When Netflix first released the trailer for To the Bone, of course my sister and my husband automatically told me about it. And of course they would. As I watched the preview, I was unsure of how it would be. To start, I was not very happy with how skinny Lily Collins was. If she lost weight for the film (which I later read that she did, and it was her choice even though she previously has struggled with an ED) wasn't that allowing someone to engage in ED behaviors to "look" the part? And shouldn't we be showcasing that you do NOT need to "look" like you have an ED to have one? Also, it seemed like there was a lot of counting and numbers which I wasn't sure about. But I still thought "Eh maybe I'll see what it's like". Then I kind of forgot all about it, until the weekend it came out and I stumbled across a thread on Reddit where quite a few people responded that the movie triggered them in some way. So then I talked to my current therapist, and emailed my therapist from my time in PHP to get their opinions about it. They both basically said the same thing. It could be triggering. It doesn't exactly portray eating disorders 100% truthfully. I could set myself up for success by watching it with someone close to a therapy appointment, etc, etc. Yet I still felt unsure. And then I read yet another thread on Reddit where someone said that the movie focused a lot on why she didn't want to give up her ED, which reminded this Reddit user of why SHE didn't want to give up her ED before treatment, which negatively impacted her. I was reminded of a Jenni Schaefer talk I attended once. (If you don't know who Jenni Schaefer is, she wrote the book Life Without Ed, which I HIGHLY recommend) Jenni talked about how when she was in her eating disorder, it was like she was always walking on a cliff. And she would continuously fall off this cliff and jump right back on. And when she started to recover, she realized she needed to get off the cliff completely and walk away from it to become recovered. And that when she first started recovering, she stayed close enough to touch the cliff, and then begin taking steps further and further away from the cliff until she didn't need it anymore. And for the first time in my recovery, I FINALLY feel that I am more than an arm's length away from the cliff. Which is AWESOME, but a little more than an arm's length means if I take one or two steps back, I might JUST be able to reach that cliff with my fingertips. And if I feel that cliff, I know I will be tempted to jump back on. And every single day, I have to work just to stay where I am, much less move forward. The moving forward is a slow process. Sometimes it's just a success if you stay where you are and don't step back on a bad day. So I decided that it is not worth the steps I have made to watch a movie that could potentially bring me closer to that cliff. I am still in recovery, and I need to protect myself every day from going back. Maybe one day I will be able to watch a movie about counting calories and engaging in behavior. But where I am at today, I don't feel ready for that. And I keep reminding myself that that is ok. What happens if I don't watch the movie? I'm not missing out on any important aspect of life. I just didn't see a movie. And protected myself in the process. I have been out of treatment for almost 10 months now. And I sometimes tell myself that is a long enough time to be completely healed. But I know the reality is that, at least for me, it is not. That is where I am at today. And that is ok.
Peace and love.