Falling Apart

Falling apart is sometimes what it takes to heal.

Some clients come to me after hitting rock bottom. Like Phoebe, fresh from a divorce, in the thick of postpartum, living with her Mom who, 30 years later, was still pushing Weight Watchers on her. Phoebe came to me ready. Within months, she stopped bingeing. We are now working on body image as she embarks on her rebuilding phase, anchored by a foundation of steady, regular eating.

But other clients come to me just before The Fall Apart. They come to me holding their breath, looking for permission, and when they feel safe, they let rock bottom flood in.

I’ve been working with one such client, Michaela, for almost nine months. Within a week of our first session, her binges became steady and regular and deep. After years of restriction and bingeing, she let all the restricting go, and the binges threatened to overpower her.

For months, we talked almost everyday via text. Our sessions were intense; she felt like her life was falling apart. She quit her job; she stopped hanging out with old friends. She had a therapist, she had a physician, she had a myriad of support systems working in her corner. She felt she was only getting worse.

I stayed patient with Michaela. She showed up to our calls every week, and texted me daily, in despair. She couldn’t stop the binges; she felt she was drowning.

We did not alter course.

Week after week, we investigated. We did not attempt to control the eating, or come up with an alternate course of action to fix it. We dove into the emotions behind the binges, the ways in which binges were covering up a side of herself long suppressed, and watched as she tried to shove it back down, over and over and over.

Through the months, we watched her fall apart, hit rock bottom. We watched her systematically take apart the world she had created around her, until she was left, bare, with just her Self.

And one day, several patient months into this somewhat poetic unraveling, I received a text from her saying that she had started bingeing (as she had been doing almost everyday since we started working together), and then — she had stopped. She hadn’t wanted any more.

Stopping in the middle of a binge was not something she was familiar with; it had never happened before.

But it stopped that day, and then again, the next day.

For a few days, she binged again, but for the better part of the following week, she didn’t binge at all.

Over the past few months, I’ve watched Michaela almost stop bingeing entirely.

We troubleshoot — it has not been perfect. She struggles with body image, and with the thought of going back to her job, and with the fear she sometimes feels.

We work through it, week after week, as she eats but does not binge.

Her work is not finished. But she says she doesn’t recognize the person she was nine short and long months ago. She isn’t so afraid of herself anymore.

There is power in patience, in trust, and in being held through a process of breaking down.

There is power in that breaking down.

For some people, it is the only way to rebuild.