I’m not entirely comfortable with the concept of an ‘ED voice’ and it’s not a term that I use readily (ED = eating disorder). I do not hear voices inside my head.  I’m not psychotic or schizophrenic, nor do I have a shoulder imp whispering negative words into my ear.

I’ve frequently heard it said throughout treatment, “it’s not you, it’s your ED voice talking”.  I think there is a danger in attributing thoughts as coming from a separate being or third person, in that it can absolve an individual suffering from anorexia of their responsibility in their own recovery.  If the thoughts aren’t my own, then I can’t stop them can I?  Yes, I can. It’s hard work but yes, I can challenge them and teach my brain that such thoughts are not necessary.

Personally, I prefer to see all my thoughts as my own but with recognition that some of them are driven by my ‘primitive’ / ‘survival’ brain, which works by instinct. This instinct tells my ‘thinking’ brain that there is something to fear, which prompts my own thoughts to ensure I avoid what is scary, i.e. food and weight gain.  It is my responsibility to sift out these thoughts and it is my responsibility to choose how I react to them.  For example, when choosing a drink to accompany my evening snack, I may initially be drawn to hot chocolate, but my ‘primitive’ brain will instinctively fear the hot chocolate because it is high in calories and will communicate this to my ‘thinking’ brain prompting the thought that I should have a cup of tea instead.  Or to use the example from my ‘PIZZA’ post: when that pizza was put down in front of me in the restaurant, my ‘primitive’ brain shat itself over potential weight gain and communicated this to my ‘thinking’ brain, which then spent way more energy than was necessary playing ping pong with thoughts around how much of it to eat.  But you see, I didn’t have an ‘ED voice’ speaking in my head saying “don’t eat the pizza, you will get fat”. It’s a little more complex than that!  If I was to say my ‘ED voice’ told me not to eat the pizza, it’s like I would be excusing myself.  I would be saying it’s not my fault that I didn’t eat the pizza. Well I think so anyway.  What I do believe is not my fault, is that I am fearful of food and weight gain in the first place.  This fear has instinctively developed after falling into energy deficit which I did not do with any deliberate intention to lose weight.  What is in my control however, is how I respond to the thoughts that stem from this fear.  It’s up to me to pause and work out what is driving my thoughts. Sometimes this is relatively easy to do by noticing what my initial thought was, i.e. in the drink example, I was initially drawn to hot chocolate before that instinctive fear stuck it’s oar in and made me think I should have a cup of tea instead.  It is in my power to then chose the hot chocolate anyway and laugh in the face of the fear.  Except, I wouldn’t be laughing in a literal sense because it would actually feel very uncomfortable.  Sometimes the fear kicks in before I realise so it’s harder to pick out what is, and is not, fear driven.  As in the pizza example, which in real life left me very confused about whether to eat the entire pizza. 

Of course, all of this is exhausting so I understand why some may choose to blame their ‘ED voice’ after they have colluded with thoughts resulting in non-recovery focused decisions; it requires less effort, is safer and feels more comfortable.   Crucially, what I also understand is that the only way that my ‘primitive’ brain will learn that food and weight gain is not to be feared is if I purposely think and act like it isn’t.  I need to eat when I don’t want to, choose hot chocolate when a cup of tea feels more comfortable, lather the butter on my toast and essentially, when faced with a choice, go with the least comfortable option.  Yes, it’s hard work and sometimes I want to stamp and scream that I’m sick and tired of all this crap, but it’s the only way that my brain will overcome the fear.  If you like, it’s the only way to make my ‘ED voice’ shut the fuck up.