Emotions: Important Information For Eating Disorder Sufferers

1. The Function Of An Eating Disorder - The Cinema Analogy

An eating disorder is a kind of coping strategy, it provides a way of dealing with the difficult things that life throws at you by blocking out, distracting or shielding you to some extend from the distressing thoughts and feelings that are provoked.

Imagine going to the cinema. The film you are watching, the story that is unfolding, represents your life. Sometimes it is challenging to watch, frightening or upsetting even. So when someone comes and sits in front of you at first you are quite relieved that they have blocked your view. This person represents your eating disorder. However, you still have a partial view of the screen and can still hear the sound track clearly, so you know that you are missing a really great film. So part of you wants the person in front to move so you can continue watching the film, but another part is still afraid of what you might see and feels safer hiding behind the person in front. However, the longer that you sit there, watching those around you engrossed in and enjoying the film, the more you feel like you are missing something. It is going to take some courage to move seats and expose yourself to the film particularly the scary bits, but you know if you don’t you will never understand or be able to enjoy the story and you will never find out how it ends.

Treatment will help you to feel confide enough to move seats and deal with the challenging parts of the film so that you can enjoy the experience (of life) as a whole.

2. What is an Emotion
Emotions are complex experiences that involve a range of components; a triggering event, thoughts, brain changes, body changes, sensing and behaviours. So when people tell you to stop ‘feeling’ something, this is an impossible task. The only way to avoid experiencing emotions is to divert our attention (one of the functions that your eating disorder currently serves).

2.1 Why do we have emotions: Primary and Secondary Emotionsr
Primary Emotionsr
Primary emotions are the emotions that are triggered by events in one’s environment. They are often adaptive and appropriate to the situation. For example feeling angry with someone who has betrayed you, feeling happy that someone you care about is coming to visit you, feeling sad when someone lets you down, feeling surprised when it is a nice day when rain was predicted). They serve a number of functions:
i. Emotions communicate to others.
Happiness will let others know what you like or are enjoying. Anger will let others know when they have done something wrong. Fear will communicate to others the danger of a situation. Sadness will tell others that you are suffering.

ii. Emotions influence others.
Warmth and friendliness of an acquaintance may result in a later favour; disappointment expressed by a supervisor may result in improved work by an employee; anger may stop others behaviour.

iii. Emotions organise and prepare you for action.
In communities where there is no sadness at losing people, why would anyone ever go out and look for lost people or try to save people who are dying? Communities would die off if there were no sadness. Without love people would not make sacrifices for others, they would not look after others; they would not share with others. Intimate relationship would not exist. Without guilt people would not care how their behaviour impacted on others and so they would start to do harmful things. Without anxiety students would not be motivated to work to pass exams.

iv. Emotions communicate to ourselves, they are self-validating.
People often use their emotional reactions to other people and to events as information about the situation. Emotions can be signals or alarms that something is going on. This is what is meant by the saying “What is your gut feeling about that?” Likewise when we say a person has a “good feeling” for a situation, we are referring to emotions as signals.

Secondary Emotionsr
Secondary emotions are triggered by negative primary emotions. They are the result of a person judging negative emotion as ‘bad’. For example; guilt about feeling angry, anger at feeling upset, shame at feeling anxious. The addition of these secondary feelings to an already negative situation simply makes the distress more intense and tolerance more difficult. Frequently, a person could tolerate a distressing situation or painful affect if only they could refrain from feeling guilty or anxious about feeling painful emotions in the first place. Much of emotional distress is a result of secondary responses.

Secondary emotions overshadow primary emotions, making problem solving in regard to primary emotions difficult.

2.2 Emotions Diaryr
If you have been using your eating behaviours to block out your experience of emotions, you will have lost touch with those emotions. As a result, your emotions may seem like a cloud of negativity that is hard to define and control. These vague experiences make emotions feel dangerous, thus making your eating behaviours seem even more necessary.

Keeping a diary of emotions and the function they serve will enable you to get to know and get used to you emotions, making them seem less risky and overwhelming. At the same time, it will also enable you to step back and get some distance from your emotions. Once you are able to establish this distance, more options will present themselves with regards to responding to your emotions, so you will no longer have to follow your knee-jerk reaction to experiencing them (bingeing/ restriction). Instead of drowning in the river, you will be able to stand on the bank. In addition, there is some evidence that people who ‘give emotion a name’ are better able to control the emotion.