Art Therapy vs. Eating Disorders; a true story.

Eating disorders a battle of which 1% of the American Society faces, to the best of our knowledge. This statistic is one that I’ve heard in classrooms, I’ve read in books, and I’ve seen on TV. So if 1% of this country is diagnosed with an eating disorder, therefore, who is to say how many go un-diagnosed? How do the undiagnosed cases stay that way?
A story I can tell you is one of which a very good friend of mine had battled a shadowed and secret eating disorder for 5 years; classifying herself as an anorectic with bulimic tendencies. She was mortified of weight gain, intimacy, new friendships, and ultimately being outside of barriers that she had made for herself.

One day she sat me down, explaining her battle and how she wanted her life back. I didn’t know what to say, I couldn’t fix this situation and I told her to go to seek an institution. However, she didn’t want to be “The girl that was in the Looney-bin for being crazy and thin.” I asked her how she felt about art therapy, something I learned through the therapists who worked with my three autistic siblings. She said she knew little of it but she would give it shot.

The therapist she had found wasn’t the type that had her sit on a black leather chair and asked her how she felt about abstract photos. He was an art therapist, who told her she would find the strength to make a new direction in life visually. And step by step, drawing by painting by drawing, she had found that new direction.

She told me they were like classes that you got lost in, not because you didn’t understand. She explained her new ability to express her emotions and her fears through creativity as a piece of her that she wasn’t ashamed of .That by simply drawing and painting pictures had helped her see her eating disorder as not a vice but a disease.

After a year and a half of therapy she was fully recovered. She has gained about 20 pounds and loves her new life. She has sold 12 of her pieces from therapy, which in the end was more income than what she spent on therapy itself. She is hoping to work teaching fine arts.