Treating Eating Disorders Through Myths
Anita Johnston’s Eating in the Light of the Moon uses Storytelling
The concept of treating eating disorders through myths and storytelling is unusual to some. But in order to recover from anorexia, bulimia or binge eating, you have go beneath your behaviour with food and this is a great way to do it.
The world of treating eating disorders is complex and difficult. Although each individual who develops an eating disorder responds differently to certain tools of recovery, and although each person's need for the disorder begins for a different reason, the underlying feelings are very similar.
Anita Johnston, co-founder of the Anorexia and Bulimia Center of Hawaii, starts with these connections to help women recover in her book Eating in the Light of the Moon. She uses fictional stories, myths and well known fairy tales to help readers identify with and understand the negative relationships they have with food.
Sometimes conscious language can't articulate well enough all of the emotions and thoughts that someone has; reading stories that use symbolism can be the only way to access them. By approaching it in this way, readers have a chance to shut down their outer thoughts and open their inner ear to receive the deep truths in these tales.
In treating eating disorders, she sees recovery as a labyrinth, a maze of the unknown inside of us that must be travelled through in order to find ourselves; we must journey, not only to the centre, but find our way out again. If we have faced what we find in the dark centre and still find our way back to the light, we know that the healing process has begun.
The story that speaks to me the most is in the chapter titled, The Beginning: Revisioning the Self. It tells of falling into a raging river and trying to survive. A log comes along and you grab onto it, just barely able to keep afloat. It saves your life and you cling to it with all of your strength.
As you are taken downstream, the water ceases raging and you can swim to shore. But you keep clinging to the log with one arm, while paddling with the other, because you're not sure if you can make it all the way. So you begin by letting go of the log and floating, then treading water, then swimming around it until you feel strong enough to finally let go of it completely and swim to shore.
Eating disorders are something we cling to in order to help us stay afloat in life. We must develop tools to replace its function so we can live without its protection. Once we learn what it is we need to keep our heads above the water, so to speak, we can find it in healthier ways.
Resource for treating eating disorders through myths: Eating in the Light of the Moon by Anita Johnston.
Eating in the Light of the Moon, Anita Johnston
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