Selfish vs Selfless

Today in group at treatment, someone talked about being selfish versus being selfless. These two words hold significant weight in the way that we think, feel, behave, etc towards ourselves and others. Selfish is when we are totally focused on our own needs, and selfless is complete focus on the needs of others. In an ideal world, everyone should have a balance of both. We need to focus on our own needs, but also look at the needs of others in order to maintain relationships. My eating disorder completely clouds this.

When I am in a full blown relapse, I tend to be very selfless in a selfish way. How is that even possible? I become very selfless in order to escape the battle in my head. Basically, I am using my selflessness as a way to be selfish. I do it to fulfill my needs, because I cannot handle what is going on in my life. So, I turn to others as a way to be selfish. It doesn't mean that I do not care about others and do not genuinely want what's best for them; however, I do tend to become enveloped in other people's lives and focused on them 100%. Most of my relationships have started in the midst of relapses, because I wanted to give someone else all of the attention in order to not have to focus on myself. This is something I have had to be mindful of in this process. I have found myself running to online dating as a way to take the focus off of myself. So, I have to monitor myself when meeting new people. As the great movie Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind said, "Why do I fall in love with every woman I see who shows me the least bit of attention?" Change woman to man and that's me. 

Using others to help me cope with my issues is potentially one of the most selfish things a person can do. It leads to an extreme amount of guilt and difficulties in my relationships, because I don't realize how much I am hurting others by using them for my coping. It also tends to push people away, because I become dependent on them to the point of unbearable. I become too much and people walk out. If they don't walk, I push them away by becoming clingy and then shutting down when a response is given. None of my needs can ever be fulfilled by others, even though I wish they could be. I become selfish, because even though I am attempting to fulfill their needs by doing anything I can, I am not taking care of my own needs, which causes everything to fall apart. So, how do I break this cycle?

In a lot of ways, I have to become selfish for the right reasons. I need to focus on my own personal needs and self-care in order to become a person capable of being selfless with no expectations in return. This involves a great deal of therapy and commitment to incorporating self-care. I have to let myself take breaks and process things. I have to take on only what I can handle and step away from things I cannot. I must take better care of myself and that includes following my meal plan. So, what's my biggest first step that I need to take?

I asked my new therapist to begin going through my timeline and actually talking about it in great detail. I did this the first time I was in treatment in 2 ways. The first was with my individual therapist, but we only hit the highlights and overlooked a lot of the smaller issues, which add up. The second was in a group; however, I have a really difficult time allowing myself to feel the events that have happened in my life. It feels like I am telling someone else's life like I am giving a biography report in school. I try not to connect on it, because my life is exhausting with the amount of trauma I have experienced. To feel all that trauma again is awful. That's the purpose of my eating disorder: to serve as a wall between me and all that crap. Without my eating disorder, all of that comes back and becomes so overwhelming that I shut down and relapse. Unfortunately, it's not enough to have insight as to what happens. Something has to be done about it.

It's time to move forward. It's time to allow myself to experience all the feelings I stuffed down deep inside, because they were too much to bear. It's time to accept that these feelings are okay. They are not bad, just scary. It's time to take away the blame of the things I don't deserve to blame myself for. It's time to heal. It's time to tear down the wall of my eating disorder and create a new whole self that can process the pass and emotionally heal.