As a stroppy teenager, I was above psychiatric boxing. I was, most definitely, not a stereo type.
As a grown up, I appreciate that definitions (not ‘labels’) make things a lot easier. That a checklist diagnostic is a SMART way of doing psychiatry. That even doctors need some guidelines.
Somewhere between these two points, I realised that I might not be as unique as I liked to think that I was. That I possibly shared some interesting similarities with the people that I met in eating disorder units. That there were, perhaps, some common traits that might – just might – have made me more susceptible to an eating disorder.
Whilst remaining virulently adverse to over-simplification, it’s this idea that I’m going to stick with for a while.
Not because I have developed a definitive checklist for identifying potential eating disorder sufferers – or even believe that there is such a thing as a definitive checklist; and not because I’d like to shift a little of this uncomfortable responsibility onto something totally beyond my control – a genetic pre-disposition, for example. But, because I do think that there were certain qualities – be it genetic or learned – that encouraged or enabled or sustained my eating disorder; and – without jumping on the put it in a box bandwagon – because I noticed a few interesting trends.
Because I noticed (reluctantly) that some of the qualities that people seemed to link to eating disorders – low self confidence, competitiveness, intelligence, sensitivity – did actually seem to be linked and did actually seem to shed a little light on the whole eating disorder puzzle.
Tags: causes, psychiatric stereo-typing
