07/08/2010-Against the 'Control' ED Explanation
Online, I asked some message board members "Does the "Control" explanation for ED's ever annoy you?"
Over the past few weeks, I've watched some personal videos people have put on YouTube about their eating disorders. The explanation for the basis of their eating disorder never strays far from "My eating disorder started because I couldn't control X, Y, and Z..." This realisation may have come from therapy or their own interpretations of what they have read, seen, or experienced - if you like, their subject position in prevailing discourses (M Foucalt).
Does it ever annoy you that this is the explanation constantly given for the development of eating disorders, as if there could be no other significant reason?
It annoys me, and if I recall, it annoyed ('Wasted' author) Marya Hornbacher too.
For their own reasons, other members were apparently frustrated by it too.
I was so glad it's not just me that is frustrated by the simplification of ED's to just being about "control".
What struck me about the videos was that the statement about control was repeated in almost parrot fashion by the different YouTube members, sounding as if although it was meant to be their own explanation, they were just repeating what a therapist had told them.
TW* for last point, so scroll down only if you want to.
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Further, how very offensive to an ED sufferer whose ED might have been triggered by something as complex and traumatic as any form of abuse to still imply "control" is the central issue regardless of surrounding circumstances.
*Takes a deep breath.
Over the past few weeks, I've watched some personal videos people have put on YouTube about their eating disorders. The explanation for the basis of their eating disorder never strays far from "My eating disorder started because I couldn't control X, Y, and Z..." This realisation may have come from therapy or their own interpretations of what they have read, seen, or experienced - if you like, their subject position in prevailing discourses (M Foucalt).
Does it ever annoy you that this is the explanation constantly given for the development of eating disorders, as if there could be no other significant reason?
It annoys me, and if I recall, it annoyed ('Wasted' author) Marya Hornbacher too.
For their own reasons, other members were apparently frustrated by it too.
I was so glad it's not just me that is frustrated by the simplification of ED's to just being about "control".
What struck me about the videos was that the statement about control was repeated in almost parrot fashion by the different YouTube members, sounding as if although it was meant to be their own explanation, they were just repeating what a therapist had told them.
TW* for last point, so scroll down only if you want to.
******************
Further, how very offensive to an ED sufferer whose ED might have been triggered by something as complex and traumatic as any form of abuse to still imply "control" is the central issue regardless of surrounding circumstances.
*Takes a deep breath.