Louis Theroux: 'Talking to Anorexia'...
Why am I so good at giving advice yet so rubbish at taking it? I think it’s a thing that all anorexics do; we know the ins and outs of this vile illness, yet we’re too scared to take our own advice to beat it. Perhaps because we all have such little self-belief that we can even beat it?
I find myself watching and re-watching recovery videos to inspire myself with hope that I can beat this. In fact, earlier this week I re-watched ‘Talking to Anorexia’ the BBC documentary by Louis Theroux. Back in 2017 when I first watched this documentary it was hard hitting, but re-watching it the other evening was even more so. It was filmed at Vincent Square, the Eating Disorder clinic that I’ve just spent three and a bit months in, which is perhaps why it was even harder to watch this time around.
What’s so frustrating is that like I said, I know the ins and outs of this illness, I know all of it’s tricks. I heard, and couldn’t agree more with Louis’ observation that ‘Anorexia offers the illusion of ultimate control at the price of years of missed opportunities’, yet I am still stuck in it’s cycle. This illness is not about intelligence and logic, gosh I sometimes wish it were! No, the patients I met whilst in Vincent Square were some of the most intelligent people that I’ve ever come across; no amount of common sense, rationality, or intellectual ability come into it, which in my opinion is what makes beating it so hard. It’s our own lack of self-belief, self-worth and fear that restrain us from breaking free from it’s malicious and manipulative talons.
At the end of the documentary Louis says that from doing the documentary he’s learnt that anorexia comes down to, ‘A lack of self-worth. It intertwines itself with positive qualities like contentiousness and self-discipline, and makes them poisonous. Demanding from those that have it a daily heroism in facing down an illness often indistinguishable from their own selves’. He hits the nail on the head! Anorexia twists qualities that our society praises and encourages, and makes them quite the opposite; toxic. So how do we recover? How do we stop allowing anorexia to turn positive attributes into toxic ones? If you know the answer please get back to me…
From what I understand it’s about re-discovering your self-worth, realising you are capable, and remembering that you weren’t always this way, you must be get back to normality again.
P.S. If you haven’t already watched Louis’ documentary called ‘Talking to Anorexia’, it’s on BBC iPlayer and is well worth a watch.