Did Your Eating Disorder Save Your Life?
That might sound like a strange question. Especially if you’ve spent time in treatment or therapy where your eating disorder was talked about like the enemy — something to defeat, destroy, or cut out.
And yes, your eating disorder caused harm. It hurt your body, your relationships, your sense of self. But it may have also saved your life at one point.
The Protective Side of an Eating Disorder
Here’s what I mean: depending on what was happening around you, your eating disorder might have been the only way you knew how to cope with unbearable pain. It helped you feel a sense of control when everything else felt chaotic. Maybe it even gave you a sense of belonging or peace. The intention wasn’t to destroy you — it was to help you survive.
The problem is, what once protected you eventually started hurting you. The coping mechanism that got you through the storm became the thing that kept you stuck in it.
When we talk about recovery, I think it’s important to move away from villainizing language. Because when we call a part of you “bad,” it can leave you feeling ashamed — like you chose this, or like some part of you is fundamentally broken.
Instead, I look at eating disorders through an ego state lens — meaning every part of you serves a function. I’m not talking about “multiple personalities,” but about the inner parts we all have: your inner child, your inner critic, your adult self, and the parts that try to protect you in their own ways.
Your eating disorder part tried to protect you, too. It just didn’t know a better way.
Moving Beyond Shame
In trauma-informed therapy, we don’t shame or villainize the parts of you that developed in response to pain. When we label an eating disorder as “bad,” it can leave you feeling like you’re bad — like you chose this or failed somehow. But that’s not how healing works.
As a trauma therapist in Seattle, I often use an ego state approach (think: parts work). This means we look at all the inner parts of you — your inner child, your inner critic, your adult self — and the parts that try to protect you in different ways.
Your eating disorder part was trying to protect you too. It just didn’t know a better way.
Healing Your Relationship with Food — and Yourself
Recovery isn’t about silencing that part or pretending it never existed. It’s about understanding why it showed up, what it needed, and helping it finally rest.
Through trauma-informed therapy and EMDR for eating disorder recovery, we can work together to untangle the pain underneath — so you can build a more peaceful relationship with food, your body, and yourself.
Because you don’t need to fight your eating disorder anymore. You just need to listen to what it was trying to say — and help that part of you finally heal.
EMDR Therapy in Issaquah, WA | Serving Sammamish, Bellevue, North Bend & Snoqualmie
Virtual across Washington State.