No bad parts

By Sophie, mid-20s, recovered, anorexia nervosa

The language around “illness” can be problematic and confusing when you are in the grips of it. For years people would say to me “it’s not you, it’s your illness” and whilst this can seem reassuring to assuage any guilt on behaviour that you might feel slightly ashamed of, I actually found it really unhelpful personally. For me, this was because I was so entrenched that it didn’t feel it was a separate entity, but just a fully enveloped part of me –  therefore this kind of talk about it being “the illness” doing the bad things, actually only led to increasing my personal sense of shame as at the time I couldn’t differentiate between the different parts of myself.

Something that I think is potentially a more helpful message, is to acknowledge that they are ALL parts of you and even though its methods have got twisted, there are no bad parts. An eating disorder fundamentally develops as a protective mechanism to help you cope with things that feel out of your control (whether external/situational or internal). In some ways I think it’s important to actually acknowledge and appreciate the ability of the mind to manipulate itself in order to protect. Of course an eating disorder is an undesirable, unhealthy coping mechanism but it’s also a part of your brain that is signaling that something is not right in your life and if you can work on the root cause, it’s possible you will come out stronger.

Despite every influencer under the sun trying to tell us how we should live our lives, there is actually no handbook for life. We are all muddling through in the same way, learning as we go and as unbelievably cheesy as it sounds, we learn from ALL the parts of us. Just because there is behavior you don’t feel proud of (which is very common within the sneaky grips of an eating disorder and its manifestations), doesn’t mean we should shun completely the part from where it came. Whilst self-love might seem like an unrealistic expectation, I believe that self-acceptance is more than possible and also necessary for giving yourself permission to live a happier life. The more we try to suppress the parts of ourselves we may not like, the more the negativity genuinely festers and inhibits us from feeling comfortable in our own skin. 

Of course, if aspects of your actions or feelings are no longer serving you, you have agency to work on those and develop habits that are more in-line with the person you want to be. Learning and evolving is part of human life and change allows growth HOWEVER you should NOT feel ashamed of the parts you are leaving behind. No one is born perfect nor will ever be perfect and all the iterations of our personalities are the building blocks to working out who you want to be. There is no right or wrong, it’s about leaning into the parts of you that make you feel the most like yourself and that can take a long time to figure out. Above all I truly believe whilst there can be bad intentions there is truly no such thing as bad parts.