Experiment #1, Asking my heart/inner-child what we should eat and then eating that thing without giving it too much logical thought.
Inner parent: What do you want for dinner, love?
Inner 5yo: Spaghetti
Inner parent: Okay! But are you sure, we’ve done that for the last 3 meals?
Inner 5yo: Spaghetti!
:::I go put the water on to boil:::
I wasn’t ever allowed to have a picky eating phase as kid - I would have gone hungry before my mom made the same thing for me two meals in a row, because “balanced” nutrition was that important. Instead of incredulously questioning my inner child, I just make spaghetti again.
Experiment #2, Negotiating with my inner child in a kind and loving way about what we should eat.
Inner parent: What do you want for breakfast, love?
Inner 7yo: I’m still tired from yesterday. Can I have cookies and juice for breakfast?
Inner parent: Of course! What do you want with them? I could make eggs, or turkey and hummus pinwheels, or apples and peanut butter.
Inner 7yo: apples and peanut butter, and do we have any bacon left from yesterday morning?
Inner parent: you got it kiddo
:::I cut up an apple and heat up the bacon while the cookies finish up in the toaster oven, and then I make tea to remind me I am an adult and not a seven year old today:::
Cookies and juice is a totally reasonable request when I’m calorie depleted from coping with all the sensory input and social expectations. I know it doesn’t “ruin” my meal to start with sugar. My brain runs on glucose. Adult me knows how sugar crashes work, so I offer protein sources to pair with the sugar for more sustained energy.
Experiment #3, Negotiating with my inner child in a kind and loving way about what is realistically possible regarding food
Inner parent: I’m really tired tonight, so we only have two choices for dinner. We can make a picky plate from the fridge or order takeout, but I don’t have the energy to cook.
Inner 11yo: Can we order hibachi steak and sushi and fried rice?
Inner parent: That’s not in the budget, dear. If we do takeout, you can order one dish, and I’ll get one, but we can’t get 3. Which one is your favorite?
Inner 11yo: I guess then lets make a charcuterie plate from the fridge. I’d rather have the variety. I wish you made more money so we could order all of the things I want.
Inner parent: me too, love, me too
When my inner child tells me what they want, you can be damn sure I do my best to make it happen. That trust is how this practice re-wires my brain. But I’m still a spoonie ND adult with lots of limitations. If the request is unfulfillable, we have a conversation and find a compromise. I help my inner child understand the realistic limitations I face and offer empathy while they have feelings about those limitations.
Experiment #4, Letting my inner teen make the grocery list
I won’t share the whole list because its long, and I don’t want to subject my inner teen to the internet’s judgement about what they eat. My inner teen still sometimes wants toddler food like juice boxes and cheerios, but they also need an extreme level of variety to be happy with food. They are a sensory sensitive gestalt processor who finds safety in food gestalts - specific pairings and combinations of foods that relate to specific moods or environments.
Choosing foods my inner teen wants is healing my relationship with food. The health of this relationship has become infinitely more important to me than calories or weight. I’m re-doing the motions, re-wiring the synapses so that my bodymind gradually unlearns the deep rooted fear of food. My grandparents were teens during the Great Depression, so I’m healing an entire lineage of food scarcity trauma.
Explanation, where I got this idea…
In 2018, I was diagnosed with anorexia, but it was actually orthorexia and ArFID. That sent me on a journey of research about how eating disorders are treated medically. I found out what they did in outpatient refeeding programs and started doing that for myself, but I quickly realized that positive self-talk about the food was just as essential as eating. Forcing myself to eat was re-traumatizing, so I needed to find a way to encourage refeeding where my whole mind, body, and soul would be on board with the process.
An ancient tumblr concept re-applied,
the mom friend over-ride.
The mom-friend override was a phenomenon named in the 2010s on tumblr. It describes how a person with anxiety is unable to do a thing for themselves, say make a phone call or order food, but they can do it for a friend if their friend needs them to do it. If you google mom friend override, you’ll see a number of memes about this silly little social theory.
People who do the mom-friend override tend to be people who prioritize others needs over their own as a coping mechanism. I theorized, maybe I can use this mental trick to take care of myself, by being the mom-friend my inner child needs. If I can see my inner child’s needs as separate from my own, I might be more motivated to take care of them. And I was right! The more I can metaphorically and symbolically create a space for my current self to meet my inner child’s needs, the easier it has become to take care of my body in a variety of ways such as through food, water, movement, and connection.