Are Eating Disorder Coping Strategies or Strategies of Regulation?

Are eating disorders regulation strategies or coping strategies?

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Rather than trying to think about makes sense cognitively, can you sense into your embodied wisdom to land on what makes sense for you?

When you read this question, “are eating disorders regulation strategies or coping strategies?”, do you notice a difference in your body between these two different ways of describing eating disorders?

There’s a slight difference between perceiving eating disorders as strategies of regulation versus coping.

Over the years, my perspective has shifted from seeing eating disorders and disordered eating tactics as ways of coping to attempts at regulating.

When we consider an eating disorder as the body’s attempt at regulating the nervous system, we begin to see these food behaviours as strategies of survival rather than dysfunction.

And that ultimately someone has developed these strategies as a way to survive and meet life in the best ways they know how, which is connected to what kinds of rules they learnt around what’s acceptable or unacceptable to be seen by the outside world.

These rules are often transmitted to us way before our language has even formed by our attachment figures, from our caregivers to greater societal and institutional forces.

We inherit these rules before we are able to string coherent sentences together on just how much of who we are we can bring into the world.

These rules impact our sense of embodiment because on some level we have to tuck in and suck back aspects of our authentic self in order to look acceptable and stay in attachment with those around us who set the rules and standards.

This impacts our relationship with other humans. If we cannot show up authentically in connection with others, there will be a sense of something is missing within us.

Either we will have to hold back an aspect of ourselves, become tight, or withdrawn, or we might overdramatize, take up space, or conflate.

If our sources of connection growing up were not enough or too much or not attuned, it affects our nervous system development and ability to self-regulate.

And it is this exact same neural pathway that allows for attuned, safe connection that allows for regulated digestive processing.

This is what Polyvagal theory brought to light: Our ability to nourish ourselves physically with food and through relationships is neurologically linked.

Our relationship to food reflects our relationships. Like food, we need connection and attachment to survive - without it, we can’t survive.

Needing connection is hardwired into our system and it is what helps us develop a sense of self and a self in the world.

Connection is our first form of nourishment and one that we need throughout our lives.

Since food is a primary form of receiving and taking in physical nourishment, how we learnt to relate with others - our first form of nourishment - shows up most acutely with food.

If we didn’t receive the kind of nourishing care we needed from our caregivers and greater societal forces from a young age, the state of our nervous system gets impacted.

For young developing children, it is super dysregulating for the nervous system to have to stay in attachment with another who cannot safely provide us with our needs and wants.

As such, we find really intelligent ways to stay in connection (in order to survive) through disordered eating behaviours, whilst having a semblance of our needs and wants to be provided for in a way that doesn’t totally overwhelm us (this is inherently a regulating tactic, at least in the short-term).

However, when it’s not our authentic needs being met, it is usually not a particularly satisfying experience.

Eating disorder behaviours are the body telling us what is missing in the attachment system, and the behaviours are in some way an attempt to meet those needs and wants in the ways that the body knows how. This is an attempt to try regulate and bring things into balance.

Looking at eating disorders from this perspective means that we need to add in support and resources to meet whatever has been missing in the attachment system that speaks at the level of the body, so that there is an overall sense of regulation in the nervous system.

When we look at eating disorders as strategies of regulation, we start to bring in resources and practices that speak to the nervous and the body, from them bottom-up.

An eating disorder is the use of the senses and the body to try find regulation. It is a bottom-up strategy in and of itself, and as such, adding in support that works in a similar bottom-up way means that there is a greater chance for healing compared to a top-down, cognitive approach.

Indeed, the brain and the nervous system are geared to survival and are in a place of fear. This means, that along with lack of physical nourishment, the higher brain isn’t online.

Top-down processes require the brain to be fully optimal in order for cognitive-based therapy to work. For people with eating disorders, due to their physiology and nervous system capacity, CBT and other top-down therapy processes simply don’t land.

We have to work directly with the body.

When there is a robust regulation that is sustainable and supports overall well-being, the capacity to eat becomes easier.

When we see an eating disorder as an attempt to regulate a nervous system that is in need for safe connection, we can begin to add in supportive elements that don’t shame or pathologize (which creates further defense and disconnection), and instead invite warm and welcoming resources that attune to the part of the nervous system (and the soul) that yearns for love.

Indeed, we all know by now that eating disorders are so much more than just the food.

We know it’s never about the food at the end of the day.

So what are eating disorders actually about?

When we choose eating disorder recovery, what we are practicing is relearning and rediscovering how to receive nourishment.

Nourishment comes in many different forms, the most important one being relationships. As mammals, we are inherently wired for connection. We cannot bypass this - we very literally need it for our survival. Co-regulation with another is the most natural way for our bodies to ground, anchor, settle and regulate.

Rediscovering how to take in honest, supportive and loving connection is at the heart of recovery.

Since most eating disorders represent ruptures or deficits in the attachment system, I see disordered eating patterns as a representation of how one has learn to restrict intimacy from a very young age. Eating disorders symbolize a starvation for connection.

As we continue to walk the recovery road, we start to allow the nourishment of relationships into our lives; our cup feels fuller as our lives take on more meaning. We feel fed through the nourishment of connection.

As we take in more nourishment in this way, our autonomic nervous system is supported through co-regulation, shifting our bodies from a state of protection to a state of connection.

This state of connection is closely linked to the ventral potion of our parasympathetic nervous system, which is exactly where we want to be, on a nervous system level, to ingest and digest food.

When we embark on the journey of rediscovering how we want to be in relationship in a way that regulates, feeds and supports all parts of ourselves, we can naturally be nourished by food too.

By adding in support that speaks to the body and nervous system, we offer scaffolding for the parts that are holding back or holding in from an embodied perspective so that the body-container-temple can grow its capacity to hold the fullness of the soul.

Photo by Jon Flobrant on Unsplash