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Please visit Eating Disorder Recovery for Women at http://www.eatingdisorderrecovery.com.
Often women with eating disorders feel generous, powerful in their relationship with a man and at the same time they feel weak, exploited, bewildered and afraid they will be abandoned.
If you are a woman with an eating disorder you are harsh in your self-criticism. You do not use your gifts such as creativity, intelligence, endurance, determination, resourcefulness, education, or talents in the service of your own hearts desire. You may be pouring out your gifts to others in an attempt to please them so that they will never leave you.
Yet you can feel like a failure because you are not living up to abilities you know are within you. This will only cause you to be even more harsh and punishing to yourself.
Other people (who may not even know they have a tendency to use others), perhaps a romantic interest or friend or family member, will see the resources you are not using on your own behalf. They
will applaud you for having such talents and resources and look for ways to use them.
For example, they will invite you to be involved in their projects. You will be delighted.Then they will feed you compliments that are deserved about your talents. You will feel relief and pleasure at being recognized as the valuable person you are.
What you cannot give to yourself you give to them.
Are any of these scenarios familiar to you?
* You help them start or run a business.
* You designsand perhaps also create promotional material for them.
* You extend yourself financially to shore up their poorly handled money situations.
* You entertain their friends and associates magnificently.
* You field their phone calls making excuses or apologizing or lying for them.
* You smooth their difficulties in work and personal relationships.
* You tend to their personal well-being.
* You loan them your car and rarely get to use it yourself.
* You loan them your (computer, cd player, money, credit card, books, dvds, etc.) and either never get them back or get them back in sorry condition.
* You give them your time, sacrificing events you want to attend yet you wait and allow them to stand you up because their agendas are more important than yours.
You can do this for any person you want to please and hopes to make love you.A certain type of person is happy to take what you are not using. A few compliments and a sincere looking smile, an expression of yearning and need will evoke in you a hopeful joy that she can meet the person s needs and find appreciation and love.
Once you are giving and feeling vital to another person's life you will feel good about being competent and productive. You'll continually postpone the effort required to nourish and make real your own dreams because you feels gratified by what you accomplishe for the other person.
Eventually you will like a failure in terms of your own life. But you will try to convince yourself that the other person's life is worth your life and that you should be satisfied.
The other person, by design or through the routine of this unbalanced relationship, will expect this pattern of behavior to continue. He or she has become an exploiter and will build up the belief in you that your purpose in life is to help, serve, wait in the wings and take joy in self sacrifice.
Your acceptance of this belief can become so strong that you become arrogant. You may feel a sense of superiority created by your self defined noble self sacrifice or contributions to the other's successes. This superior attitude can be off putting to others who are shocked by your obliviousness to being willingly used.
At some point you will feel tired and drained. You may protest or request relief. Too often often you will wear your fatigue as a badge of honor, as proof that she is giving her all and proving her love.
If and when you try to put some of her energy into your dreams the exploiter will speak in a supportive way but will actually attempt to sabotage your efforts or become actively abusive. The exploiter may also accuse you of being selfish and insensitive for wanting to withdraw or limit your services in any way.
You will be hurt and bewildered by this reaction and won't understand how someone who has been so reassuring and full of praise could attack you when you want something for yourself.
Unfortunately you may think the other person is right, that you are selfish and insensitive. Then ou do even more for the exploiter in an attempt to get what you thought was a loving person in your life to be loving again.
It can take years before you understand that the exploiter will say and do anything to keep you supplying his or her needs and ignoring your own. Too often you never understand and can become a tragic figure when you are discarded.
Your grief or eventually, rage will plunge you more deeply into her eating disorder or, maybe, you will reach out for help.
For some people, this kind of intense flood of emotional pain will bring them to psychotherapy, perhaps for the first time. They come for relief. If they stay they have a chance to do their real recovery work.
If this is you, let your grief and rage propel you into a new emotional environment of healing. Then you can recover from your wounds and use your considerable internal treasures and resources to create an authentic life for yourself, one that is a joy to live.
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