it up with a safety pin. I managed to get into smaller waist jodphurs. I felt great at first, but then started suffering dizzy spells, having to retire from mucking out to sit down in the toilet or on a banking in one of the stables.

I vaguely recall people at the stables saying I looked trimmer and my parents not noticing. The fat insults stopped, but the bullying didn’t.

Age 13 – 16 – The Return of the Binger

My initial efforts at losing weight by restricting and over-exercising were confounded when the binge eating impulse returned. Since I was little, my mum and I had baked chocolate chip cookies together and this was one of my favourite binge foods. I began devouring whole trays of them. 

I can’t say what the trigger was, perhaps the approach of winter nights when I couldn’t cycle to the stables anymore, perhaps simple hunger. I recall only the intensity of the shame, the guilt, which led me to stop going to the stables every evening, instead staying in to binge and read or play computer games. My self-hatred became so intense I started self-harming.

At this point in my life, the binger won. I continued skipping some lunches and eating less at tea time but this was, by far, outweighed by binging and over-eating. I went back to scoffing three-packs of Cadbury’s Caramels. At weekends, at the stables, I had a Mars Bar dipped in a cup of tea at my morning break, after lunch (a Pot Noodle) and on my afternoon break. I went to McDonalds some evenings with a friend, who also had weight issues, and we ate three Big Macs in a row followed by a large milkshake. 

By the time I was sixteen years old, I was at the higher end of overweight. I found this out when said friend and I went for a riding lesson on a holiday and were both weighed and assigned to the largest and cobbiest horses. 

Age 16 – 21 – The War of Two Impulses

At college, I met a new group of friends who were into alternative music. An undiagnosed autistic, chameleon-like, I decided ‘new friends, new me’. My creation of a new ‘mosher’ image combined with losing weight again, kick-started by getting my tongue pierced and not eating for three days. 

I went back to skipping meals and began eating only calorie-restricted meals. I’d usually eat cereal for breakfast (to my shame I was always ravenous in the morning). If I had lunch it was diced cheese and salad, sometimes with a piece of bread. A sandwich was a binge. If I ate tea it was a piece of fish or meat with unlimited vegetables or a plate of veg with soup poured over it. The veg satisfied my binge impulse but did no favours for my bowels.

I lost three stone in around six months but, again, the binging returned. I’d be good at the beginning of the week, but as my will power failed towards the end, I’d pack away a full tub of Häagen-Dazs with a cookie in it or three Pot Noodles in a row. The binging was always worst after alcohol, when I’d lose control and eat all the leftovers at a buffet or a huge kebab. When I’d been out and stayed over at some else’s house, in the morning, the first question that I would ask, in panic, was “What did I eat?” The day after drinking, I ate not only one but two plates of beans and cheese on toast for lunch. Binges were often followed by episodes of self-harm.

By this time I had already started drinking at weekends and smoking cigarettes and weed. I began drinking more regularly, usually vodka, to help me socialise, to regulate my anxiety and to help me sleep. I also discovered other drugs such as LSD, ecstasy and amphetamine. The use of the latter and going out dancing all night led to further weight loss. 

After not being able to cope living away at university in Liverpool due to my autism combined with the unhealthy habits of under-eating then drinking heavily and binge eating, I returned home and went to UCLan.

Finally, I got the food binging under control, reducing my binges from walking from shop to shop buying chocolate bars, to diet snack bars, to diet drinks and sugar-free sweets. The latter two continued as binge substitutes.

Age 21 – 24 – Floating Away

My mental health hit an all-time low when I was in the second year of university. I was taking a lot of drugs, drinking heavily, and not eating enough. I struggled with dizziness, feeling faint, and panic attacks. I was barely in my body and felt like I was floating away. I suffered from derealisation and thought I was going mad. I couldn’t sleep. I had no idea what was real and what was not. I feared I was trapped in a nightmare world of my own imagining. I had black-outs and am still missing memories.

When I reached out to a psychiatrist I was turned away, even though I was struggling with self-harm and suicidal ideation, as I hadn’t attempted suicide.

Luckily, I wasn’t tempted to attempt suicide in order to get help. I found a more understanding GP, who prescribed beta blockers for the panic attacks and sleeping tablets. When the beta blockers didn’t work, just making me colder and number, and the sleeping tablets exacerbated my panic as they gave me the feeling of sinking down into sleep during the day, she put me on an anti-depressant recommended for treating anxiety called Venlafaxine.

I didn’t mention that I was under-eating as I saw myself as a fat pig. It wasn’t picked up on that I was slightly underweight. In fact, the GP prescribed exercise! The Venlafaxine helped and I left university with a first class degree.

Whilst finishing my degree and pursuing my MA, I exercised moderately. I joined a gym and did a bit of cardio and aerobics and took up taekwondo. I discovered it allowed me to eat a little more and stay at a low weight.

Age 25 – 26 – Mad for Exercise

When I failed to gain funding for a PhD, I was gutted. Forced to take a year out to re-apply for self-funded studies, I started over-exercising. I ran or did cardio in the morning, then worked a cleaning job in the afternoon. At weekends, I went on long bike rides. I didn’t know the meaning of a rest day. The exercise, the decreasing numbers on the scales and feeling lighter eased the pain of failure.

For the first time, I was noticeably underweight and people started commenting. When I went out running, I heard one of a group of lads say “Look at the size of her arse,” and thought he meant it was big until another of them added, “ugh, look how skinny she is.” My friend’s boyfriend’s mum, who went to the same gym, voiced her concerns about how I went at it on the cross-trainer. My mum was also concerned. I didn’t see it.

My periods stopped. I was tested for polycystic ovaries, which I didn’t have. That I was underweight wasn’t seen as a concern, perhaps because I was a runner.

Fortunately, although it didn’t feel it at the time, my over-exercising was put an end to by pattelofemoral syndrome (runner’s knee). No amount of icing, taping or acupuncture would cure it. I was forced to slow down. 

Age 27 – 30 – Horses and Cider

I began a self-funded PhD and returned to Oakfield to work as a riding instructor to fund it but couldn’t cope with working and studying full time. Thus, I ditched academia in favour of working with horses full time. I loved the work and the horses and the exercise helped me to maintain a lowish weight.

Whilst I was at Oakfield, I managed to limit my drinking to a bottle of wine mid-week and a couple at the weekend. However, when I moved to Hertfordshire to work as an event groom, the head girl, who I lived with in a mobile home, was not only a fellow drunkard but a cider drinker. I got a taste for cider, drank far too much, and began to gain weight again. This continued when I moved back home and took a job as head girl at a dressage stud. 

This job proved to be too high pressure. Thus, I abandoned my equine career in favour of attempting to fulfil my long-time ambition of becoming an author.

Age 30 – 34 – The Drunken Bard

I worked a variety of physical jobs including shelf-stacking at a supermarket, packing at Oakfield Saddlery and cleaning to support myself as I wrote a novel and began writing and performing poetry. This did not prove to be enough to work off the amount of calories I was consuming from alcohol. 

At this point, I found my spiritual path as a bard, then as an awenydd, in the Brythonic tradition. For the first time since my teens, the binger over-ruled the infuriated hissing of the serpent. I was a Brythonic bard. A warrior woman. A bit of black eye-liner. A drink before I went out. I didn’t care if I was fat.

I loosened up on dieting. I joined a local Pagan Society and attended pie nights and started drinking beer. A friend introduced me to craft beer – chocolate stout, coffee porters, triple-hopped IPAs, Belgian beers such as Trippels, Dubbels and Quadrupels. Kwak, Maredsous, Leffe Brunne and Blonde. Some of those beers contained more than 400 calories! I drank heavily up to five times a week and sometimes from noon on a Saturday until the early hours of the next morning and this all led to me being borderline overweight.

The serpent seethed. I drowned her out. Yet, in moments of sobriety, I was unhappy with my size. Feeling down and desperate, I decided to try running again.

Age 35 – 39 Running Thin

With better shoes, at the beginning, my knee held out. And I genuinely enjoyed running. The sense of freedom. The runner’s high. It suited my power animal – Horse. It brought me closer to the Gods and spirits.

I got up to running 30 miles a week and to half marathons. As intended, I lost a couple of stone and got down to a lowish normal weight. However, under-fuelling food-wise for the amount I was running combined with heavy drinking took its toll on my body. I struggled with IBS and ended up with a stress fracture in my right foot. That put an end to running for a good while. 

Age 39 – 40 – The Rake

When I realised that, in spite of my efforts with writing and performing poetry and succeeding in publishing three books, I was never going to make a living from my writing, I attempted to pursue a career in conservation. This fit with my spiritual path and the volunteering I had been doing in my local area. (And, yes, you guessed it, outdoor work felt like a good method of staying slim). 

At the age of 39, realising that drinking was having an impact on my plans to volunteer my way into conservation, I gave it up for the first time. With the calories from alcohol gone, the weight fell off. I lost six pounds in a month. I lost another six pounds in a couple of months. My periods stopped again. 

This was at the time Covid hit. With no volunteering and no job, I had little to do but exercise. I gutted the house. I worked in the garden. In spite of the lockdown rules, I went for long walks around my locality.

When I went back to volunteering at Brockholes, I was underweight and without the extra calories from alcohol was eating nowhere enough to sustain cycling there and back and doing outdoor work. I was told I looked like a rake when I was standing next to a rake. I came near to fainting and falling off my bike on the way home. I suffered from the cold. I developed Raynaud’s.

When I started a paid traineeship on the Manchester Mosslands, I started drinking again due to the stress and, to burn the calories, went back to running. As winter was approaching and I was struggling with runner’s knee and deep gluteal syndrome, I decided to join a local gym and try strength training.

Age 40 – 44 Strength

When I started at the gym and signed up with my PT, I was certain she would say I needed to lose weight. I’d put on over half a stone by drinking beer again. Thus, I was surprised when she told me I was eating nowhere near enough calories to cover running or going to the gym early in the morning then doing outdoor work. I could barely believe her. She went through how and where to add in extra calories, mainly in protein, which would help me feel fuller for longer and help me build muscle to support my joints.

As she had promised, I didn’t gain too much weight, just a few pounds in muscle. I felt a lot better and stronger physically and mentally. I stopped feeling fatigued and light-headed and haven’t had a panic attack since. I also managed to cut down on drinking as I preferred feeling good for my workouts.

However, I became incredibly attached to my eating and gym routine. This impacted the ecology job which I took when I finished my traineeship. Running or doing strength training early in the morning did not fit well with doing great crested newt surveys at night. I soon realised that, in any case, night work did not suit me as an autistic person who needs a regular sleep pattern and is naturally an early riser. Because of this, I left the job. 

Age 41 – 44 – Monasticism and Shamanic Training

Retreating, I experimented with living as a nun and saw my food and exercise regime as a form of asceticism that fit with my monastic ideals. I practiced other forms of restriction such as paring down my wardrobe, getting rid of most of my books and cutting out most forms of entertainment.  The secret serpent, unable to restrict my food intake, liked this very much.

I also began training as a shamanic practitioner. Initially, this took place in Devon with an organisation I have now left called the Sacred Trust. I was notably the only one who got up early to walk for six miles and took my own weights so I could get some of my strength training exercises in.

More positively, as I deepened into monasticism and worked with my mentor, Jayne Johnson, a shamanic practitioner and embodied relational therapist who took me on as a shamanic apprentice when I left the Sacred Trust for ethical reasons, I developed a number of practices that helped me develop a better relationship with my body. These included meditation, breathwork, mindfulness, and nervous system regulation based on polyvagal theory. 

These stood me in good stead when my research revealed the true nature of my eating disorder and I had to revisit the past in order to piece together the story. This was incredibly painful as I’d forgotten a lot of the binges. I had to ask my mum what I ate as a child and was appalled as the memories returned, in conscious recollections, in unconscious moments, in dreams. Coming to acknowledge what a great impact under-eating and its effects had on my education and career came as a shock and formed a wake-up call.

Age 44 – Diagnosis and Lash Back

I was initially uncertain about whether to reach out for a diagnosis. Whilst the diagnostic criteria suggested I might have mild anorexia, the serpent voice in my head hissed its denial. “Nonsense.” “You’re too large.” “You’re too old.” 

Since my diagnosis has been confirmed and the identity of the voice has been outed, in contrast to my expectations, it has initially got louder. “You’re a crap anorexic.” “You’re the fattest and oldest anorexic in the world.” “Look at how humungous you’ve got by doing all that strength training.” “You’re big and brawny.” “Look at your huge red face.” “You still look like a fat drunk.”

It remains a constant battle not to give in to the urge to over-exercise when I’m stressed and, if I do give in, to eat something to make up for it.

Towards Recovery

Recovery from an eating disorder looks different for every person. Some people recover completely. Others settle for learning to manage their eating disorder. I know full well that, because I’m autistic and my food and exercise habits are so bound up with the restrictive and repetitive behaviours that form the foundation of my life, I’m unlikely to be able to follow others in embracing intuitive eating and exercising and being ‘free’ from regulated patterns. What looks like freedom to some people scares the shit out of me! Instead, I have a greater hope of building on the work I’ve done already to enlist my autism in building healthy habits and ditching less healthy ones.

Many books and websites recommend separating from an eating disorder and learning to argue with it and stand up to it. I agree with this to a certain degree. It’s very easy to become identified with an eating disorder – to see oneself as a binger or as an anorexic and to be over-powered by these parts.  Seeing these are just parts of oneself and not the whole is very important.

However, pathologising the eating disorder as entirely separate, like a disease, or a domineering partner or boss, and simply attempting to get rid of it does not strike me as a good strategy. In my experience, parts that are cut off just come back in different guises to bite you.

The way forward I have been taking with my shamanic mentor has been getting to know the binging and restricting parts and the function they have played. It’s my understanding that my binge eating began as a response to the trauma of bullying because I was not taught better coping mechanisms. Unfortunately, that caused more trauma in the form of my eating getting out of control. I still have nightmares about eating binge foods. The restricting part then came in to help me control the binger but herself got out of control, with under-eating leading to more trauma in the form of light-headedness, feeling faint, panic attack, black-outs and the stress of over-exercising on my body.

Thus, central to recovery is learning better coping mechanisms for dealing with trauma and the stress and overwhelm of living as an autistic person in a busy social world. Meditation and mindfulness have worked to bring me into the present moment rather than ruminating on failures of the past or feeling anxious about failing in the future. Breathwork, particularly breath retentions, has helped slow and still my mind. Slowing down and being in my body, particularly when exercising, have made me less prone to pushing too hard.

I’ve found that researching physiology, anatomy and nutrition and gaining an understanding of my body and how wonderful and intelligent it and its inner processes are have made me less likely to mistreat it. This, combined with shamanic journeys into my body have helped me to relate to it much better.

Having an animistic approach to food and an understanding of the complex web of life in which it and eating are enmeshed has instilled greater gratitude.

I have also done shamanic work dialoguing with, meditating on and journeying to the binger and the secret serpent. The former has appeared as a pup, a hungry hound and a ravening monster and I see him as representing my appetite. The latter appears as a woman in black or as a black serpent. Sometimes she is wound around me like a snake or a Siamese twin who is inseparable. I see her as representing restriction of appetite. Both are necessary and serve a function but can be deadly when they seize control. I’m hoping that building relationships with them will help me keep them in balance.

Another facet is that an eating disorder is a time thief. Obsessing about food and exercise takes time away from my relationship with my Gods and spirits. Thus, for me, recovery is about winning back more time for devotion and shamanic practice. In this, I can call for help from my patron God and spirit helpers.

I see the eating disorder as both a curse and a gift – it’s done a lot of damage but it’s also taught me a lot about the binging and restricting impulses that exist within me, within each one of us, and within our society and culture at large. So far I’ve done a lot of good work and I have a lot more work to do. 

I’d be interested to hear about how others have dealt with eating disorders and about your relationship with food and exercise from a spiritual perspective.