Christmas with an Eating Disorder (and reason #283 of why recovery is worth it)

We had a small, but lovely Christmas this year.  It surprises me to say this, as if any year there were to be a legitimately “bad” Christmas, this would likely be it...unable to gather with our relatives,  the passing of my grandmother days before Christmas, the province-wide lockdown making shopping extra stressful, and the self-quarantine I have been undertaking in order to pod up with my parents and siblings in time for the holidays. 

For all these reasons, this could have been the shittiest of christmases.  And yet it was not, by far. For many years, as much as I loved Christmas, I also dreaded it.

Christmas is often the scariest, most stressful and anxiety-inducing time in the year for those with eating disorders. During christmas, even more than other holidays, food and eating is seemingly relentless.

There is cookies and other treats all being baked in frenzies the weeks leading up, and gatherings and parties featuring tables of appetizers and desserts and everything in between. Then there’s the big Christmas dinner that often goes on late into the evening, and the treats planted in stockings and veiled in wrapped paper, so innocently given and received like a hidden bomb to someone so terrified of food.

That was how Christmas used to feel for me, tiptoeing around landmines from December until January. 

The thing is, I never realized how miserable this experience of the holidays was until I was well into recovery, and food and my body were no longer the enemy. 

Every year since I made the choice to disentangle myself from my eating disorder and reclaim my freedom, my fears have grown less and the joy I am able to effuse expands.  Even this year, with fewer gifts, a simpler celebration, and a recent loss, I truly had a joy-filled, happy christmas among my family. 

Going through every part of the holiday, from Christmas Eve dinner to opening gifts on Christmas day to a pyjama fest on the 26th, I remembered all the ways ED used to make these things hell, even if I din’t quite understand it at the time.  

So here is a little breakdown of Christmas with an Eating Disorder, from the Ghosts of my Christmas’ Past:

A Very Disordered Christmas (Christmas Past)

The week/month before Christmas:

Christmas is approaching. I need to be good this month to make up for all the food and treats I will eat over the holidays.  Also my family will be watching me so I want to appear to be able to eat as regularly as possible when I’m there, and so I am allowed to do that, I need to eat less now.  I up my workouts, increase my runs, decrease my calories. 

I still get in the festive spirit, reading all the cookbooks and holiday baking magazines I can get my hands on.  I bake a ton of cookies, pack them as gifts. I am not allowed to eat them.  If I do, even a taste, it comes out of my dinner and/or requires an additional run or workout that night.  

Christmas Eve (The Day Before) 

I wake up early stressed out, because I have so many things to still get done.  Gifts to wrap, cookies to package, cleaning to do, find an outfit for dinner that will by some miracle make me look less awful than I feel. But before all these things,  I need to get in an hour run, and some other workout before all the sitting and eating to come.  And before I even put on clothes, I need to do an extra long yoga session this morning, because I know I wont be doing any on Christmas. 

Christmas Morning

Wake up an hour before everyone else to sneak out for a run.  Mom catches me on the way out of the door, yells at me that I am not allowed to go, that its christmas morning and people will be waiting for me.

I sprint away, first feeling angry, then numb, then a little guilty.  I make a compromise with myself to only be gone twenty minutes. Not long enough to make up for everything I will eat that day. I will just have to sneak out later. 

Back at home, people are in their pjs waiting to do gifts, and I am both sweaty and numb from the cold.  By the tree, a table is set up with fresh-cut fruit and Christmas cakes, including the potica I helped make.  I am being handed presents, but I am barely registering what I am opening, let alone what others are opening. 

I am fixated on the food, and on the clock.  Is it too early to eat something?  Can I have potica?  Or just fruit? Can I have fruit and potica?  What are other people eating?

I am watching every morsel my family puts in their mouths, as if living vicariously through them, eating without a care.  I drink black coffee and fruity herbal tea.  When it is late enough to feel okay,  I take a bowl of lots of fruit.  In a rush of adrenaline, I steal a slice of potica.  Back in my place, it looks obscenely large.  I pick at it, wanting it so badly and yet feeling repulsed by the act of eating it.  

Whether I finish it or not, that feeling of repulsion stays with me the rest of the day.  I decide am not allowed to eat another thing before dinner.  

Christmas Day:

The rest of the day is consumed by preparing our big dinner (most of which I takeover because I do not trust anyone else’s use of oil). I am working quick, not joining in on the easy banter going on a round me because I need to steal away for another run before dinner and if i don’t time it perfectly someone else will end up dressing the salad and that can’t happen and my brain feels like it might explode trying to decide which fate is worse, missing out on a run or a dressed salad.  

Some years I manage the run, others, it erupts into a screaming battle before I can leave the house and instead I retreat to my bedroom to attempt some kind of workout with a closed door.  

People are drinking wine and eating appetizers before dinner. Envious of how cheerful and carefree everyone seems in that moment, I let down my guard and join in with a glass of wine (130 calories— thanks brain). I take a sip automatically start calculating how many calories I need to knock off from  my dinner now.  Then I remember the couple carrots I had while prepping dinner and realize I screwed myself.  I allow myself one more sip, but cannot finish my wine. 

People continue to talk, I laugh when other people laugh, but I missed most of the joke.  I would like to ask them to repeat it but it seems stupid to say I missed it when i was clearly there in the room when it was just said.  I start fidgeting because I noticed I had been still for too long and should probably move some part of my body now.  

Christmas Dinner:

When it’s finally time for dinner, I fill my plate full.  It looks seemingly fuller than everyone else’s.  The difference is there is no turkey or potatoes or bread roll.  But there’s a whole lot of (undressed) salad,  roasted vegetables, and a sensible portion of tofu roast.  Back at the table, I am eating as slow as I can to appreciate slash analyze every bite. I feel embarrassed of my huge portion, and even more embarrassed that I finished it all.  I go back for more salad and brussel sprouts.  I feel like a bottomless pit. What’s wrong with me?! (Spoiler alert: It’s just vegetables you dip shit).  

No dessert for me.  There’s more conversation happening but I am too preoccupied going through the calories I have consumed in an attempt to quell my mounting anxiety that I just binged on dinner to follow along with it.  I start to fidget, feeling my thighs spread out wide on my chair, so I get up and start clearing plates.

I need a walk.  I hastily drop the load of dishes in the sink, start putting leftover vegetables away so that I am not tempted to eat more when I come back. I decide to run instead of walk so i am not gone for so long it upsets my mother, but still allows me to do a full five kilometres.  I run through snowbanks whenever I can, tripping awkwardly in my boots, but working up a good burn in my thighs, and feeling less anxious the sweatier and more exhausted I become. 

I run past vignettes of people gathered in living rooms around their christmas tress, or around their own dining tables digging in to the food producing the fabulous smells permeating the frigid air.  I think I might just allow myself a real glass of wine and maybe even a christmas cookie or two when I get home, feeling significantly better after a good sweat.

Christmas Night:

I get home and my siblings are annoyed I left them with the rest of the dishes.  My mom tells me it was selfish to go run, my red face giving me away.  I stomp off to my room to change, noting my still bloated stomach and kicking myself for thinking about that glass of wine.  Where is my discipline?  In pjs i return to make a cup of hot cocoa to sip and keep me from the tray of cookies.

We watch a movie.  I don’t follow it.  Its hard to sit for that long.  I start stretching, and doing a few crunches to break up the siting. My mom tells me to stop, its distracting, as my legs swing in front of the tv.  I feel like my family is trying to sabotage me.  I go upstairs for a few minutes to jump around a bit so i can sit down without moving again. 

I go to bed, still tallying up calories, that sip of wine becoming a glass in my head, counting the calories in the lettuce I consumed, counting the potica I had eaten as a loaf rather than a slice, and regaling myself to being “good” tomorrow. 

Yoga, run, workout, dog walk.  No breakfast, no potica, no cookies, no carbs (no happiness).  Healthy food only.  I wake up part way through the night my heart thudding after a dream of eating a plate full of cookies without thinking.   

******

And now we return to Christmas Present.

That was a typical Christmas for me up until a few years ago.  It was honesty more the idea of Christmas that I enjoyed rather than the actual holiday.  The thing is, I was so used to thinking and living in such a rigid, restrictive way that I was pretty unaware of just how miserable I was, or that Christmas could feel any other way. 

The more time I spend in recovery, the more distance is put between myself and the self I was when I was in my eating disorder, and the greater I am shocked at how much happier, easier, and carefree I can be. 

With my greatest concern no longer being food or my body, and the idea of gaining five pounds no longer feeling Iike a murderous crime, it turns out I can actually enjoy the holidays, without compensating before or after or during.

And this year that’s exactly what I did.

I ate and sat and ate again.

I laughed, I loved, and I lived.

And if the cost of that enjoyment is a few extra pounds and tighter pants, so be it.  Christmas comes once a year, but the regret for making it miserable for yourself and others lasts a hell of a lot longer.

This Christmas, I chose memories over macros. I hope you did too.

Happy holidays,

Jordan