To my US friends, “pork pies” is rhyming slang for “lies.”
(Pork pies are also these delicious little meat filled shortcrust pastry pies, which incidentally I refused to eat when I had Anorexia. Sod’s law that now I am recovered and would like to eat pork pies I live in Colorado — where there is no rhyming slang and there are certainly no pork pies.)
Mum: “Did you eat breakfast?”
Me: “Yes, I had two pieces of toast with marmite and a boiled egg,” I would lie. I hadn’t eaten a thing. I didn’t prepare the lie, It just came naturally. I didn’t even feel bad about it. After saying it I might panic and wonder if there had been any eggs in the house. If we were out of eggs she’d know I couldn’t have eaten eggs. Bread was a safe bet, there was always bread.
She’d raise an eyebrow, look suspicious, so I’d follow it up with, “Check the bloody bread bin and your’ll see there is some bread gone if you don’t believe me.”
She wouldn’t check. I knew she wouldn’t check with me standing there because she wouldn’t want me to know that she thought I was lying. After she was gone I would go to the bread bin, take out a couple of slices of bread, and feed them to the dog or crumble them in my hands and scatter them in the back garden. You know, to give my lie some credibility. My huge aversion to food waste was always squashed by my even larger aversion to being made to eat.
I felt not an ounce of guilt for lying. I honestly didn’t feel it was even lying. Why not? Because things that allow for eating less and moving more feel morally right when you have Anorexia. Anorexia sits above other moral code and can have the effect of trumping other moral rights and wrongs. That’s why someone who is not a liar can tell lies if those lies benefit Anorexia. If those lies enable eating less and moving more they didn’t feel wrong in my head like lying to my sister about wearing her new top would have.
When we are threatened, our morals get fuzzy
Anorexia made my core truths and values fuzzy to say the least. I am someone who values honesty, yet, I lied a lot when doing so protected my ability to eat less and move more. That’s because my brain valued minimal feeding behaviour and maximum movement. My brain believed that I needed to feed as little as possible and move as much as possible in order to survive. Survival instincts that are most relevant in any given situation override less pressing morals and values. That is why people who are not killers will kill in self defense. That is why people who are starving will steal. You get the picture. When we are desperate, threatened, our morals get fuzzy. We do what we need to do in order to survive. Anorexia believed I need to not eat in order to survive. Lying to my mother was collateral damage.
I believe Anorexia is a response to threat. The threat of perceived famine. The response to famine is to feed little and move a lot — to migrate. Therefore, when faced with more food, we act as we would if we were threatened. Feeding and not moving feels like danger to an AN brain, therefore, lying in order to get yourself out of danger doesn’t feel wrong. At least not as wrong as eating would feel!
I only ever lied about food and exercise, by the way. Consequently, I would tell my mother a bare-faced fib about a piece of toast but was unable to tell a little white lie about anything non-eating disorder related.
Remission removes the need to lie
Once your body is out of energy deficit, the Anorexia response to energy deficit — to migrate — is turned off. Once the urge to feed less and move more is turned off, you no longer have to protect it. You no longer have to always be moving and not eating. There is simply no reason to lie about food and exercise any more. If you are hungry you will eat. If you are tired you will rest. It becomes nobody else’s business because you can manage your own nutrition and rest.
Basically: there is no reason to lie because when it is evident that you are no longer going to starve yourself to death people leave you the fuck alone and stop bugging you about what you have eaten all the time.
There, if the one thing that is going to motivate you to recover is the knowledge that once you are recovered nobody will be on your case about food all the time, so be it. Recovery is well worth it if only for the reason that the first question my mother asks me now is “How is the cat?” rather than “Have you eaten enough?” My husband doesn’t have to ask me to eat more because he knows I will do that all of my own accord in the same way that I breathe air unassisted. Who would have thought!
If I want to have secrets now I’ll have to go have an affair or something. I have no interest or cause whatsoever to lie about what I have eaten or not eaten. Getting out of energy deficit solves the problem of having to lie about food.
How to manage eating disorder lies
1. Don’t blame the people who are trying to get you to eat more and rest more. They are doing that because they care.
2. Do not take it personally. You are not a bad person if you have lied about food. You are a person with Anorexia and your brain is reacting from a place of threat. But, at the same time … (see #3)
3. You are accountable to you. You have to be compassionate for yourself and also not allow yourself to lie. If someone asks you what you have eaten tell the truth. If they tell you that you have not eaten enough they are correct. Your resistance to being told to eat more is indicative that you need to eat more.
Thank you for this post, it helps so much to know I’m not the only one. I, too, highly value honesty and absolutely cannot stand food waste… yet during the darkest depths of my disorder I was the biggest and sneakiness liar and wasted food like there was no tomorrow. My inner ‘true’ self would feel terrible for lying, so anorexia latched onto that guilt and further decided I needed to lie more and restrict more because I was a ‘bad person’ (not at all recognising that it was my anorexia that was making me like this! So following it up by listening to my disorder probably wasn’t the wisest of decisions, but then again it’s so manipulative!). At times I did, and still do, believe I must be a horrible person for all the lies I’ve said, but your post has helped with that somewhat, I hope the further my recovery continues the further away from the sneaky lies I will get. Already two months into recovery and I haven’t lied about food in ages!!
Three Cheers ! ! ! Restriction is the great lie I tell myself, and it causes three fold lies in all relationships. Lies that allow for misery and suicide. Thank you…
Thank you for writing this for people to read. I’m in the middle of my disorder right now and I want to get better but I still have all these thoughts that tell me “you need to eat less” or I’ll be planning my breakfast and keep removing food from my “plan” and ending up thinking “maybe I should say I ate toast and eggs to my mum and nurse when I actually didn’t eat anything at all?”. But I’m really bad at lying, I am always honest and lying makes me feel horrible. So I wanted to just see if anyone was in my position and this has helped me to not want to lie.
I end up doing 1000 sit-ups a day because I ate more than I planned because people tell me to eat more.
Depressed Beans. “Not want to lie,” it’s something you can’t help, it’s compulsive, don’t blame yourself. But trust Mum. You could be my daughter (Mar 30, 2018 would be right … but I don’t think you are). Meal plan but then removing items, with half-idea to make up for it later, but never do. Not wanting to lie–written is, “I should tell my parents the truth,” about a self-admission summarily terminated for non-negotiable (finish dried out bit; OR drink meal supplement; OR submit to feeding tube (aversion); OR discharge–and anorexia chose?, discharge). Meals got smaller and smaller. Lies (and mild incredulity by Mum) piled up. I thought it was simply about defending the behaviour. Retrospectively learned she had OCD, so today, almost 7 months on–and I think the lies were involuntary. OCD, not lies at all, but inability to help supporters help her. YOU aren’t telling lies, anorexia has you gagged and speaks for you. If you cannot say Help?, could you write it down? So much confusion. Supporters want to believe you–they cannot guess or somehow know. You need to find a way to tell. So they can help you to safety.
TF, your explanations are great! A) compulsion in famine is to feed little, move lots; and B) recovery means symptoms go away! Hers was episodic anorexia. A treatable mental illness. Recovery always meant return of robust physical health and intrusive thoughts went away–occasional inpatient programs helped kick-start recovery. School schedule meant eating was not top priority.
She didn’t like to be a disappointment or quit a relationship or let anyone down. Individual private therapist sought reasons (magic bullet) for restricting–finding fault with relationships so less family might be helpful. It turns out family-type support is crucial for recovery (intrinsic motivation, accountability). Downward trending, the individual therapist said, “You seem to think I may pink-slip you–trust me, I would NEVER have you committed,” to life-saving hospitalisation for being dangerously thin. TERRIFYING to learn, after 10 year relationship with therapist, there was no one to keep her accountable, NO line she must not cross. Dietitian persisted even with downward trend, too (clearly not completing meal plans–lies about why it wasn’t working, so as not to be a disappointment).
GP and intensive treatment were not persistent. GP felt their role was everything other-than-ED. Consider that a self-admission for inpatient treatment would be a painful decision (given definition of anorexia is an aversion to treatment). Pre-admission programs take months (meant to ensure commitment to succeeding in intensive treatment). The disorder’s lie, “I choose to leave,” (and Mental Health Act says can’t treat a person against their will) followed by discharge with shame, embarrassment at inability to control one’s own behaviour, and prospect of starting over (months of pre-admission groups).
Family didn’t know what to do–wanting to believe odd assertions, lies. Frightening, the lie to self, “I can recover on my own.” Supporters wanted to believe and didn’t know not to believe. A convenient admission to intensive treatment, no visitors please, and lies are the reason anorexia is the most dangerous mental illness.