TRAUMA & DISSOCIATION SCHOOL

Meet Lara, My Anorexic Part

Anorexia as a way to fight trauma

Me, not 17 outwardly (maybe 25), but very anorexic. This is taken some months after one of my severest Ketoneuria episodes. But I have been hospitalized for being severely underweight and malnourished a couple of times, and been anorexic for many years, bordering on collapse and death, as a way to stay alive… Picture taken by my sister, borrowing my precious camera.

Lara is 17 and severely “anorexic.” She is a part of me that has used food to regulate herself, to control herself, and to control (but also show) her anger. Anger over years and years of abuse. In long periods of my life, Lara has been the one who has both threatened our (my) existence, and saved us (me) from other kinds of harm or “just” saved us (me) from overwhelm and post traumatic stress. Anorexia is scary to the onlooker, because it is seemingly so destructive, and yet it is often a way to fight for one’s life. As long as there is any form of anger in a person, they are fighting to survive, no matter how that anger comes out, even if it comes out in self-destructing ways. And for survivors of sexual abuse, that anger often, at least partly, comes out as what is called “Anorexia,” as well as other kinds of “eating disorders.”

Let me introduce Lara

Lara is angry. Her goal in life is to look like an exclamation mark. So she can poke people in their eyes with her pokey, bony appearance, punishing them for being so blind. Almost turning herself into a piece of performance art. And because other parts of her do not really want to see anything, they (seemingly) want to be poked in their eyes as well…