3 Common Misconceptions About Eating Disorders

Today you're in for a treat. Singer-songwriter Christa Black is guest-posting on an issue near and dear to her heart. She's recently written a new book, God Loves Ugly, which released September 4th, which chronicles her struggle to find personal peace in the face of insecurity, self-hatred, sexual abuse, depression, and eating disorders.

I haven't posted much on eating disorders, so I hope you find an insider's look as interesting as I did. So welcome Christa! Take it away.

For over two decades, my life was haunted by a devastating food addiction.  If you’re enslaved to food or know someone who is, here are some common misconceptions that are essential to learning for freedom to become a reality.

#1.  Oh, they must think they're fat.

When I binged for the first time at 8-years-old after stumbling onto late night porn down at a friends house, I guarantee you, the last thing I was thinking about was my weight.  Shoveling football player sized portions into my mouth wasn't about my body.  I was numbing an ache in my heart that needed a quick fix.  Controlling the amount of food I let in was just about the only thing I could control in an unpredictable world that punched at me without warning.  

I couldn't control the sexual abuse that had happened outside the home.  
I couldn't control the cruel things that came out of kids' mouths at school.
I couldn't control my freckles, red hair, and the reflection I hated in the mirror.
But I could control food.

Later in life, when the weight began to pile on after years of binging, I would have told you that my anorexia, bulimia, and overeating were about feeling fat.  But in reality, the problem wasn't my reflection.  It was my perception.  I truly believed, more than I believed the sky was blue, that I was unworthy of love.  So every time I looked in the mirror through the lens of those beliefs, what I saw was never enough, no matter how thin, perfect, or beautiful I became.

So yes, people with eating disorders believe that they're fat.  But the real problem is, they believe they're unlovable the way that they are.    

#2.  Eating disorders are just about food

Anorexia, bulimia, and compulsive eating aren't really about food.  Food just happens to be the closest drug able to numb the pain inside.  

Every heart needs one precious substance to live and thrive--LOVE.  Just turn on the radio or television for ten minutes to see what the world is longing for, or go read a book about baby brain science.  We thrive in atmospheres of affection.  When you don't get the love you need, or when it's perverted and cruel, you find counterfeits.  Why?  Because you weren't made to be empty.  These counterfeits can be anything from food, alcohol, and drugs to perfectionism, people-pleasing, and sex.  Anything that fills the heart, temporarily appeasing the ache inside, is a counterfeit affection.  The problem is, these 'fixes' are never enough, which means you have to keep going back for more.

Eating disorders, or any substance abuse for that matter, are just symptoms that a heart needs deeper healing.  

#3  You can never be completely free from an eating disorder once you've had one.

When my therapist told me I'd have the tools to "manage my addiction" but that I'd never be free from it, I got angry.  I refused to believe that because things had happened that were outside of my control--bad things, painful things--that it was just my lot in life to suffer forever and that I would never enjoy freedom and peace.

I didn't want tools to just get by.  I wanted freedom.

And I found it.

Whatever your religious orientation, I believe more than anything that the nature of God is unconditional love.  That means, you can't earn it, perform for it, be good enough for it, or lose it.  It's always there and never leaves based on your behaviors.  When I started allowing God and His unconditional love into the most shameful places of my past--the places I believed were unlovable--I began to heal.  I began to change.  

We all behave according to what we believe, so when my beliefs changed, my behaviors change.  I didn't have to go after the food or the addiction anymore.  I was being loved and believed I was lovable, so there was no need to fill myself with something that didn't love me back.  

Food addiction, self-hatred, people-pleasing, perfectionism--they're all becoming distant memories for me.  I live my life to receive love in the ugly places, and beauty keeps rising from the ashes.  

No matter what you're struggling with or how impossible it seems to ever be free, I promise you,  you can be changed.  You can be healed.  You can be free.


Christa Black is a popular blogger, speaker, and singer-songwriter whose songs have been recorded by multi-platinum-selling artists Jordin Sparks and Michael W. Smith.  She has toured with The Jonas Brothers, Michael W. Smith, and Israel Houghton.  After years of battling depression, addiction, and a chronically broken spirit, Christa was radically shaken by a God who truly loves ugly.  She lives in Nashville, Tennessee, with her husband and son.  God Loves Ugly is her first book and corresponds with her CD, God Loves Ugly. Visit Christa’s site to learn more and read the first chapter! http://christablack.com/book/


Thanks so much for this post, Christa! I hope your book reaches individuals in a mighty way for the Lord and invokes a change in their lives that can only be explained my Him.

Let's Analyze

Did you learn anything about eating disorders that you didn't know?

Suicide by Facebook?

I wanted to take some time to talk about suicide and social media. Suicide is the 10th leading cause of death in the US, and it's a preventable problem!

It seems that more and more deaths and suicides are being preceded by posts on Facebook or Twitter or MySpace. Simone Back updated her status on Facebook on Christmas Day, 2010, to say, "Took all my pills be dead soon bye bye everyone." She had over 1000 friends and none reached out to help. Some even posted heartless messages back to her, stating it was her choice or calling her a liar. 


Bart Heller updated his Facebook status on December 12, 2011, with this: "Someone call 911. Three dead bodies at 3229 Lima Road, Fort Wayne, Indiana. I've killed Ryann, Erin, and myself. People were warned not to play me and ruin me. They didn't listen. Sorry about your luck." 


A friend in Washington State saw the status update, looked up police in Fort Wayne, gave them the address, and they were dispatched 18 minutes after Bart's status. Unfortunately, all three were dead, just as Bart had said.

Facebook teamed with the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline in December 2011 to enable Facebook users to report a suicidal comment they see posted by a friend on the site. They can literally connect that person to help almost immediately.

Facebook users can go to the link to Report Suicidal Content. (You can find this link just by going to Facebook's help section and typing in "suicidal content.") You can check if the person is in the military or not, their full name, the content of what was posted (copy/pasted) and any additional info you feel relevant.

Facebook can respond directly to the user via email (if appropriate), indicating that someone on Facebook is concerned about their safety, and encourage the user to enter a confidential online chat session with a crisis counselor or call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255). The Lifeline is available 24/7.

Twitter has done something similar, allowing users to report suicidal of self-harm content here.

I thought that not only would this information benefit you as fellow humans of suffering people in the world, but also as writers. You never know when something like this might show up in one of your novels. I'm just grateful that Facebook and other social media networks are trying to address this very real problem.

Let's Analyze: Have you ever heard about a friend or yours who posted suicidal content on the web? What else do you think Facebook/Twitter/etc could do?

Character Clinic: Italo Benetura and Anti-Heroism

Joyce's character is on the couch this week. He's a 32-year-old pirate who's got a fairly disturbed 34-year-old brother (Iachimo) who has been cutting himself for 10 years. Their father died in a raid 10 years prior, and his mother died one year later. Italo promised his father that he would take care of Iachimo and make sure his brother didn't successfully kill himself. His brother is also macabre, torturing and executing prisoners and getting perverse pleasure from it. Italo continues to work with him, though, as co-captains of their father's fleet. Italo believes that Iachimo might be anointing himself with his own blood like warrior-monks did during an initiation ceremony for worshipers of the war god Kirro. Why? Because Iachimo's fair blond hair is not red, and Italo thinks it's been dyed with blood.

Joyce wants to know: How realistic is Italo's reaction to Iachimo's clear mental problem? Am I missing something? Are there possibilities for Italo that I haven't explored? I do wish to keep him the "sane" one of the two, whatever that may be. These brothers originally started out as antagonists. Do you have any suggestions on how to keep Italo a "villain" and not have him become a redeemed bad guy by the end?

Family members of people who have a severe mental disorder are often put in this exact same position. Italo isn't doing anything out of the ordinary trying to protect his brother or keep him alive, especially given the request of his father. It's not even unusual that Italo is the younger brother, performing the "duties" of the older brother, such as protection and care taking.

It would be very realistic to have a few scenes with Italo seesawing back and forth about the decision to leave Iachimo and take half the fleet and crew with him when he does. I wouldn't say that Italo is enabling the cutting behavior....that's something that Iachimo is doing all his own. However, he is definitely enabling his brother's torturing and executing. At the very least he's condoning it by lack of action.

Since you're not wanting Italo to be redeemed by the end of the book, I'd at least consider having him work through this issue with Iachimo. Italo standing by and letting his co-captain do these things does reflect badly upon him and Iachimo, perhaps even more so, since Italo doesn't have the mental problems Iachimo does.

To keep him a villain...I've got a great scenario in my head. Let's say his brother's sadistic tendencies get worse, self-destructive to the nth degree. If Italo believed that it would be (or even not be) in Iachimo's best interests to go ahead and give up his life (either because Iachimo is so miserable or he's making Italo's life miserable), then if Italo were to sacrifice Iachimo for the greater good (or Italo's own greater good), this would be a bittersweet, anti-heroic measure.

Wow. That was a convoluted sentence. I just reread it, but it says exactly what was in my mind. I hope it translates!

Hope that this helps out. I welcome any further questions below.

Let's Analyze: What examples from fiction (movies or books) can you think of where a villain turns on someone close to him--maybe even someone he protected--to further his own agenda or to put the other person out of their misery?

Traits of Self-Destructing Characters

I have had a hard week. I had started this blog post yesterday, but fell asleep too exhausted to finish it. I have a client who is the epitome of self-destructing. It's one thing to read about them, but it's quite a different thing to be their therapist.

As a result of my interactions and observations while in session with this client, I'm bringing you--straight from the trenches--a glimpse into the mindset of someone like this. I've noticed some general characteristics that will definitely help make your self-destructing characters more realistic.

1) They will have an obsession, and it will be their Achilles's heel. The character will live and breathe for a particular person, achievement, desire. It usually consumes them, and reality fades as to how unbalanced they are becoming in their quest for this obsession.

2) They will put their welfare below their desire for the obsession, even if it means their death. Whether they are addicted to drugs or a person (think Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction), the means to their end are always justified. They can't see beyond the next tree to see the forest, so consequences are minimized or they are completely blind to them.

3) They likely will have a personality disorder or serious mental disorder. This one is on my list by default. Anyone who exhibits the first two will probably qualify for something like borderline personality disorder, bipolar, schizophrenia....something pretty major.

4) Attempts to reason with this person will fall on deaf ears. As mentioned before, reality takes a back seat. As a therapist, I am obligated to do what I can to help my client see a different, better way.  A more healthy way. I usually receive a blank stare or feel like I'm talking to a wall. But writers should give one to two scenes over to someone trying to talk sense into this character.

5) Their demise probably will not be satisfactory to any involved, as it's more tragic. Don't get me wrong. Sometimes the bad guy has to die, and I know this. But if you've done your homework and included the above, their end will resonate with the reader more in a reflective way, not necessarily a "awesome, he/she is dead" way.

If any of this gives you a clue to what my week has been like, then I'll ask for prayers! Dealing with someone like this exhausts you emotionally and physically. In the end, I go home and go to sleep with their name on my lips in a prayer to God to keep them safe and watch over them, because there is only so much I can do and there is only so much the person will let me do.

Let's analyze: Ever had interactions with someone who was going one-way down a dead-end road? What other characteristics of someone like this might you see fit to add?

I'm still giving away a copy of my Writer's Guide to Creating Rich Back Stories...all you have to do is comment on this post about my tentative foray into vlogging.

And click over to read my therapeutic review of Ashes to Beauty: The Real Cinderella Story. Leave a comment to be entered to win a copy of the book for a special girl on your Christmas list!

Treatment Tuesday - Cutting/Self-Harm

This week's assessment (finally, someone took me up on the empty queue!) is for Kira. She's writing a YA book about a young girl who's mother died and she's stuck living with her fairly new step-father, with whom she's not very close. The book starts off when the teen and her dad having moved away to "start over."

Kira wants to know: What is some sort of issue for my MC to deal with as a result of her grief that would be easy to write in several scenes? I need her to have a more fleshed-out internal journey.

At the risk of sounding macabre, your very question gave me a great idea for your MC. You mentioned "fleshed-out" journey....and, well, what I'm going to suggest would literally be one.

The current misconception about cutting and other forms of self-harm is that they must follow on the heels of some sort of abuse or onset of a personality disorder. That's just not so. There are people who inflict themselves with various self-harm techniques simply because they have been overwhelmed with trauma of some kind.

Your heroine fits the bill. She's lost her mother, and I can probably assume they were very close. You didn't mention how long it had just been the two of them before her mother remarried the step-dad, but it's probably pretty safe to say that her mother was the girl's world. Depending on the circumstances of her father's absence (either through death, divorce, suddenly deserting their family, etc), your heroine might actually have a very hard time reconnecting with any father figure, much less a "fairly new" one.

To add insult to injury, the step-father removes the girl from her support network to "start over." This is great fodder to push her over the edge a bit and overwhelm her current coping strategies. Friends are especially important to teens, and for the heroine to have to leave her school, church, sports leagues, etc., to live with a man she doesn't really know (or want to know) that well, this could certainly drive her to seek an emotional release from her thoughts, fears, and anxiety.

So you can write the scenes realistically (I doubt it'll be easy writing, as this is really difficult stuff), I'll go over what I understand about self-harm. 

1) Self-harm can take on many forms. It typically starts with a razor blade or knife at first, but it can progress to burning oneself (with erasers, car lighters, cigarette buttes), pulling hair out, picking wounds, or hitting oneself.

2) Self-harm is purposeful without the intent to kill themselves. If the person actually wants to die, then they move up the ladder from self-harm to suicidal ideation or suicidal attempts.

3) Self-harm has many motivations. Some of the most common are listed below.

A) The person wants to distance themselves from emotional pain/numbness. Cutting (or self-harm) is a way to feel something in a controlled way. When people are overwhelmed with negative emotions, the out-of-control chaos of a person's mind can be frightening. Don't think of people cutting themselves in a frenzy. It's actually calm, calculated. It can help distract a person from what their going through internally.

B) The person is expressing something for which they have no words. Literally, the term for this is alexithymia ("no words feeling"). There just isn't a label to use to express how they feel. Cutting themselves can display anger, show emotional depth of pain, and shock others. It can also get them help without actually having to ask for it (if a friend were to see an uncovered arm of someone who cuts, they would be extremely concerned).

C) The person wants to experience a sort of euphoria. The body is a wonderful thing. When being hurt or injured, it works to minimize pain and heal quickly. The brain releases endorphins that work as pain-killers when the body is hurt, regardless of whether that hurt comes from oneself or another. This physical high can be addictive, but the body does build a tolerance to endorphins and the subsequent acts of self-harm won't produce that initial "high." This can lead to more severe self-harm, such as deeper cutting or moving on to a more dangerous form of self-harm.

D) The person feels like they deserve to be injured. Either they think they are "evil" or that they should be punished for some misconception over whatever has happened as being their fault. They might think that they deserve the pain, and that maybe somehow in hurting themselves, it will stop a worse punishment later from someone/something else.

E) The person wants to heal emotionally by taking care of their physical injuries. When emotions run to deep and out-of-control, self-harm provides a way to make the internal pain external. When you care for your cuts and bruises, it's a way of taking care of internal scars. There are some people who have rituals to take care of their body after self-harm occurs, making the aftercare more important than the act of cutting or self-harming.

Here is an excerpt I found online from the book Cut by Patricia McCormick that kind of gives an idea of the internal mindset of a cutter:

“Then I placed the blade next to the skin on my palm. A tingle arced across my scalp. The floor tipped up at me and my body spiraled away. Then I was on the ceiling looking down, waiting to see what would happen next. What happened next was that a perfect, straight line of blood bloomed up from under the edge of the blade. The line grew into a long, fat bubble, a lush crimson bubble that got bigger and bigger. I watched from above, waiting to see how big it would get before it burst. When it did, I felt awesome. Satisfied, finally. Then exhausted.”

I wish you the best with this book. Teens need to understand that just "regular Janes" can develop this scary behavior.

Treatment Tuesday - Abuse Resulting in Self-Harm

This week's assessment comes from Lisa, who was told by someone that a young teenager has to be abused over and over again throughout a lifetime in order to develop pathological tendencies. Lisa's story features Jared*, a young boy who was molested by a member of the family as a toddler. His mother developed cancer before he reached his teens and then the cancer recurred as he entered his teen years. Jared wants his mother to go ahead and die because he believes his father, who travels a great deal on business and practices a different faith, will stay home more. He also thinks his mother's caretaker will take over, which he would prefer since he has developed a closer relationship with her. The boy also has a cutting problem that he's successfully hidden from his parents and teachers.

* Names have been changed to protect the fictional.

Lisa's first question was, "How realistically can I pull this off?" Her question likely originated from having been told that children have to be abused over and over again throughout a lifetime to develop severe, pathological tendencies.

Oh...the perils of bad advice! Let me try to correct a wrong.

Whoever told you that was DEAD WRONG. I've seen many clients who have only had one experience with abuse (both young clients and teenagers) who developed many pathologies, the least of which is cutting. And then there are the people who were never abused, sexually or physically, who also develop a self-harm habit.

For those who don't know, cutting is a typical coping mechanism employed by those with prior abuse. While I don't pretend to understand it, from what I've read and heard clients say, there is something about the act of cutting (or burning yourself with erasers/car lighters/cigarettes; pulling hair, picking at wounds, self-flagellation, or otherwise hurting yourself) that relieves the emotional pain the person is in. This could be for several reasons:

1) The person feels like they deserve to be injured. Either they think they are "evil" or that they should be punished for having good thoughts. They might also hope that hurting themselves in some way will stop a worse punishment later from someone/something else.

2) The person wants to distance themselves from emotional pain/numbness. Cutting (or self-harm) is a way to feel something. Don't think of people cutting themselves in a frenzy. It's actually calm, calculated. It can help distract a person from what their going through internally.

3) The person is expressing something for which they have no words. Literally, the term for this is alexithymia ("no words feeling"). There just isn't a label to use to express how they feel. Cutting themselves can display anger, show emotional depth of pain, and shock others. It can also get them help without actually having to ask for it (if a friend were to see an uncovered arm of someone who cuts, they would be extremely concerned).

Jared might very well be suffering from Borderline Personality Disorder, based on all the nuances we went over in our email. Cutting is common in those with BPD, but not everyone with BPD cuts, and not every cutter has BPD. You can see my post on BPD to decide for yourself whether he fits the criteria or not. (And yes, parents often do ignore signs of their children's personality disorders until it's too late for treatment to do much more than maintain. Earlier intervention would be better to try to direct, to answer that question from your email.)

You mentioned that he cuts under his ribcage, so that he can wear gym uniforms and sleeveless shirts. If this is what he has to do, it works for your story. Far more common would be along the top or bottom of the forearm, mainly from the wrist to the elbow, and the upper thighs (which is an alternative you could use so people can't see Jared's cuts...and probably a bit more likely than the ribcage...but you do what you need to do to make it fit.) People really do cut everywhere and anywhere depending on their situational needs.

[One of the best posts I've ever read from someone who cut for years was on the blog, The Secret Life of a Manic Depressive. The description Seaneen uses to illustrate her body, and how she sees her skin is beautiful in its transparency. The post is her thinking about her cutting habit in retrospect. She includes pictures, so be forewarned if you have a tendency toward being triggered by photos.]

Props on giving him another self-harm/other-harm fascination with guns/hunting. His hunting blog is a great way to deflect his extreme interest in the subject...but yet keep him connected to it at the same time. I'd make his articles impersonal a bit, which will make your huge downward spiral moment of him wanting to use his gun against his mother to put her out of her misery once and for all that much more shocking. Yet the signs were there...it'll be one of those things the reader will probably thumb back through your book to try to pick up on the signs.

You mentioned not wanting the reader to have an "oh, come on!" moment when Jared tried to make sure his mother dies instead of torturing them with more treatment and false promises. His does his "research," which will be likely connected to his blog, and tries to use his hunting rifle to do the deed. The real driving motivation behind this attempt is his fantasy world...the one he's created about the caretaker and his father coming home more. His lack of bonding with his mother will fuel this fantasy even more, so I say well done!

Thanks for writing in. Hope this was helpful. If there are any other questions about Jared's assessment (or if anyone has a question about self-harm), email me or drop your question in the comment section.

If you missed my survey about character stereotypes, you can still take it! Click here!

This service is for fictional characters only, so any resemblance to real life examples is entirely coincidental. Any other fictional character assessment questions can be directed to charactertherapist (at) hotmail (dot) com.