Roots.

I’m reading a book right now about eating disorders in adult women, and it’s giving me a lot to think about.

I’ve never met the criteria for an eating disorder (basically because of a missing gag reflex, but that’s another story), though I clearly embraced a lot of disordered behaviors.  But today I’ve been thinking about why?  Why did I move beyond just dieting and into disordered eating and compulsive exercise?  What pulled the trigger for me?

Right now, I don’t really know.  I know living alone allowed me to go deeper than I would have otherwise, and I know I felt very proud of my discipline and control and maybe that was something that was missing for me right then?  Control over my life, what with my husband moving away and the prospect of uprooting my own life looming in the future? 

In another way, though, I felt like I finally had…edges.  I felt a real and powerful sense of identity when I was living that way–I felt concrete and real and yet transcendant.   

I just don’t know.  But I feel like I will have to get an answer to those questions at some point, or I’ll be vulnerable to slipping back into my old habits if that same set of circumstances comes along again.