Many people with eating disorders long for close, intimate connections but don’t know how to achieve them. Or they end up feeling trapped, suffocated or resentful in the relationships they have. If these descriptions fit you, you may have a history that taught you closeness to others is not basically safe.
A person’s childhood experiences with caregivers and others create expectations—largely subconscious—of what future intimate relationships will be like. If your experiences growing up were positive and secure, you’ll expect adult relationships to be the same. If your caregiving was not so positive and secure, or if peer relationships were traumatizing, your expectations won’t be so rosy. For example, you may have learned that in intimate connection you’ll be: swallowed up, intruded upon, robbed of an independent self, ignored, humiliated, abused, exposed as unworthy or ultimately abandoned.
Your eating disorder may be acting as a protection to keep you isolated and “safe” from relationships. It probably serves as comfort when relationships or isolation hurt. If you’re in a relationship, your symptoms may help you keep a safe distance from your partner, give you a sense of control or provide a way to ask for caretaking. Increasing your comfort with intimate contact, whether with family, friends or an intimate partner, is not only part of a robust recovery, it’s your birthright!
If you’re having trouble reaching out or establishing secure, satisfying relationships, your history may have left you underprepared in one or more of the following capacities essential for relationship intimacy:
- The ability to establish and maintain healthy boundaries
- Confidence about being known and being vulnerable
- A sense of security that comes from inside
In my next three posts, I’ll go over why each of these overlapping capacities is so important to intimacy. I’ll discuss how you can build skills relevant to each, even if it feels frightening right now. Healthy intimacy is not a matter of “the luck of the draw” in the people you meet. It has everything to do with how you feel about yourself and other people and what you feel entitled to expect from those you include in your life. Often, as eating disorder symptoms subside in recovery, the way you relate to others comes more into focus. That means recovery can be a great time to work on any trouble spots!
Check back in 2 weeks, on June 18th, to read about creating healthy boundaries.
