Food Fears and Eating Disorder Recovery During the Holidays

I panicked on Thanksgiving Day.

It was 1:15 p.m. I felt nothing but sheer terror. I looked longingly at my bed, warm and safe. The thought of facing all that food inexplicably terrified me. The fact that it was my first Thanksgiving without my husband, and therefore I would be alone did not help. I felt as if everyone would be looking me and thinking about how I had failed at my marriage.

I also was late. I was in charge of picking up the salad and pies, and I did not have time to do that and make it to the family meal by 3 p.m. The last thing I even wanted to see was a pie. I stood paralyzed in my bedroom. Stay or go?

I told myself to just breathe. I said that I could enjoy a normal Thanksgiving meal. So I called and spoke with my father, who said he would pick up the food, and got into my car and started the almost two-hour drive to my family's home for Thanksgiving dinner.

And I had a wonderful time.I often cancelled events in the past because of sheer panic. I couldn't face the people, the questions about my estranged husband, and especially, I couldn't deal with the food. My solution in the past would be to put as much salad on my plate as possible, and surround it with a tiny dollop of other foods that I then proceeded to push around my plate until it looked as if I ate something besides lettuce.

But I knew I wasn't going to get away with that this year. My family knew I had been struggling for a few months, and they had already voiced their concerns. I was determined not to allow my fears to ruin yet another holiday, and I also wanted to prove to myself that I could eat like a normal person.

Finally, I have committed myself to recovery and that includes fighting and overcoming food fears. It just seems as if these fears crop up more during the holiday season than any other time.

Of course. That is because the time between Thanksgiving and New Year's Eve is filled with parties and family gatherings and other events, and the centerpiece always seems to be food. One look at the table on Thanksgiving and all I could see was rich, fattening foods.

Cornbread stuffing. Sweet potato casserole. Mashed potatoes made with real butter. Green bean casserole. Rolls and bread and sticks of butter.

Well, no one ever said recovery was easy. I ate some of all of those foods except green bean casserole, and even had a second helping of the sweet potato casserole because my sister-in-law seemed so pleased that I liked the small bites I had of it the first time.

Each one of us have different food fears to fight, whether it is to simply eat the food or to not binge and purge the food. As I wrote before, eating disorders are not only about food, but food is definitely part of these illnesses.

Because if it is not about the food, why am I still afraid of food? Why do so many of us with eating disorders battle with food? Why does food and how we relate to it play such an important part in recovery?

Of course it is about the food, and the fears that we have surrounding food.Yes, I realize that eating disorders also are about other issues. However, the road to recovery starts with either taking that first bite of food or stopping the binge/purge cycle or learning to eat for hunger and not emotional reasons. These illnesses are not called eating disorders without reason.

I will continue to fight my food fears. Some days are easier than others. I finally relaxed on Thanksgiving, and even ate some leftovers today. But it will be a long time before I don't tally everything up in my head, fearful of the amount I ate and promising myself that I will be "good" the next day.

It will be some time before I conquer all of my food fears. But I am getting there, and that is a start.