Last week, I was asked what I wanted to be when I was older.
This question makes me upset.
With ongoing job dissatisfaction and a permanent juggle between a profession I have fallen into; a blog which I love – but seems to lack direction; and a life that I’m still trying to repair, I’m desperate for an answer –
Only I was so busy getting my eating disorder that I didn’t really consider my career.
This is proving a little problematic now that I’ve broken through to the other side and am in the unexpected position of having a future to consider. It’s been hard to explain – when I am asked the “what did you want to do” question – that, for most of the last two decades, I didn’t think beyond the next mealtime, and I certainly didn’t worry about things like what I would be doing as a career.
I think that this is what is meant by focussing in on the detail.
I think it’s indicative of just how obsessed with the whole thing it is possible to get, and how one dimensional life with an eating disorder can become. How it is impossible to see beyond the food; or look at the bigger picture; or see life in relation to life – rather than in relation to eating.
Or it was for me, anyway.
So, now, the “what did you want to do when you were older” question makes me want to cry; because I know that when I should have been asking these questions, I was pre-occupied with dodging the next meal or planning the subsequent binge.
And the elusiveness of the answer is driving me to distraction; because I have buried any aspirations so deep that I still can’t reach any conclusion, nor believe – just yet – that should I uncover the answer, I’d be able to make it possible –
And so, it feels like I am going round in circles that are becoming more and more claustrophobic and the frustration is building like a scream
-
I know that lots of people aren’t sure about what they want to do.
I get – kind of – that career paths often follow a rambling and unexpected route. ..
But if you ask me what I wanted to be when I grew up, then I can honestly say that, from the age of about 12, I didn’t even ask myself the question – or contemplate the options – or consider the subject to be particularly relevant -
Because I didn’t believe that I could actually get anywhere –
And so, I was far more pre-occupied with making sure that I was thin.
Tags: Growing Up, indecision, Self Esteem, work
Once again, I am pretty much the same way, with the exception being I don’t get paid to blog
Growing up I always had great aspirations, but once things got complicated (and control, ED issues entered the picture), it became harder and harder to plan long term of find ANYthing that brought me pleasure, much less career aspirations.
When I was only looking forward to my next workout, my next meals, etc. it was impossible to think about my next career move or life choice. While my perfectionism drove me to excel in school, I don’t remember much about my high school/college years, as they were spent obsessing. If I had applied this drive and focus to my “job” life, I would probably be a millionaire.
At any rate, I have a job that I can tolerate, but that I know I won’t do forever. The scary thing is, I had that same thought about my ED (”when I gain weight, I will…) Right now it’s meal to meal, non-workout to non-workout kind of like it’s day to day at work. That’s just what I have to do right now to survive–financially and I suppose, mentally?
Sorry for the ramble. I guess it’s just easy to relate to knowing what I don’t want to be/do than knowing what I do.
This is exactly where I am and resonates deeply, and painfully, within me. So I suppose, the first thing to say is that you aren’t alone in this.
For me, my eating issues didn’t emerge until I went to university. However a series of other issues that I was largely unaware were there had been in my way of considering what I’d like to do, be or even what I enjoyed. My self-esteem was terribly low and my parents were too caught up in their own selves or were pulling and pushing me in all directions but one that I’d chosen for me to get any sense of who I was and what made me happy.
This living for other people has carried on to the present day. I did GCSEs and A-Levels more or less chosen for me. I rebelled and did a hairdressing course to stay near to my then boyfriend. When that dissolved, I moved away to University to do a course I felt I hadn’t much of a choice in because of my A-Level subjects and had a terrible time of it, with my eating disorder and depresssion. I then fell into my MA because I had an excellent teacher of political subjects in my degree, who encouraged me to go onto further study because I was good at it, and because I didn’t know what else to do, quite liked the subject and respected him (and if I’m honest, liked someone taking an interest in me), I did that.
It’s only now I’m in a job (which I took because it’s money, independence and lets me live near my boyfriend in a place I like) that essentially buys me the time to sort myself out, I’m wondering what it is I really want and why it feels like it’s too late for me, and that, even if it wasn’t, I’m not totally clear what I do want and how it might be possible to go about it.
If I got paid to blog, I’d be in seventh heaven!
Thanks for sharing these. I suppose one of the questions that it’s made me consider is whether I am just looking for the next crutch or validation?…
I’m not sure. I think a fulfilling career is important to me – but it definitely needs to be built on a stronger base.
This is one area I really want to address though, as 9-5 is a significant part of each day and I want to make sure that I use any skills that I have!
I don’t think this common identity angst is particular to people with eating disorders … but the grief at having missed developmental milestones is then more acute, and continues to build upon the primary identity/future anxiety.
Avoiding or distracting from those existential questions was often part of the eating disorder pathology, and now the eating disorder recovery almost feeds another, yet different, distraction from the basic living required to consider and answer the questions.
I don’t think you can come by your “what do I want to be/do” journey without being willing to walk the ambivalent and open-ended path to wherever it leads you. Those of us with eating disorders want to know how it’s going to work out (or that it’s going to work out) in advance, so we can settle into letting it settle.
We’re often a bunch very unwilling to sit with ambiguity, the very thing required in this case. So, as you say, it becomes a cirucular chasing of rumination, anxiety, angst, judgment. While you’re busy being upset about the past and worrying about the future, you’re missing the “now” and what this part of your recovery means/brings.
Are you going to look back and regret not allowing yourself to experience the natural growth and unfolding of self?
The way to answers isn’t always to “do,” but often … to “not do.” That is the difficult thing, given control (and achievement) issues that are inherent for most of us with eating disorders. I challenge you to “not do” and “not think” and allow yourself to “be” with who you are in your recovery and your life, right now.
You are absolutely spot on with this. Totally spot on. The second paragraph really resonates and I have written before about how my eating disorder (paradoxically) avoided me having to consider things like mortality and loss. You’re also right about trying to find reassurance in other ways now – about distracting myself by pulling to pieces a new set of considerations (whilst still letting the old ones lurk in the background).
I guess appreciating that this is, to some extent, part of human development is important to keeping this debate in perspective; and, interestingly, an article on ‘positive disintegration’ that I read last week really echoes these messages and encouraged me to loosen my grip on the definites and permanencies and all or nothing thinking that I’m still really guilty of.
Thank you for such an insightful and helpful comment (and sorry it’s taken me so horribly long to reply). xx