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ANOREXIC  SYSTEMS

BY KAREN KELLOCK PH.D.:

Society thinks it's superior to be social. But it's not a sign of greatness that you know the names, fames, the  games...

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Author's Note:  [KK rhyme version bottom half of page] Extreme systems like that of the anorexic show what is happening to all systems to a degree. In all sick systems there is a group siding against one, secret alliances, redundancy of moral superiority, denial of change, no true leadership only  group rule, and the making of the victim into a fool.

   

No one has power but that which comes from God.  All we see around is false power--ego displays and tyranny.  Ego and despotism is the compensation of false power which seeks to smash the meek which it reads as weak.  This is the entire basis of anorexia psychosa--an ectomorph dominated and victimized simply by living in the   Land of the Big, Brutal and Brusque.  Ectomorphy goes with the cerebrotonic temperament which is totally misunderstood and rode roughshod over in the mesomorphic-endomorphic land of the opposite temperaments:  social dominance and control.

 

At the basis of false power is social hypnotism:  strength-in-numbers, also known as consensus--the “WE” vs. “ME.”  The misfit constantly collides with the prideful majority and is rarely accepted on her terms because like all genius hers lies in contrary instincts and deviant associations couched in austere simplicity.  To the “dull  normals” around her she seems inanely simple and mad, for she has the tragic ability to see through the contradictions which “everyone knows are true.”  Having things on her own terms is only her reward for having come through these group (tough-as-steel) resistances.  She must forge enough strength and character to define her own way and go forth freely as Queen--for every day.  But until then she must learn how to deal with those in power.  Anorexia shows this conflict between the emerging self and the powers that be.

 

CREATIVITY   IS   THWARTED

 

She is born energetic and creative but meets a hard wall.  As her creative self-expression is blocked it turns inward to creative self-destruction.  Those with the dominant view are always jealous of God’s power in true genius as they think they are  Godly--because “everyone knows” the consensus is true reality.  The power of group thinking or consensual reality is the herd.

 

The more energy she has at birth the more energy can be blocked and the more self-destructive she can become.  Energy wells up ready for expression and meets an obstruction.  If as a child your drawings drew ridicule that creativity turned inward, and thwarted creators can become “bad” or “mad”.  Since the energy must go somewhere it is misapplied to sin--recycled in outworn channels of bad habit.  There it is, locked in a trap of despair.  The most energetic become the worst when warped.

 

Picture it:  As a child you are looking out the window pondering.  You’re in a beautiful state of meditation and contemplation.  Suddenly someone attacks your reality and calls you “lazy.”  Your wonderful reverie is smashed and blocks inward.  To adapt you curtail your own desires and act by rote.  The striving to be is blocked and neurosis sets in to act out the false self while submerging the true one.

 

Energy is the same as spirit--it cannot be held down without severe and dire results.  When this energy is finally released the result is self-expression--the talents of the True Self--and perfect success against overwhelming odds.  If you feel exhausted then most likely someone is robbing you of energy, your most precious asset.  People  can’t leave well enough alone--though it ain’t broke they still want to fix it!  They want your attention--if it’s elsewhere they rebel.  You may meet someone and all is congenial.  Then they discuss you with someone else, gossip degrades your image and they side against the Great as your new “friend” rejects and projects the mess back onto you.  This is just human nature as it adapts in groups the fodder of soap operas:  constant treachery in the pecking-order system.

 

I have seen the conflict between truth and social falsehood (or spirit and group tyranny) so often in psychologists who may know psychology but still want the approval of people.  Despite their head knowledge they seek the approval of the herd.  Dichotomized, they lose their psychology and become more blind than their patients.  Having lost truth they work through the image instead, insisting on being called “Dr.” to underscore their status in that system.  Split, true power is gone while the image is staunchly maintained.  Owned by the herd they persecute the lonely  anorexic who jealously prefers privacy.

 

These “pros” are outer-adaptants caught up exclusively in an outer journey of negotiated meanings and current fads of thought.  If the patient won’t truckle to their promptings to become worldly, hostility emerges.  We are now approaching a very dangerous situation with the authority figure in control and angrily wanting to make the other adapt.  The “pro” must stay on top to confirm her image and while linking with the family she gains the tragic power to institutionalize the stubborn victim.  This split between truth and image does not occur in a spiritual and creative society.  So what can one do?  Just self-educate and then insulate.

 

EARLY   TRAUMA

 

We are all born whole and unique.  So too the anorexic has a natural biological striving to “be” but meets an obstruction:  a sudden searing shock called early trauma.  Instantly all creative energies block and mobilize-for-emergency.  The brain  makes a template of the situation in a drive to correct it, and from that point on she repeats the same mistakes to correct the problem--but never can.  That in a nutshell is neurosis:  pure repetition acting in the present as if it is the past and never learning from mistakes.  Not learning--the low “C” factor of all neurotics--is due to anxiety which we know prevents learning.  The anorexic perpetually falls into the same old traps--of the group and her own.

 

For everything there is a season as  normal human evolution  takes place.  But not so when a template is involved: things are stuck and stagnant--pure repetition.  This stagnant redundancy is further frozen with sin---habits (like bulimia) to avoid anxiety from the template, the unfinished business of the past.  To succeed one must be apt to receive.  But the victim is not receptive to this whistle for she is drowning in the siren within from fear and self-doubt.  The question is what comes first: the anorexogenic system (the system to which anorexia is a predictable reaction) or bulimia, incurring harsh punishments in the system?  I hope to show it’s a constant feedback for in any system there are no real victims or culprits, just a self-equlibrating system where all parts fit the whole in mutual reinforcement.

 

FASTING   IS   GOOD,  BULIMIA  IS   BAD

 

Her sin and the system’s template intermesh.  They become one just as when drinking falls in with lower companions.  Her answer is to release this wall of concrete and fly above like a bird---at all times looking down on the system and the world.  She finds that fasting or just being thin allows her to transcend time and place and from this new vantage point (while still being stuck in a sexist and stultifying system) she becomes more powerful.  The group can never be superior for in all eras its just consensus:  “the extraordinary popular delusions and the madness of crowds.”  All through history the group was wrong, the individual right.  Only in the fasting state can she partially prove this out.  Eating, she is completely overcome.

 

The best example of early trauma, templates, systems and cycles of sin is the anorexogenic  family system--the system surrounding anorexia.   Since anorexics are perfectionist-overachievers great success occurs when eliminating the influence of these systems and sin cycles.  When purified it is now down to the attraction between like elements.  Being an intrinsic overachiever and when mature becoming a perfect battleship, her success is inevitable.  But let’s review the early life of trauma to understand the fascinating evolution and example of the incredible strength it takes to overcome rigid systems.  Remember most anorexics die.

 

ANOREXIA   PSYCHOSA:    EXTREME   SYSTEMS

 

The young girl is not born with  a “power drive” like most say.  This “power drive” results from the thwarting of the naturally expansive biological striving to become and the feeling of lack of ability which compels constant improvement.  This thwarting comes from disconfirmation in a sexist system.  “It’s a girl”--only a mere girl.  They may think she’s cute but true confirmation of her possible budding significance as a potential VIP is absent.   From this early frustration of the need to be. to feel and to have power, a “power drive” results to compensate for this deep gnawing sense of powerlessness coming from early frustration of expansion.  Later acculturation only adds to the suffering, stricken sickened sense of self.

 

CONSTANT   ENCROACHMENT

 

The anorexic constantly re-experiences the tyrannical constraints of relationships:  imprisonment and frustration.  It is vastly oversimplified to see this as “rejection of femininity” or “reversion to infancy.”  What she shows is a keen desire to become an autonomous adult. rejecting femininity which is the terror of just being a passive vessel.  What she escapes is the negative part of social existence.   It is the stronger intellectual patients who seek emaciation and fasting as the magic key to greater power in society:

 

EMACIATION   AS   ESCAPE   FROM

OR FASTING   TO   OVERCOME:

 

Non-acceptance

Ridicule

Exposure to lustful glances

Critical remarks

Aggression

Sexual advances

 

EMACIATION   OR   FASTING   TO  ACHIEVE:

 

Freedom

Beauty

Intelligence

Morality

 

Having endured the anorexogenic system which is so disconfirming the anorexic finds fasting a blissful state of well-being and overcoming.  Body and spirit are now set free--the whole body-mind is agile and nimble.  Material worries and irritations drop away.  Her confines of reality are “YES” rather than “NO” as her horizons grow ever-wider.  The spirit becomes sensitive, far-seeing and acute, the conscience quick and lively.  She fasts to transcend the system burying her alive.

 

At this point she is hospitalized.  Mere admission to the hospital, a rigid and regressive atmosphere causes grave emotional crises as nurses and doctors assume the role of severe parents.  Her escape into “symptoms”, her only means of preserving her autonomy from symbiotic and destructive relationships is blocked.  When older the crystallized anorexic personality is considered incurable by the  socialized pro who can’t sympathize with her need for reclusive isolation.  After a lifetime of encroachment, sweet solitude--precious privacy--is all she wants.  To understand this syndrome let’s look at the anorexogenic family system, the most extreme example of all such systems.

 

CONSPIRATORIAL    CLIMATES

 

The home of the anorexic is a conspiratorial climate.  All disorders are surrounded  by sick systems but the anorexic system is the most severe.  These systems have no true leadership:  they just block communication through secret alliances shifting blame to the victim when any problems arise.  To the anorexic they say: “I reject what you say and your definition of yourself (and myself) in this relationship.”  No matter what she says or does her image stays negative in the system.  The family constantly stresses her “pathological” state of mind discounting all her messages while ignoring her improvements—and they do this by mutual agreement.  This psychotic confusion between past and present is the rule of this system—despite present wellness she is seen through her sick past.  As she refuses to be stuffed with food they’ll say “she’s reverted to a grave form of anorexic behavior” though the consequences are invisible.  Let’s look at the characteristics of families with these marked communication disorders to see how they maintain the victim’s sickness.

 

LEADERSHIP

 

There is no real leadership--it’s a group dynamic which leads.  Here we see that the coalition (the group’s siding against one) is the leadership.   The group must maintain its identity (as having had the right in its superior position of mistreating the patient in the past) by maintaining the status quo.  Thus everything the patient says is ignored or disconfirmed until  she ends up thinking “the self is a fiction.”  Simultaneously no one leads because each feels a need to blame decisions on the others.  About the illness they all say “there is nothing that can be done about it.”  The subject is not the patient--she is ignored--but the illness.   The result is pathology in leadership for if nothing can be done there is no reason for anyone to take the reins and change with new circumstances.  Thus the anorexogenic system is frozen like none other:  a leaderless  but rigid group mind.  Here we see the principal of nonsummativity in systems theory:  the whole is greater than the sum of its parts—it is the system which rules and the members are only mindless robots.

 

SECRET   ALLIANCES 

Cinderella Syndrome

 

The most serious problem is the system of alliances, the basis of a large number of secret rules that are never mentioned or hinted at but distort all patterns of behavior.  Without true leadership there’s just the group-mind goal of keeping her down and gossip makes the system run.  Any mishap instantly shoots through the family grapevine as the  group mind seeks to peg, punish, institutionalize.  She is conspicuous against the ground of the pronounced sense of family, the collective identity with her excluded.

 

A very common system set-up with anorexics is the Cinderella Syndrome of two older sisters who are extremely hostile through envy, disgust and a sense of moral superiority.  This is a triad which never changes:  it’s always the same two against one and the two always wins, the victim always loses.  With their complete power and her powerlessness they can do whatever they want without fear of reprisal.  She’s long since been given “outlaw” status so the  two sisters  justify tough (cruel) love  as “helping”  the  inferior and incompetent—she’s a blank slate for all their deepest and meanest projections.  As she seeks escape in God her life vastly improves only to be followed by their accusations of manipulation and deceit—for they disbelieve  the invisible.   This set-up is so unchanging that she either dies or pulls herself up in spite of it--gaining so much strength in doing so that she wins  in all other areas as well.  The result is world success, but it’s all too-rare recovery from this mess.

 

ELDER    ALLIANCES

 

The anorexic’s symptoms appear after a change occurs in her link to the elders, her only protection from peers.  Her siblings perceive her as having “special privileges” so as they grow in power and  the parents recede the family equilibrium changes along with her presumed “privileges”.  As her siblings take control she is thrown down to the ground as her sickness takes on psychotic proportions.  At this point self-starvation and bulimia become unconscious devices just to maintain sanity in this system--to carve out a self-nurturing niche and park there.  But she is filled with shame--and if one feels shame people can always take more control.

 

GUT-WRENCHING  ISOLATION

 

The patient begins and ends in isolation from the others in her  family.  Far from being allied with any one she is secretly detested by all.  Her fatal loyalty to the older generation makes her  a stranger and a resentment to her siblings.  Friendships (her only allies) are never incorporated into the group but only criticized for being too intimate, assuming, gross, dull or morbid.  Any new associate they will quickly dissuade against her--“how can you like her--don’t you know what she is?”  However if friends or mate turn against her and ally with the family they are instantly incorporated and even bribed for loyalty.  This terrifying treachery seals her fate  as she loses all faith in all human nature.   Insecure, she had desperate  dependence on her mate and his turncoat status with the enemy chokes her  soul.  She spins down to psychoses after the ontologically fatal insight that  the world was not what she thought  it  was.  Losing all faith in man and herself, if she does not know  God her self-destruction and death is immanent.    She is squeezed out of the clan and feels so alone against the pronounced background of the rejecting family.  She’d do well to read the Psalms:  “I will not be afraid of ten thousand people who have set themselves against me”. Even with recovery the clan puts on her a ban. For her own sanity she must realize she’s the best and the anorexogenic system is the most extreme: She’s recovered not only from a fatal illness but a conspiratorial hate-filled climate to which her disease was a reaction.  But it’s a feedback mechanism and a whole system. Her recovery can change that system since its pathology is the rigid (but leaderless) group mind that “things  will never change”—so when she does (so drastically due to correct diet and fasting) it can shock them into the contagion of  enlightenment.

    

BLAME-SHIFTING  AND  GROUP  GOSSIP

 

The mothers and older females all see themselves as completely dedicated to the good of others.  Their avowed generosity crushes all criticism of their constant encroachments preventing the victim’s privacy or boundaries.  Anyone who refuses to see the mother in this light is attacked. Even indiscrete promiscuous gossip is seen as worthy “to warn others about her.” One anorexic said “My mother told even distant neighbors and acquaintances about my problems so everywhere I went I met similar hateful reactions.” These constant self-righteous invasions are the very things driving the anorexic into cerebetonia (lifelong desire for privacy) and isolation.  Due to lost boundaries and after such unrelenting harshness of her sisters  everyone seems intrusive and invasive (see “She-Bully” in Ebook-6). Bulimia is a perverted attempt to establish these boundaries:  by absorbing herself in food and cooking she is finally flourishing in her own self-nurturing reality which is normally “swallowed” by the family system.  Food means “mother”--she is mothering herself since no one else will.

 

REDUNDANCY   OF   MORAL   SUPERIORITY

 

In a system where her every word is rejected, rejecting food maintains this interactional style.  Since he’s the “professional” the therapist incorporates well into a system where all play morally superior.  But in joining the superior group he is made impotent as he confirms their false view about the patient and her illness.  He is paid to lie, to succumb to the tyranny of the  group. The whole communicational repertoire--rejection of messages, disconfirmation, invasion of boundaries, blame-shifting and secret alliances--are all highly repetitive patterns geared to keep things the same.   The anorexic system--the system to which anorexia is the only appropriate reaction--is the most rigid and repetitive of all systems whether psychotic, depressant or alcoholic.  There are so many interesting facts:  e.g. with dual alcoholism in the parents 95% of daughters become bulimic.  The eating function becomes disturbed in the context of constant arguments at meal time.  No system shows more clearly how  creative energy is blocked when the normal drive to become, to be and to be confirmed is lost.  Energy blocked turns self-destructive.  She fasts to become invisible since she already is in that system.  Subconsciously her body seeks to reflect her missing selfhood.  But the fast is also the only way she can feel good as a True Self.

 

HUMOR-HUMBLING

 

Humor becomes the system’s defense mechanism:  intelligent, witty exchanges and funny faces condescend towards the patient.  These cruel evasions are performed so subtly and with such “good will” they escape detection, becoming a secret weapon to confuse and degrade her further.  Humor can be very destructive along with  other devices to maintain the system.  The alert therapist should say “how can you stand these people who degrade you constantly?”  But the outer psychologist who only wants to join the powers that be--and pay--says “why are you so bad or mad?  Why can’t you just eat right?  Why can’t you have congenial relations with your family?”

 

WEAK   FATHERS   AND   THERAPISTS

 

If the therapist could be the substitute father the generation gap could open and the daughter could finally start living her own life.  But kept in her maligned position, even far-off separations keep her obsessed with her oppressors in her thoughts, jealousies,  resentments and  transferences.  She will see the same system played out with new people with her one-down.  Her only solution is to embark on an absorbing inner journey which she already desires with all her soul.  But due to low self-esteem, fear of being alone, supposed need for protection or “advice” or a need to feel confirmed she gets involved, stays down, feels invaded and often reacts with the same old devices of bulimia or starving.  She must face and resolve the old system and her place in it, and the greatest possible outcome could be a mature lady in new town or family. 

 

The best therapist would become an intelligent effectual father for the patient.  Her own “ineffectual father” was the product of the same system--the co-op between the other members.  Humiliation of the father was required to avoid changes, for a strong father requests change or adaptation to new needs but a group-controlled male tows the line--only to eventually be written off as his role is given to a son or son-in-law.  This changing of the guard is pure disaster on the already invaded and despicably mistreated anorexic.  The sons-in-law have had it with her and now that they rule their aim is to fix her for good.

 

EXPOSING   ALLIANCES

 

To better combat perverse triangles the goal of therapy must be to expose them.  These are secret never-acknowledged coalitions  against one.  Whenever the behavior of two betrays their secret compact the treachery is instantly washed over by meta-communication.  For example one older sister gossips to the other about the victim who can always tell when they’ve talked as the first sister becomes mean (calling it “tough love”).  If the victim confronts the pattern she is called “paranoid.”  This is the main pathology of the sick system:  the coalition first, and the simultaneous denial of it, second.

 

A “coalition” is  an unchanging joint action against a third person, in contrast to a shifting alliance in which two out of three people make common cause.  Such dualities as good-bad, positive-negative and sick-well have no place in this cybernetic model of homeostatic systems.  There are no “causes” just here and now the entire family collaborates to maintain the status quo (of two against one) and any accusation just hardens their self-defense (putting her down).  They treat the victim’s symptoms as “badness” leading to instant disqualification for respected membership in their morally superior family.  This group hate changes the course of the disease from “nervosa” to “psychosa” as she takes on the sinister  outcast archetype of the shadow–projections of others and her symptoms magnify.  The feedback (mutual reinforcement) in the cybernetic system  is evident.

 

What characterizes the family as system are the transactional patterns repeated with high frequency.  These redundancies become rules maintaining rigid stability  and the outcome are symptoms.  Redundancy is most extreme in this system and thus the victim feels there is no hope--things will never be any different.  She is literally made by these system etchings in her brain--she is programmed beyond her control.  She becomes hypersensitive to people siding against her--she feels it and she creates it from  the system template (her script).  It becomes impossible to trust female friends.  She wants to get out, to get well but is strapped in her chair while simultaneously being “hit” by what feels like outside forces demanding she binge, starve, seclude, go moot and suffer.  Later the inability to trust defines her Queenship for now she can only rule and never mingle.  To not rule means the Queen is lost--so she becomes hypersensitive to even minute changes in people’s behavior--a characteristic of the millionairess.

 

BULIMIA:  STARVED   FOR   IDENTITY

 

What these redundancies do is not “make her eat” so much as starve her identity—because the family  refuses  to confirm her.  The meaner they get the more compulsive, unconscious and essential  her eating device  to keep some sense of self.  Starving--becoming invisible--makes things congruent with her missing self-esteem.  She constantly makes new resolutions to act right, only to relapse into the same unconscious state.  Bulimia or starving simply seems to make things better.  And shame and embarrassment aside, it has long since dropped into the unconscious as  just something she must do.  But since bulimia causes more disorder in the system and her perception, she only gets worse and the system becomes more condemning, caustic, controlling and contemptible.

 

There are many who would judge the bulimic anorexic.  To those judges I would ask--have you ever been in total anxiety all the time amidst a hostile environment--your own family who hates you?  This is an environment in which you are ever-condemned without trial and it’s always the same prejudiced jury.  It’s a system in which one is ever-trapped and -tricked and in which all positive changes are re-defined as negative.  When evolved she will fast at her enemies never “eat at them”  but in the weak and sickly stage through the reptilian brain she slides back into whatever works, the only “slot” there is.  With anxiety or anger the brain auto-regresses into previously successful strategies all the while “food” means mother—she is seeking nurturance in the midst of hostility.  There  is no thought to such regression--its an automatic response to fear and her impossibly painful plight by slipping back into the behavior that “works”.  The anorexic is in the “burning building syndrome”—she feels there is no escape yet seeks it everywhere. 

 

REDUNDANCY   AND   FAMILY   RULES

 

The anorexic is blamed for all that goes wrong--everything is due to her illness.  But a family is a self-governing system based on rules established through a series of trials and errors.  All members are elements in a circuit in which no one element can have unilateral control over the rest.  The behavior of one member is not the cause but rather the effect of their behavior.  Family systems theory is the study of fixed behavior responses and their repercussions---symptoms.  But the whole system thinks the patient because of her symptoms wields power over the rest rendering them helpless, never thinking their own interactions may be causing her noxious behavior.  What came first, hatred or habit?

 

This is a common error of Western culture and psychiatry:  the idea of “self” transcending the system and hence being in control of that system (blame).  And thus their reducing the victim to impotence is just the due and right response.   Their tight and hostile alliance against her is condign punishment, and they can’t see it any other way.  Any attempt on her part to rise up is squashed, violently opposed and re-labeled.  They must maintain the scapegoat lest they face their own part in the system.

 

Over-protectiveness, encroachment and prevention of autonomy would irritate any alert therapist who would  also see how those in power dispense punishments, prohibitions or occasional presents to make their presence felt.  Mixed signals from all the pretense abound so the victim mistrusts her own  feelings.  For example the older sister backed by the mother is envious of the patient’s good looks and treats her with a mixture of concerned affection and great cruelty.  This  behavior sears deep into the anorexic’s sensitive system--if her sisters seem spiteful and nasty it is because she deserves it!  Binging and starving is all that lets her know she exists, that she can still feel, even  occasionally enjoy.

 

RIGID   HOMEOSTASIS   BRINGS   SYMPTOMS

 

The more intense the cold war waged by secret coalitions, the more secret.  These pathological systems are governed by secret rules that shun the light of day and bind the family together with pathological ties that depend on the victim’s one-down state.  Her “symptoms” develop in systems threatening her demise for they  act as submission rites to ward off aggression.  The system gives her no choice but to escape and take refuge in her symptoms, for she has no avenue to creatively self-express--only to self-destruct.

 

In systems theory we shift the focus from the individual to the wider relationship.  Here we see pure redundancy:  anorexia is monotonous repetition as each member rejects her messages.  The illness is always shrewdly presented in the same old moralistic and sacrificial tone (“symmetry through sacrificial escalation”).  Without leadership there are only alliances against her, combined with blame-shifting.  As time passes these patterns extend from the nuclear to the extended family (the sister’s children are trained to hate her too) and any new acquaintances of the patient to whom the members “tell all” to dissipate their admiration.  The victim learns to expect this and even in later years will never introduce any new contact to her family.

 

FAMILY   VS.   SELF

 

The collective sense of the family is so pronounced with her excluded that the lonely anorexic is increasingly pushed into the background.  The family tends to stick together like a brood of ducklings.  The grandmothers can play a major role in the family disorder and the father is so unsure of himself and afraid of independent women he married someone with many shortcomings.  However intelligence, adaptability, culture, imagination and interests appeals to the father so he admires the over-achieving daughter but hides it when mother is around who becomes hostile and envious.  This engenders more mixed signals and interlocking jealousy patterns.  Female competition can be very cruel in this world.  (See Jung’s work The Three Sisters to see the deep and dangerous archetypes evoked.)  Usually it ends in two against one and this constellation never changes.  The victim never wins and gets used to always losing.  But overcoming this turgid template can be done and the strength garnished to do so could make her a world leader in her field.

 

ACHIEVERS  MEET  SEXISM  THROUGH  FOOD

 

Sexism is a suffocating obstruction to achieving females as the energy turns inward.  Perhaps they would have “chosen” alcoholism or drugs as their “sin of choice” but the loss of control, sure institutionalization or further degradation by family would have been intolerable to these types.  Anorexia and bulimia are the only ways to recycle  their enormous energy, ingather their forces, create their own reality, use their own time in their own way and still stay relatively in control of the situation.   Anorexia is usually a feminine illness from well-to-do families.  Why?  Because these families often ensure smooth-running solidarity and harmony through authoritarian set-ups and the subordination of woman.

 

ENANTIODROMIA:

The Bottom to the Top, the Top to the Bottom

 

Having absolutely no control of the sexist system the anorexic drives this energy inward to absolute control of her own world--herself.  If she can learn to turn  lemons into lemon-aid and overcome this greatest obstacle--the stubborn system keeping her down--she builds a perfect battleship for war and the power to manage a huge world corporation.  So great is her energy that when held down and turned inward she is the most self-destructive of all (bankruptcy, binges, brawls), but garnished and turned outward to good her self-improvement reaches monolithic levels.  If she can learn to harness, tame and redirect this enormous energy she can greatly benefit the world of other persecuted pansies priming to push-up to powerful predominance.  When she transcends all disorder (beyond mere eating patterns) and attains immaculate order in all areas instead,  all that energy goes outward to world success.  For those survivors the sky’s  the limit as the held-down energy bursts forth and catapults them up to greatest influence.

 Like all systems the family tends towards homeostasis.  But no living system can survive unless free to evolve to change when conditions change.  A system dies if it has such rigid homeostasis that even the slightest positive feedback like her transformation is ignored.  It will come back to haunt them as enantiodromia occurs:  as the worst becomes the best.  This inversion of systems means one goes up and the other(s) go down for nothing stays the same.  When that whole homeostasis depended on her illness and she is now well and thriving something has to break.  Throughout history the family was a homeostatic barrier against social change and the most rapid changes are seen today.  Objections are eliminated in these systems by eradicating--making impotent--those who object!

 

ANOREXIA   IS   A   SOCIAL  ILLNESS

 

“A man’s foes shall be they of his own household.”  Jesus also said that “he that loveth father and mother more than me is not worthy of me.”  Of particular import “a prophet is never known in his (her) own home or town.”  So true.  For nothing the anorexic does can ever change the image--the leaderless group-mind simply redefines the new situation to suit the template with her one-down.  Anorexic families are the most stubbornly resistant to change, causing a crises in a system from which there is no escape but to recycle energy inward through symptoms:  homeostasis.  Then her magnified symptoms compel the others to join forces to deal with her illness--as hand joins in hand they are more solid than peas in a pod.  All group photographs exclude her, as do their parties. Gossip is the only way she is included.  Otherwise when she walks in the room all turn aside.

 

Could there be any doubt that anorexia is a social illness, particularly since it is specifically bound up with the extreme system described?  Yet hospitalization--although it removes her from the family--rarely brings permanent relief and generally causes deterioration of her state as it is just as bound up by hierarchies, demands and domination, sexism, deceitful alliances with family and disconfirmation of her.  Any objections she may have to hospital food or any desire she may have to be fruit-fat-fastarian--the cure for bulimia, food addiction or failure to thrive--will likely be met with mockery and rejection.   It is all just “another facet” of her illness.  They already know how her intelligence can justify anything with science research.

 When all have turned their back on you and you still trust God while forsaken and suffering, the reward is world success and nothing less.

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STIGMA SYSTEMS

from  DAILY FASTARIAN  by  Karen  Kellock  (The Anorexic System in Verse)

It was all just a tired regime (to the extreme) who blindly worked as a team.  Her stigma was their theme and it froze her in a scream.  Due to the drum beat things weren’t what they seem but after she separates and repents it’s all forgiven—she’s in her own stream reigning supreme.

ABSTRACTS:  This  chapter is about the stigmatized in any system.  Anorexia is one such stigma but these extreme scapegoat set-ups are seen in all pathology—alcoholic, schizophrenic, sociopathy or any other disease.  There’s a feedback mechanism here that reinforces the problem so the anorexic only wants to please but due to the following patterns her sin can’t cease.

 

BULIMIA  IS  BAD,  FASTING  IS  GOOD

 

Fasting and repentance clears up all problems but mostly the lack of success—the lack of breakthrough.  But the anorexic has real physical sensitivities that make extra weight mean fate.  Until she learns how to live and eat she’s likely to assume anorexic proclivities like bulimia just to relieve the pressure.  With immune-suppression she may also have candida creating a feeling of sluggishness like she has a pillow in the abdomen--she needs the fasting regimen, or just to feel good and light bulimia becomes her hang-up (a very bad omen).  For bulimia is a devil to live with and the system reacts accordingly.  But because of her sensitivities and tendencies  she tends to relapse even worse--as things degenerate she’s ready for a hearse.  What a disease, for no system is more homeostatic and extreme than the “anorexogenic system”.  As the  feedback builds up like an arm race the overachieving ana ceases to be the ace.  The “ana system”  reflects all systems to a lesser degree so it’s important to understand and really see (without blaming the family tree) how it escalates while body, family and hope ceases to be.

 

The question is: what came first: the anorexic, or the anorexogenic system?  What she ignored and disconfirmed, then became ill, or was she shirked because she was sick? Was it the depression, or the depressogenic system? The schizophrenic, or the schizophrenogenic system?  What came first: suspicious accusation and then compulsively acting out the script, or bad acts bringing bad reactions—of others being miffed? For as the bible says,  “one’s foes are in his own household”.  For smart girls in sexist systems anorexia is one reaction to the cold. Being separate from the fold they can't unfold until they release the old system (mold) then go for the gold. It's the sad story for however virtuous she is the low only speak of her faults, even as in a fruitful  garden they only see the bees.  It has to do with how people act in groups—those in the loop put the stigmatized misfit through hoops as in her life they snoop then give all the scoop.   Is it sexism incurring this world pandemic or is it just disconfirmation of the person?  Since males are becoming anorexic as well it’s an important story to tell.  I will describe the family cell  then let you think on the subject (ruminate, dwell).

 

TYRANNY  OVER  CREATIVE  ECTOS

False Power Smashes the Meek  Seen as “Weak”

  

True power comes from God.  What we see all around  is    false power--ego displays and tyranny  which seeks  to smash the meek which it reads  as “weak”.  This is the basis of anorexia psychosa: a tiny ectomorph squashed in the land of the big, brutal and brusque--the misunderstood and private cerebrotonic victimized by a social, dominant or  controlling.   False power is strength-in-numbers (social hypnotism): the consensus of  “WE” vs.  “ME.”  The misfit  continuously collides with the prideful majority and is rarely accepted on her terms.   Genius is characterized by contrary instincts and deviant associations (“odd”) couched in austere simplicity--to the  “dull  normals” conformed in groups  this  seems inanely simple and mad, particularly with her tragic ability to see through the contradictions which “everyone knows are true.”  Having things on her own terms is her eventual  reward for coming through these group (tough-as-steel) resistances.  She must forge enough strength and character to define her own way and live freely as queen for every day.  Until then  she must  deal with those in power:  anorexia is one conflict between the emerging self and the powers that be. 

                                   CREATIVITY   IS   THWARTED                                 

Background on Group Dominance

The dominant majority are  jealous of  God coming through genius, thinking they are truth  (because “everyone knows” the consensus is true reality).  They can't separate truth from group thought and this  consensual validation of reality--group tyranny--is the "herd". Since the group blocks the creative,  genius  meets  a hard wall:  Energy turned inward,   creative self-expression becomes creative  self-destruction.  The more energy he has  the more self-destructive he gets as self-expression  meets  obstruction.  If as a child your drawings drew ridicule that creativity turned inward--and  thwarted creators  become bad or mad as the energy is misapplied and recycled in dead habit.  There it is, locked in a trap of despair:  the most creative  become the worst when warped (without repair or a prayer).  In the ana system the block is a  cold glare and it's  more than she  can bare.  

 

Picture yourself as a child  looking out the window pondering  in  mystical  contemplation.  Suddenly your reverie is blocked when someone calls you “lazy.”  The mood  crashed, energy smashed, hopes are dashed, self-esteem bashed, destiny trashed--all because you and the dominant clashed with ridicule unabashed.  As energy turns inward you act by rote  just to adapt:  The striving to be is blocked as  you act out the false self and submerge the true one.  Energy is  spirit--it cannot be held down without  disastrous results but when finally released  it  hits  the mark of pure success  against overwhelming odds.  If you feel exhausted  someone is robbing you of energy, your most precious asset.  People: they can’t leave well enough alone: though it ain’t broke, they still wanna to fix it.  They want your attention--if it’s elsewhere, they rebel.  You may meet someone and all is congenial until they discuss you with someone else, gossip degrades your image and they side against the Great.  This is human nature as it adapts in groups, the fodder of soap operas:  constant treachery in the pecking-order system (mean fate).

 

This conflict  between truth and social consensus (or spirit and group thought) can often be seen in psychologists who know the ropes but still want social approval: dichotomized, they become more blind than their patients, working through their image and insisting on being called "Dr"  to underscore their status in that system.  Split, true power recedes  while the image is staunchly maintained: to the world they're chained as they become bored (drained), the patient's image remains stained, nothing's truly explained and they aren't healing as they've been trained.  What's been gained?  Owned by the world they persecute the lonely  anorexic (who prefers privacy) through   current  fads of thought and  promptings to become worldly.  Hostility emerges in this  dangerous situation with the authority figure compels the  private anorexic  to adapt.  The “pro” must stay on top so he links with "the family"  gaining the  tragic power to institutionalize the stubborn victim.  One ana said:  "I was 35 when I met an elderly doctor who took my side against hostile siblings and under his care I recovered into my own separate identity."  She saw the sick system in all it's obscenity, and she  got serenity when  someone finally  took her side--what wonderful amenity.  To understand all toxic systems we’ll look at the anorexic as the most extreme example and  start at the beginning:  

 

  EARLY   TRAUMA 

 

We're all born whole and unique.  The anorexic strives to find her true self   in all it's creative glory   but meets an obstruction:  a sudden, searing shock called early trauma.  Instantly  all energy blocks (mobilized-for-emergency) while the brain  makes a template of the situation in a drive to correct it.  From that point on she repeats the same mistakes to correct the problem, but never can.  That in a nutshell  is neurosis:  pure repetition, acting in the present as if it is the past and never learning from mistakes since constant anxiety   prevents learning.  And so the  anorexic falls into the same old traps--of the group, and her own.  For everything there is a season (in normal human evolution) but not so when a template is involved--things are stuck and stagnant in pure repeat.  This stagnant redundancy is further frozen with sin--habits (like bulimia) to avoid anxiety over the template and  the past.  To succeed one must be apt to receive by maintaining connection to God.  Sin breaks this connection, failure occurs and the sick system is reinforced.  The ana recovers and transcends the system when she stops breaking that connection through repentance.  With this  catapulting of self-esteem the system suddenly fades in importance—she’s on a new beam as she sees through their scheme and realizes her dream (in her eye, a gleam).  It was all just a tired regime (to the extreme) who blindly worked as a team.  Her illness was their theme and it froze her in a scream.  Due to the  drum beat  things weren't  what they seem but now it's all forgiven—she’s in her own stream reigning supreme.  Now that you know the good end, let's investigate the syndrome in the middle  for the ana system  is a riddle.

 

    TRANSCEND  SYSTEM,  SHIP  COMES  IN

 

Her sin and the  system  intermesh:  they become one just as alcoholics fall  in  with lower companions.  The dominant (usually fat) majority always assume they're right so she encounters the same setup (feeling slighted)  in  neighborhood, town, sorority--the majority's  always the authority.  Her answer is to transcend  the concrete wall of dumbed down groupies  and fly above like a bird--looking down on the sick system and world who think they’re preferred.  She finds that fasting or getting thin allows this ascendance and from this new vantage point (while still being stuck in a sick, sexist and stultifying system) she gains new power.  Though she’s still powerless in the system  in truth  the group is never superior for it's mere consensus:  “the extraordinary popular delusions and madness of crowds.”  All through history the group was wrong, the individual right but only in fasting can she prove this out--eating, she’s completely  overcome  as her  weakened  mind falls in with the majority view (about her).  Since anorexics are perfectionist-overachievers great success occurs when eliminating the influence of these systems (of identity struggles) and sin cycles (of bulimia)  for once purified it's now down to the attraction between like elements.  Being an intrinsic overachiever (and when mature a perfect battleship)  her success is inevitable.  Understanding  this system reveals the incredible strength it takes to overcome it.  Remember, most anorexics die.

 

  EXTREME   SYSTEMS: 

Cold Hard Walls

 

It is vastly oversimplified to call anorexia a "power drive" for this tendency is a reaction  to being disconfirmed  in a sexist system.   “It’s a girl”--a mere girl, not a budding VIP--and this minimization compels constant improvement (perfectionist "overachievement") while in the disconfirming system.     From this early frustration a power drive  emerges to compensate--and later acculturation only adds to the suffering of the stricken sense of self.  The anorexic constantly encounters tyranny in relationships (imprisonment, trivialization and frustration).  It is again oversimplified to see this as   “rejection of femininity” or “reversion to infancy" for what she has is a  keen desire to become an autonomous adult, rejecting femininity only insofar as it congers up the terror of being  a passive vessel.  What she escapes is the negative part of social existence and it’s the stronger intellectual victims who seek emaciation and fasting as the magic key to greater power in society.  For if thin she feels she will overcome non-acceptance, ridicule, lustful glances, criticism, aggression, sex advances or achieve freedom, beauty, intelligence and morality.

 

Having endured the anorexogenic system which is so disconfirming  the anorexic finds fasting a blissful state of well-being and overcoming.  Body and spirit are now set free--the body-mind is agile and nimble,  material worries and people irritations drop away and  his reality says “YES” rather than “NO” as her horizons grow wider.  The spirit becomes sensitive (far-seeing and acute) and the conscience quick and lively as she  fasts to transcend the system burying his alive.  At this point she is hospitalized.  Mere admission to the hospital--a rigidly regressive atmosphere--causes  emotional crises as nurses and doctors become severe parents blocking her  escape into “symptoms”--her only means of preserving his autonomy.  When older the “crystallized anorexic personality” is considered incurable by the  socialized pro who can’t sympathize with her need for reclusive isolation,  but after a lifetime of encroachment  sweet solitude is all she wants. The anorexogenic family system is the most extreme example of   a conspiratorial climate to which illness is an adaptation.  The sexist system is just as tough on anorexic boys as it expects  a left-brained  conformity to the male reality  (competitive, crude, cold,  cruel).

 

  HOSTILE  ENVIRONMENTS 

Conspiratorial Climates

 

Sick systems block success if one remains a mess. The home of the anorexic is a  conspiratorial climate lacking true leadership, being run by the leaderless group mind.  This isn't democracy but  the  contagion of madness, for groups need  leaders to take the reins to flow with changes and  evolve.  But this  system  is stagnant as it blocks communication through secret alliances while shifting all  blame to a weakened   target.   To the anorexic they say: “I reject everything you say and how you see yourself  (and myself) in this relationship.” To her dreams and goals it is "delusion of grandeur"--another sign of sickness.  No matter what she  does her image is stained through mutual agreement (they're all trained). Even if explained, they stay no-brained so to the rot-slot she’s chained.  Energy drains, spirit wanes and in pain she remains as  on her parade it rains.  Her attempts to be social are too strained (in that area she’s never gained or reigned) so to the family she’s an outlaw who will never improve.  Confusion  between past and present is the rule--despite present wellness she is seen through the past (to the group ego she’s a mule). It isn't cool how he's made a fool--a jewel used as a tool (how  the cruel win the duel).   As she refuses to be stuffed with food they’ll say “she’s still sick” though they may be thick brick hicks who torment for kicks. Laying  traps and  tricks is  easy for the group that sticks.  But  your  solo  life will click--with complete success (and quick)--when you eat fat and  fast for in one minute you're new (tick).   Systems that block talk  maintain the sick, and the solution is fastarian solitude (becoming serenely  attractive--a chick). 

 

 SICK   GROUPS   WITHOUT   LEADERSHIP 

Naked and Alone: Opinion Peddlers and Gossip-Meddlers

 

Without true leadership the group dynamic  leads through the  coalition of the group siding against one--who feels naked, conspicuous, despised and alone.  It  maintains  its identity (of  having had the right in it's superior position to mistreat the anorexic  in the past) by maintaining the status quo.  And  so the patient  is ignored or disconfirmed until she feels “the self is a fiction.” It's the principal of nonsummativity:  the whole is greater than the sum of it's parts--the members are mere tools for it's  the system that rules.  No one leads as each  blames  decisions on the others, resulting in  pathology of leadership:   the  system is frozen into the  hypnotic beat of the mob  mind.  Being blind, it can be so unkind.   It leaves the ana behind (so long as she’s image-confined). They are rigidly combined as with her illness they're  entwined so being maligned she keeps to  the grind (bulimia's an  unconscious bind).  Her answer is eating right then  fasting--a real find as through  God she’s refined.   The constant gossip (going way beyond the family as they love to collude,  involving  others in the feud) is so painful that to her illness  she’s glued.  Those who intrude make her feel crude (all about food) so to people problems the  fast says "conclude".  Eating, her bad image is stewed  but fasting so changes her mood  she thinks "to hell with the rude--through God's eyes I'm viewed.  In the fast I can transcend the vicious dude and the whole brood.”

 

  SECRET   ALLIANCES: 

Cinderella and Other Sister Setups

 

The most serious problem  is the secret  alliances  that  keep her down, and gossip makes the system run.  Any mishap instantly shoots through the family grapevine as the group mind seeks to peg,  punish,  institutionalize.  She is conspicuous against the ground of the collective identity with her excluded.  Feeling the misfit-outcast makes her habit last  for they act as though "the family" is a prestige institution to which she’ll never have access. Though the system is leaderless  there are ring-leaders: catalysts for trouble.  It's one of the older sisters who always breaks her bubble and dissuades the others (making her stubble) as around this one troublemaker they huddle. They rely on her for info-advice and don't care if it's a muddle--they must go to battle.  As the years pass and new members rise up she’s forgotten, the black sheep cast out and rotten. Anorexics die unless they fast and find God (their only tie).  Women without family  cry!  But transcending high above the system (bye) they find a new ally into  whose arms they fly.  For the true anorexic this means staying thin (spry), forgetting the system's lie and doing her work so the rich (overcoming) insights the world can now apply. 

 

A common setup is  the Cinderella Syndrome of two  older sisters who are hostile through envy, disgust and a sense of moral superiority.  This is a triad which never changes as  it’s always the same two against one as the two always win and the victim always loses (deranges).  With their total power they act  without fear of reprisal as her  outlaw status  justifies cruel control as  “helping”  the   incompetent who's a blank slate for their meanest (and deepest)  shadow-projections.   In this rigid setup she either dies or pulls herself up in spite of it--gaining so much strength she attains  success (but it’s all too-rare, recovery from this mess).  Release with love, God will bless: No more balancing factions like chess, for the  ana can't optimize while people-obsessed for with collective rejection  on her mind there’s no progress.  It helps to weigh less (reducing stress)  but our new address is God's caress--no more bulimic excess, just finesse.  That ends distress (no need to confess).  I don't want to press  but if it's to power you need access, end all guess and let purity be your dress.  Then just express and you'll  impress  with "pure" noblesse.

 

   ELDER    ALLIANCES  AND  ISOLATION 

 

The most critical symptoms appear when her link to the elders is broken--her only protection from peers.  Her sisters perceive her as having “special privileges”  so as they grow in power and  the parents recede  the family equilibrium changes along with her presumed “privileges”.  As her siblings take tyrannical control  her sickness takes on psychotic proportions as self-starvation or  bulimia become unconscious devices to stay sane in a hostile environment.  But, she’s filled with shame--and if one feels  shame  others can easily take  control.  Malicious gossip takes its toll--that's her rotten  image, in a bowl.  They've put her in a dirty hole--after dissuading all against her that's the  poll so panic sets in which  sears her soul.  Bulimia is her self-nurturing device to  console  since no one will extol.  That's her role--being sick so the system stays whole.   Though she’s sweet as a foal her  own mother has become a troll.

 

The anorexic begins and ends in isolation from everyone  in her  family.  Far from being allied with any one she is secretly detested by all.  She fasts so they hate her.  She constrains to certain foods so they hate her.  She is different and insulated so they hate her.  Her  fatal loyalty to the older generation who are more understanding makes her  a stranger (and resentment) to her siblings while her friendships (allies) are  criticized for being too intimate, gross, dull or lazy.   Any new friend they will quickly   dissuade--“how can you like her--don’t you know what she is?”  Friends, mates or stranger allying with "the family" are instantly incorporated and bribed for loyalty, and this terrifying treachery seals her fate  as she loses all faith in  human nature.   In the context of so much hostility her   desperate  dependence on the mate means his turncoat status chokes her  soul.  She spins down to psychoses as her world turns dark and (unless she knows God)  her death (from abandonment) immanent.  There are many war survivors with terrible memories--how is that different?  Because in war you know it was bad (you're not to blame) but  when it's your own family one thinks "how could they all be wrong? (shame). They could because they're pack animals, and you're  not:  that’s  the whole knot.   If one is rich they're all bought  so in a class war  she’s  caught  (a tragic  plot).  There’s no winning here since she can't rise up (rot).   They're on a yacht, and she’s  just their  blood  clot.

 

                      AGEISM  AND  SEXISM 

 

It's unlikely she can get rich having this itch.  She has talents and drive erupting since five but can't get up  because she’s weak (seen as “freak”).  The older sisters say "you're so deluded, thinking you’ll succeed this late  so of course we don't believe you."  It's a paradox that the older siblings insult with "age"  when they're also older  but that's the block (a boulder).  Even if she’s the best it's too late (being over the crest).  So whenever  they fail to find a flaw  they'll pull the age card--that's how sisters  block  the bard, as even more her image is charred ("too old and sick to walk a yard").  She-bullies are the "old" guard, but keeping her down is hard for if she fasts her image remains un-scarred.  Fasting into agelessness  and repenting into purity will show her  sincerity--that she’s going to make it (a female  rarity).  It’s strange her “feminist” sisters are sexists, but these are the worst sexists in the world! It's all  "symbolism without substance"--they want ambitious females down (in her writings, drown) to confirm their worldview (she’s just a clown, not renowned).  They don't want an upstart making a dent with their kids--it's their view getting the highest bids.  So to see her the sister forbids lest the whole clan skids.  Regarding her it's good rids--they'll train the kids on their own  grids and keep her under lids.

 

   INVASION  OF  BOUNDARIES 

 

The older women are above criticism, “completed dedicated to family” and anyone who disagrees is attacked.  Yet they invade ana's  boundaries—it's these contradictions creating  insanity, in fact.   The  constant intrusions drive ana into permanent  privacy and isolation (only silence is honest, people are  cracked).  Where she’s concerned  the family's without  tact and they make such impact it's hard not to react--then against her more is stacked. They've made  a pact, and she’s so sad-sacked she can't attract.   Due to lost boundaries--and after such unrelenting harshness of her sisters--everyone seems intrusive and invasive, as bulimia's an attempt to establish high  walls:  By absorbing herself in food and cooking she’s finally flourishing in her own self-nurturing reality which is normally “swallowed” by the family system.  Food means “mother”—she’s mothering herself since no one else will. Or, she rejects all food just as they reject her: no words, no food—fasting  maintains their interactional style.   She’s on trial--will she stay vile because of the hostile? She’s not free of guile if making trouble (a pile) so the  only solution is becoming worthwhile--the essence of this file.  Repentance will  make her great  if rid of old freight.

 

JOE  SMO  PRO

She Eats Crow

 

As  the “eating disorders specialist” enters the picture there’s more  invasion, an excruciating equation as she continues falling in  station.   Since he’s the “professional” he incorporates well into a system where all play morally superior, but in joining the superior group he's made impotent as he confirms their false view about the patient and her illness.  He is paid to succumb to the tyranny of the  group and their cruel repertoire--rejection of messages, disconfirmation, ignoring and exclusion, invasion of boundaries,  blame-shifting and particularly secret alliances.   The anorexic system (the system to which anorexia is the only appropriate reaction) is more rigidly repetitive than any other--whether  psychotic, depressant, or alcoholic--and this drumbeat makes bulimia an unconscious device in that system.  For example, with dual alcoholism in the parents  95% of daughters become bulimic as the eating function becomes disturbed in the context of  arguments at meal time.  The terror of tyranny is felt when down (stuffed) so she purges to stay up (free of rebuff).  No system shows more clearly how  creative energy is blocked and turns self-destructive  when the normal drive to become, to be, and to be confirmed is lost.  She’s a robot caught in a riptide—as their hatred makes her condition worse,  she’s cursed since they won’t converse.  If only they’d disperse  then things could reverse but they’re right in her face, worse than a nurse.  To her they are blank (terse), so in food she’s immersed (it gets perverse).    After terrifying suffocation combined with disconfirmation  only separation and the fast avoids  the hearse.   

 

  HUMOR-HUMBLING 

 

They keep her down through humor:   clever witty exchanges and funny faces condescend  in such subtle ways and with such “good will” they escape detection--secret weapons of confusion and degradation.   They gossip is then broadcast on the streets—it’s like their treats. (There’s no family loyalty when it comes to the stigmatized--they just separate from the despised).  Humor is so destructive the alert therapist should say “how can you stand these people degrading you constantly?”  But the outer psychologist who only wants to join the powers that be--and pay--says “why are you so bad or mad?  Why can’t you just eat right? Why can't you understand kidding? Why can’t you have congenial relations with your family who are so concerned about you?”  She begins to feel she’s paranoid, for no one sees why she’s so  annoyed.  People accept the surface of things while to her it’s the undercurrent that rings.  The older females “want only to help her” but there’s so much unacknowledged cruelty that when she states the case it’s like mace—she’s attacked (for not knowing her place) and it shoots through the grapevine as “another disgrace” that can’t be erased.   They don’t forget--they continue  the chase.  

 

  BULIMIA:  STARVED   FOR   IDENTITY 

 

These repetitive put-downs don’t  “make her eat” so much as starve her identity—the family  refuses  to confirm her (but broadcasts gossip constantly) so the more self-righteous  they get  the more compulsive, unconscious, and essential  her eating device  to keep some sense of self.  She makes resolutions to act right only to relapse into the same unconscious state.  Bulimia or starving makes things better  and (shame and embarrassment aside) have long since dropped unconscious as something she must do.  But, since bulimia is a chaotic catastrophe she only gets worse and the system becomes more condemning, caustic, controlling and contemptible.  There are many who judge the bulimic anorexic.  To those I would ask: have you ever been in total anxiety in a hostile environment--your own family who hates you?  It’s a system in which you’re ever-condemned without trial and it’s always the same prejudiced jury--you’re ever-trapped and always-tricked while evil is called “good” and good is called “bad”.  I myself would rather fast at foes but with these patients the weakened  reptilian brain just slides back into “whatever works”— with trouble it automatically regresses to old ways and quirks.  She suffers from lack of praise, her life’s in a blaze. They see her as crazed—will anyone give her a gaze?  To her bulimia  pays though it sure puts her  in a daze.   

 

   BURNING   BUILDING  SYNDROME 

                                              

Any stigmatic is blamed for everything as if he's  bigger than the group (in panic they broadcast it to anyone who will listen) and in anorexics this is the “burning building syndrome” as from their collusive condemnation she seeks escape from the loop.  She’d jump over hoops to be part of their troops but it's not her kind of fun (whoop).  Yet she’s a threat  so they gossip then tell everyone the scoop.   Even with far-off separations she’s stuck in shame though it's the system who’s lame.   For  the family is a self-governing  whole system whose every  circuit is connected to each other: The behavior of one is not the cause but rather the effect of the behavior of parts.   The others think  her symptoms  wield  power over the rest  (cold hearts)  never realizing  their own repetitive disconfirmations are creating the symptoms (it smarts).   They feel she’s “controlling” so reducing her  to impotence (eyes like darts) is the due and right response  (the rejection arts). To their tight and hostile alliance it's due justice for tarts!  Any attempt on her part to rise up is squashed, violently opposed  and re-labeled.  They must  keep her down lest they lose the crown.   They want agreement of the town—to ana  everyone wears  a frown.  But the fast makes her renown--her great infamy becomes fame when gone is the shame.   She must recognize and mourn the sour  system  for they took aim and landed a great dame! She must now lay claim to her birthright of fame and forgive/transcend this old game.   It was just a system--a circuited frame.  If she can see the stigmatic system for what it is she’ll have acclaim.

 

All stigmatic systems operate on similar principals.  Encroachment and blocked autonomy would irritate any alert therapist  who can see how the dominant  dispense punishments, prohibitions or occasional presents to make their presence felt.  Mixed signals from  pretense, hypocrisy, jealousy, old hates and grudges  abound  so ana mistrusts her own  feelings (“am I sound?’).  For example, the older sister backed by the mother  is envious of the patient’s attractiveness  (from fasting) and treats her with a mixture of concerned affection and great cruelty.  This  behavior sears deep--it makes her feel so cheap as she runs off to weep.  They disparage her a heap (from her family there’s is nothing  to keep).  She wonders how to get rid of these creeps--jump off a building (leap)? From good only bad she reaps, and her descent is steep. If only she could forever sleep (if only she could reject them  all--clean sweep).  But  then  if her sisters seem spiteful it's because she deserves it—for binging and starving is all  that lets her feel she exists, even enjoy.  If only she’d been a boy there’d be other things to employ.  Bulimia is her toy preventing her  from being  destroyed--until she finds a much better one: God's nearness through the fast to deploy while she find’s her work a much better joy.

 

  FAST,  FIND  FATHER  OR   REPEAT 

Strong Male Needed

 

Humiliation of her own  father was required to avoid changes,  for a strong father would have demanded adaptation to changed circumstances  but a group-controlled man tows the line--only to  written off with time as the sons-in-law become prime  (as in with the sisters they chime). To display strength (show-off to compensate for being pansies to their cruel cronies) they become slime bought for a dime.  To recover, the stigmatic  must extricate from this grime (of grubby gluttons and grouches) for when  the dust settles (from the mean meddlers) she’ll be left standing there--God's heir and so beautifully rare.  But if she stays stuck (stuffing starch) this  changing of the guard is pure disaster on the already invaded and curtailed anorexic.  The sons-in-law have had it with her and now that they rule  they're going to fix her for good (they’ve been schooled).    It's irrelevant if  they've been fooled--for at this point the only  issue is homeostasis (to which her  only solution is oasis).  One stigmatized ana felt she had this: having escaped to the desert in '85 (taking the dive) she found a kindly elder doctor who saw the sibling setup and   sought to revive.  Finally she had arrived  for someone took her side: she was alive and more than survived, she started to thrive.  All along she had been right! So she resuscitated  her goals and began to write (to strive).  It was too far for her surly sly siblings to drive  so she finally began to live through solitude, fasting and dependence on God.  Her foes were her stepping stone—she needed them to bring out her best, all alone in the old west.  Now she’s tough as steel for she can finally  feel. She began to  adore the seasons of the day for she created  a happy home with pets (through them she healed).  “Walks with dog, talks with God” she’d transcended the heels, stuck to fruit/fat/fastarian meals and cooed “about nothing I squeal for  I'm becoming ideal  with  mass appeal”.   

 

 

Think on these things:  The stigmatized queen can't run their race for she loses her grace when they’re rude to her face.  If fasting in the desert  she’d  ascend to space  and  God’s embrace--but stuck in the system she’s so maligned that  even far-off separations keep her obsessed with her oppressors in her thoughts, jealousies,  resentments and especially transferences as she plays out  the same sick system  with new people.  Without the fast or knowing God her  low self-esteem, fear of being alone, felt  need for protection or confirmation makes her  get involved, stay down,  feel invaded and then react with the same old devices of bulimia or starving.  She must face and resolve the old system and her place in it, and the greatest possible outcome is a mature lady in new town or family.  A strong male is needed here--the best therapist  is an  intelligent, effectual father  who can intervene, for her own “ineffectual father” was the product of the same system (the co-op between the other members).  She made promises to be strong (in her defense) only to cave in when a sister resents.   Weak  males can be bought or just naturally conform to what the majority represents  but strong males see that as two cents, devoid of contents.  They are God's descents--to human  packs they are dissidents.  To the tired ana  weak males are "toads or frogs”--very sad events but as for a strong male, all this trouble he prevents.   She must learn to  love and depend on God—She’ll  listen to her vents, do better works then gents  and pay all the rents.

  

 EXPOSING   ALLIANCES 

 

Think about it:  The goal of therapy must be to combat perverse triangles by exposing these secret, never-acknowledged coalitions  against one.  For whenever secret compacts are evident the treachery is instantly washed over by meta-communication.  For example, one older sister gossips to the other about ana who  can always tell as the first sister becomes mean (calling it “tough love”).  If the victim confronts the pattern she’s “paranoid" and this is the main characteristic of sick systems:  the coalition first and the simultaneous denial of it, second—a mean madness-making matrix.  A coalition is  an unchanging joint action against a third person, in contrast to a shifting alliance in which two out of three people make common cause.  Such dualities as good-bad, positive-negative, and sick-well have no place in this cybernetic model of homeostatic systems.  There are no “causes” just here and now the entire family collaborates to maintain the status quo (of two against one) and any accusation just hardens their self-defense (putting her down).  Whether or not they're right to see stigmatic symptoms as “badness” leading to instant disqualification for membership  in their morally superior family,  it is hidden coalitions that create insanity, as any reaction (tantrum) becomes the new target which is  never forgotten--the image stays rotten as she’s seen as inanity.

 

What characterizes the family as system are repetitious (robotic) interactions with no receptivity to changes. These redundancies become rules insuring (rigidly self-righteous) stability  and the outcome are symptoms.  Though all systems have this tendency,  redundancy is most extreme in the anorexogenic system so the stigmatic feels there’s  no hope (she knows the rope--the one way to cope). She is literally  made by these system etchings in her brain (she’s on a slope):  Being programmed beyond her control  she becomes hypersensitive to people siding against her (just like a soap): she feels it (mope) and she creates it (through fearfully fickle female  friends, or dope).  She wants to get out (widen her scope)  and get well  but is strapped in her chair while  being “hit” by  forces demanding he binge, starve, seclude, go moot, suffer and grope.  Later, the inability to trust defines her Queenship--when older, she can only rule but never  mingle.  The true leader  (after the  war)  is  hypervigilant to subtle changes in the moods of others--and this  (true independence) will be her  greatest strength.   It will keep her on top for  life (the whole length).

 

   RIGID   HOMEOSTASIS

 Create Symptoms

 

This is the essence of the stigmatic systems regarding both sexes:  The more intense the cold war waged by secret coalitions,  the more secret.  Such  systems governed by secret rules shun the light of day while binding the family together with pathological ties that depend on the target’s one-down state.  Thus any symptoms are like a refuge acting as  submission rites to ward off aggression.  The target has no avenue to creatively self-express--only to self-destruct.  The focus of  systems theory is not the  individual but the wider relationship and here we see pure redundancy:  in the ana system bulimia is monotonous repetition as each member rejects her messages and the symptom is shrewdly presented in moralistic sacrificial tones (symmetry through sacrificial escalation).  Without leadership there are only alliances against "the one" combined with blame-shifting and as the years pass these patterns spread to the extended family (the sibling’s children are trained to hate her too), and any new acquaintances of the patient to whom the members “tell all”.    The stigmatic knows this and even in later years will never introduce new contacts to “the family”.

 

FAMILY   VS.  SELF 

 

It’s the same with stigmatized males. The family sticks together like a brood of ducklings (“avoid him, ignore him, never call back”).  The collective sense of family is so pronounced with him excluded that the lonely target compelled to fail is increasingly pushed into the background until he’s finally gone for good.   So too in the ana system  the siblings play a major role in the disorder.  The father is so afraid of  female strength he married someone with shortcomings  but  intelligence, adaptability, culture and imagination  appeals to him so he admires the over-achieving daughter but hides it when mother is around, who becomes hostile and envious—thus engendering  more mixed signals and interlocking jealousy patterns.  Female competition can be cruel and the “three sisters” matrix always  ends in two against one--the anorexic gets  used to always losing.  But she can change the template and overcome the system and the  strength garnished to do so can make her a world leader in her field.  For the stigmatic system is a stepping stone not a stumbling block—very few people have not felt these alliances singling out one but overcoming it is classic enantiodromia.  For the greatest people in history were held down this way but once they broke out they shot up to world success—Winston Churchill and George Washington come to mind.  Now past the ana system, true power she’ll wield, if (and only if) bulimia’s been healed and family failure’s been revealed--then sealed.   She now wears fasting and God as her shield  as to her core she’s been peeled. No more hostile alliances concealed: her true image congealed, she’s now high-yield as to the world  she’s appealed.

 

   SMART  FEMALES  IN  SEXIST  SYSTEMS 

 THE QUEEN'S DISEASE:

Bulimia is bad but it's  how she's  adapted  to cads

The larger more universal issue is: what happens to intelligent women  in sexist systems full of snub and rebuff?  Sexism suffocates smart shes who sin to stay sane in sick systems. Bulimia is the choice of queens:  They could have “chosen” drinking or drugs but the loss of control,  sure institutionalization and further degradation by family is intolerable to these types.  Bulimia is how they  recycle their enormous energy, ingather their forces, create their own reality, use their own time in their own way--and still stay relatively in control of the situation.   Anorexia is the Queen’s illness of the well-to-do because these families ensure harmonious solidarity through authoritarian set-ups and the subordination of woman.  The dominant wish to decide who has “class” (and who doesn’t) so they banish the gifted in  conflict with their own identities (the brass).  To the ana they're like glass--transparent as withering grass.  To their lifestyle and view she says "I'll pass" but to them  that's sass. Alas, separation (and reconnection to God) is her only solution  as  He separates her from  the mass.

  

  ENANTIODROMIA: 

The Bottom on Top, the Top to the Bottom

 

Feeling powerless (in  a sexist system)  the anorexic drives energy inward to absolute control of her own world--herself.  If she can learn to turn  lemons into lemon-aid and overcome her greatest obstacle (stubborn systems keeping her down) she builds a perfect battleship for world success.  So great is her energy  that when blocked  she’s the most self-destructive (bankruptcy, binges, brawls) but  when released  her self-improvement reaches monolithic levels.  If she can learn to harness, tame and redirect this enormous energy she can greatly benefit the world of other persecuted pansies priming to push-up to powerful predominance.  When she transcends all disorder (beyond mere eating patterns) and attains immaculate order instead the sky’s  the limit as the blocked energy  bursts forth: true repentance catapults her to a new  world of influence.  This is the  ana archetype of the orderly, reclusive, magnificent  powerhouse who was seen as  a louse--as insignificant  as a mouse.

         

             STIGMA: SOCIAL ILLNESSES

 

Like all systems the family tends towards homeostasis.  But no living system can survive unless free to evolve--to change when conditions change.  A system dies when  it has such rigid homeostasis that even major transformations  are ignored.  It  will haunt them as enantiodromia occurs:  the worst becoming the best.  This inversion of systems means one goes up and the others go down  for nothing stays the same.  When homeostasis depends on one’s illness  but now she’s well and thriving something has to break.  No more the snake eating cake on the fake—she’s now creating a quake for goodness and God’s sake.  It’s a high stake: making the world awake to how families  partake in such  big  mistakes.   “A man’s foes shall be they of his own household.”  Jesus said “he that loveth father and mother more than me is not worthy of me.”  Of particular import “a prophet is never known in his  own home or town.”  So true.  For nothing she does can change the image--the leaderless group-mind redefines new situations to suit the old template.  Ana systems   are the most resistant to change, causing a crises from which there is no escape but   through symptoms:  Bulimia is  homeostasis but  also compels conjoined  forces--as hand joins in hand they're more solid than peas in a pod.  All family photos  exclude her, as do their parties. Gossip is the only way she is included--otherwise, when she walks in the room all turn aside.  Could there be any doubt that anorexia is a social illness?  Yet hospitalization--though it removes the family--rarely brings permanent relief and causes more crises as it's  just as bound up by hierarchies, domination, sexism, deceitful alliances (with sibling systems) and disconfirmation.  Any objections she has to the food (or desire to be  fruit-fat-fastarian--the cure for   bulimia) is mocked  as  just another facet of her illness.  No more systems--she needs solitude, sleep and  stillness, but she’s made queen through forgiveness.

 

The thought of my homelessness is bitter poison. I think of it constantly and my spirit is depressed.  Yet hope returns when I remember this one thing: God’s unfailing love and mercy still continue, fresh as the morning and sure as the sunrise.  The Lord is all I have, and so in him I put my hope. Lamentations 3: 19-24

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