Answer: Your desire for your boyfriend’s help is completely understandable—and doomed to failure, even if you get him to cooperate. Whenever a person tries to get external policing for internal impulses, the impulses always win in the end. Impulses to binge, or engage in other compulsive behaviors, are driven by what we call threat energy. Something triggers a threat to your sense of equilibrium or basic well–being and your mind goes into the automatic behavior of bingeing to protect you from it. “It” could be feeling hurt, bad about yourself, helpless, empty, frightened or any of the binge triggers you’re discovering in recovery. This will pit your boyfriend’s efforts against a very basic internal instinct to protect yourself from painful or even overwhelming emotion. Learning to manage binge behavior remains an “inside job.” (For an account of a particularly spectacular and tragic failure of an attempt at external policing for internal impulses, check out Wired: Short Life and Fast Times of John Belushi. The beloved SNL star actually hired a bodyguard to control his drug addiction, yet still died of an overdose.)

So does this mean there’s no role for your boyfriend in your recovery? Absolutely not! Depending on your needs and wishes, your boyfriend can be an invaluable support. He can acknowledge and validate your struggles, applaud your successes, cheer you on, learn to respect recovery–enhancing boundaries (for instance, not commenting on your weight or your food or exercise choices), and remind you of your worth and lovability when you can’t believe in them yourself. This kind of support can mean the world during the long haul process of eating disorder recovery.

Question: If I know how much my symptoms of bingeing or purging are hurting me and how horrible I’m going to feel afterward, why do I keep relapsing?

Answer: In this inaugural month of “Ideas and Inspirations for Recovery,” I’ll get the ball rolling with this question which comes up repeatedly in my practice.

I’m always so glad to have a chance to respond to this question because it allows me to address the critical issue of shame in relation eating disorder symptoms.

The simplest answer to the question is that none of us does anything self–destructive, discouraging or shame–inducing unless it feels (unconsciously) like things would be worse if we didn’t. Another way to say the same thing is that symptoms have a purpose, a positive intention. They develop to help us handle life experience that would otherwise be overwhelming. For instance, bingeing may distract and soothe in the face of painful emotion, purging may feel like a way to restore order when bingeing has gone out of control, or restricting may serve as a way to assuage fears about growing up too quickly. (These are just a few examples of the purposes eating disorder symptoms may serve.)

The payoff for searching to discover the purpose or intention behind your symptoms is that it opens the door to finding new and healthier ways to accomplish the same thing. For instance, you may learn to meditate, focus on your breathing, journal or engage in other quieting practices to cope with painful emotions. Or, you may find that a commitment to learning from slips and returning immediately to healthy eating patterns can work much better than purging to restore a sense of control after bingeing. In yet another example, you might discover it’s more helpful to reach out for support and learn to go at your own pace than to fall back on restricting when you’re facing uncertainty about a new stage of development.

Eating disorder symptoms serve as vivid signposts to issues we need to resolve, skills we need to acquire or experiences that feel like too much. If you take the time to see beyond your symptom to the problem it’s highlighting, you can greatly enhance your recovery process.