How to Get Better When Things Are Getting Worse: Part One
“Hospitalization rates for [eating disorders] roughly doubled [in the second half of 2020] compared to the rates in the prior two years.”
Sadly, the rest of the article quoted above simply guesses based on cultural assumptions as to why this might be the case.
And here is the research on which many similar articles to the one above is based.
But honestly, researchers themselves wax philosophic on the reasons for this jump in severity for both newly diagnosed children as well as children and adults with now worsening eating disorders since the onset of the pandemic.
If we take a look at the entire landscape of chronic mental health conditions, we see the same increases:
Schizophrenia and psychosis: here and here.
Anxiety and depression: here.
Bi-polar disorder: here.
Obsessive compulsive disorder: here.
The “why” does not need as much discrete diagnosis-specific focus as we might think in these times. It really does not matter if you spiral into more food avoidance that triggers reactive eating or punishing levels of starvation; or you find yourself filling your day with debilitating levels of activity and exercise; or whether you struggle in a spiral of fear of infection and contamination; or whether you feel profoundly alone and purposeless; or all of the above and more.
Most folk with eating disorders and many other mental health conditions have what I call busy brains. Busy brains like to get busy with thoughts, rumination, feelings, evidence, considerations, possibilities, limitations...and dread.
This busyness can seem very productive to the point where issues of circular thought and an inability to make decisions, or cycles of decision-making followed by a retraction from those decisions, are hidden by all the busyness of the thought pathways that are happening throughout all conscious parts of the day.
The busy brain is a vigilant to hyper-vigilant state and busy brains are sensitive to world conditions that suggest threats are lurking.
You may wake up each day committed to improve your behaviours to turn around the worsening symptoms of an eating disorder or other mental health condition and end out each day discovering that you made no progress or, worse, slid back even further.
We confuse busy brains with active brains and therein lies the challenge of recovery during a time of increasing threats or perceived threats.
Busy brains are easily ensnared in the “check-again” loop and active brains are not so readily caught up in that state of immobility.
Busy brains confuse a real new data point with an anxiety cascade that is triggered by an old and known data point.
It works like this:
Assume you are someone who has been sensitive to the messaging that those who are fat are more likely to get very sick with COVID. Also assume you are someone who has heavily read and reviewed “obesity research” (in quotation marks because putting the words obesity and research together creates a double-barrelled oxymoron) and you are well aware that conflating fatness with the increased risk of the onset of any disease state has no valid evidence to support the claim. None at all.
Now you will engage with an old and known data point:
Here is another mainstream article on the topic of obesity and COVID (again)…
And I had more butter than usual on my toast this morning…
And I do not want to get COVID. My aunt was very ill with it and is still struggling months later.
But I know that dietary fats are not linked to fatness.
And I know that I have been avoiding dietary fats lately.
And I am worried that I am having heart palpitations and that could be related to my poor diet right now.
But on that note, I am now worried that my heart palpitations might mean I am more likely to get really ill with COVID.
And…(the lily pad hops in the brain will continue for quite some time from this point).
This busy brain can go on quite the journey and by the time it circles back (or not) to the original topic, it will confuse all of those anxious to-ing and fro-ing of evidence, feelings, hyper-vigilance, anxiety, logic with a linear thought process that backs up the inevitable concluding behaviour of (wait for it): avoidance.
If you want to reverse any worsening symptoms of an eating disorder, or any chronic mental health condition, during a pandemic it is helpful to focus on how to wrangle the busy brain to a point where it no longer immobilizes your ability to act.
Let us look at that, and why a busy brain blocks an ability to act, next week in Part Two.
https://www.statnews.com/2021/11/26/pandemic-deeply-affected-many-people-with-eating-disorders/
