I am an ED sufferer myself, and am currently 28, having an EDs on and off (mostly on) for the past decade or so. I went to several psychotherapists, and may have even read this article when it was first published. I spent years looking for what might have "caused" my eating disorder. My mom and I were enmeshed. She was too dependent on me. Or maybe my dad wasn't involved enough. My brother had learning disabilities- did I feel the pressure to be everything to my family?
Maybe. Maybe not.
It was only when I started seeing a therapist who had me stop looking for the cause and start normalizing my eating that I began to make any progress. What I learned about family pathology was this: every family has it. If you spend enough time in therapy, sifting through enough memories and interpreting and re-interpreting enough scenarios, you will find boundary violations, you will find enmeshment, you will find that "emotions weren't always expressed freely." I've never met anyone who could emote freely, and most of them never had EDs. Now that I'm in recovery (not without lots of slips and bumps), I find that my family is probably less pathological than many. My parents could NOT have caused my eating disorder. Period. Full stop.
When you say "causation," there has to be a long line of epidemiological research to verify this fact. When we say cigarette smoking can cause cancer, we know the cellular mechanisms by which this happens--the components of the cigarettes that bind to the DNA and cause mutations, and which mutated genes can go on and spur unrestricted cell growth. Ta-da! Cancer. We don't know that with EDs. We do know that about 75% of your risk is GENETIC. We do know that dieting and/or malnutrition likely TRIGGER the eating disorder. Genes and environment, culture and chemistry, all combine in eating disorders and in every other illness out there. You can't separate nature and nurture. So to say that "boundary violations" cause eating disorders is a gross overstatement and not in line with the latest research. No, we don't know precisely what causes eating disorders but we do know that it's a hell of a lot more biology and a lot less parents/culture/something nebulous called "boundaries." EVERYONE has had boundary violations. EVERYONE has seen skinny models. Yet only a few develop eating disorders.
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I am an ED sufferer myself, and am currently 28, having an EDs on and off (mostly on) for the past decade or so. I went to several psychotherapists, and may have even read this article when it was first published. I spent years looking for what might have "caused" my eating disorder. My mom and I were enmeshed. She was too dependent on me. Or maybe my dad wasn't involved enough. My brother had learning disabilities- did I feel the pressure to be everything to my family?
Maybe. Maybe not.
It was only when I started seeing a therapist who had me stop looking for the cause and start normalizing my eating that I began to make any progress. What I learned about family pathology was this: every family has it. If you spend enough time in therapy, sifting through enough memories and interpreting and re-interpreting enough scenarios, you will find boundary violations, you will find enmeshment, you will find that "emotions weren't always expressed freely." I've never met anyone who could emote freely, and most of them never had EDs. Now that I'm in recovery (not without lots of slips and bumps), I find that my family is probably less pathological than many. My parents could NOT have caused my eating disorder. Period. Full stop.
When you say "causation," there has to be a long line of epidemiological research to verify this fact. When we say cigarette smoking can cause cancer, we know the cellular mechanisms by which this happens--the components of the cigarettes that bind to the DNA and cause mutations, and which mutated genes can go on and spur unrestricted cell growth. Ta-da! Cancer. We don't know that with EDs. We do know that about 75% of your risk is GENETIC. We do know that dieting and/or malnutrition likely TRIGGER the eating disorder. Genes and environment, culture and chemistry, all combine in eating disorders and in every other illness out there. You can't separate nature and nurture. So to say that "boundary violations" cause eating disorders is a gross overstatement and not in line with the latest research. No, we don't know precisely what causes eating disorders but we do know that it's a hell of a lot more biology and a lot less parents/culture/something nebulous called "boundaries." EVERYONE has had boundary violations. EVERYONE has seen skinny models. Yet only a few develop eating disorders.
Carrie
June 9, 2009 - 2:29pmwww.edbites.com
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