Pact

Honestly? Honesty and transparency? When that was first asked of me I thought I was, figuratively, being asked to strip naked in public. Heck, I might as well be gutted and hung out to drain, because there would be nothing left of me without my secret thoughts and my secret behaviors. Eating disorders live and thrive in the dark. They feed on half-truths, lies, deception and secrets. There is a secret pact between myself and my addiction, a promise for each to never betray the other. I've tried so hard to keep it in the past, hiding the eating disorder under the flimsiest of excuses and the most complex lies, until even I am mentally dizzy. Who did I tell what? When and where did I do what and who might have seen or heard me? It's mentally and physically exhausting, playing the game of protection and deception.
The sad fact is, though I've tried to keep the pact and never betray my disorder, it has already betrayed me. What promise did it give me that it's kept? A better body? Love and acceptance? Peace? Simplicity? A solution to all my problems? Whatever the promises it may have kept, to whatever degree, they come at far too high a price. The eating disorder never revealed the most secret part of the pact to me. I had to discover those lines, written in invisible ink, that took my health, my happiness, my functionality, my ability to give and recieve love, and so much more, until the final clause -- my life. I thought when I was in my eating disorder I was free. Truly, I have never been less so.
So how to break the pact? How to free myself from those hidden clauses? I believe it begins with a counter-betrayal of the eating disorder, turning it in and calling out it's lies and deception again and again. In short, the freedom lies in honesty. Honesty and transparency with myself, and with my support and treatment team. I need to reveal each thought and behavior the addiction cries out for me to conceal. Give me just this one, it pleads with me, let me keep just this one secret between us, it won't hurt anything, it's so little. Just give in a little, lie a little ... until the small things grow and I'm back in the web of deception, back in slavery to the secret pact. I know where it leads.
This doesn't mean I always am honest and transparent. I struggle with keeping the secrets. I struggle to remember that the eating disorder has already betrayed me, that it not only wants me to lie for it, but it also continuously lies to me. It can do nothing but lie. How could I forget that? How could I forget the secret clause that gives me over, body and soul, to something unspeakably evil? Yet still I forget, I fall, I lie, I give in and cover up. But now the difference is, I uncover the eating disorder too. I try to be honest. Truly my conscience tortures me, and the lies eat away at me until I come clean. So I am learning ... honesty and openness, and a slow death to the addition's secret agreement.