This week is National Eating Disorder Awareness Week. To draw attention to it, I share a piece originally written last summer after reviewing the Netflix movie: To The Bone.
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Tears streamed down my cheeks as the credits scrolled across the TV. My husband looked over at me from his side of the couch and I knew he was waiting to hear my response but all I could finally muster was, “Why am I even crying?”
This was last summer after the made for Netflix movie premier of To The Bone. To The Bone is the story of 20-year-old Ellen’s (Lily Collins) battle with anorexia. Even after being admitted into a group home under the care of an unconventional doctor (Keanu Reeves), Ellen clung tightly to her eating disorder.
I know how hard it is to break free because my daughter too has battled an eating disorder. Her story is nothing like Ellen’s so my emotional response to the film caught me by surprise. But then again, the struggle and pain, the trying to control, the guilt and shame, and the hopelessness makes our daughter’s story very much like Ellen’s. Seeing Ellen’s brokenness took me back to those dark days of my daughter’s despair and insecurities.
This is what a powerful, human drama does, isn’t it? It touches a nerve – not just with people who identify with the subject matter (like me with this movie) but for all of us because of our shared human condition. From this standpoint I believe To The Bone succeeds.
Self-Salvation Strategies
Ellen’s struggle to find life worth living even when things aren’t as they should be exposes the reality each of us face living in a fallen world. Because this world is not as it should be, there will always be trials, hardship and suffering. But like Ellen we fight to control our circumstances and to keep the pain out. So throughout the film what the viewer sees in Ellen, her dysfunctional family members and the other patients are the many self-salvation strategies turned to looking to secure life.
For Ellen and all eating disorder patients, food is never the real issue. Though the film does not delve deeply into uprooting Ellen’s underlying issues, we are given enough of a glimpse to see she has experienced abandonment, rejection and guilt for which she harbors loads of shame and cannot get outside of herself. Thus, she has developed her own set of standards (or law) for which she must measure up.
Two in particular shown over and over again are her obsession with trying to make her arm small enough to circle her hand around and the sit-ups she does even in bed as a coping mechanism when things are bad. But once she reaches her goal arm size, we see it wasn’t enough to save her. She’s still not okay. She still holds on to the shame.
In other scenes, we see the tension of Ellen recognizing life is beautiful, relationships bring joy, food tastes good, and hope is out there, and yet embracing these truths are too scary and out of her control. Even when the doctor takes the group to an art exhibit to help them feel alive, Ellen won’t allow herself to fully embrace the experience because of the voice in her head telling her she is not worthy. Instead she stays imprisoned to the lie and at the mercy of her own effort to save herself.
Our Soul Solution
When Ellen sits down alone with the doctor after a difficult family counseling session, his “pearl of wisdom” is basically to suck it up because life is hard. Yes, life is hard, which is why she needed to be pointed to the person and work of Christ, not to her own effort or another empty strategy.
Everything we experience, Jesus experienced to the uttermost so he is able to enter in to our mess and identify with us in it. He knows what it’s like to be rejected and abandoned. He knows the weight of shame and has cried out in despair. He’s also perfectly measured up to God’s perfect standard, so we can be free of the penalty for failing to measure up.
Ellen did find freedom. The turning point takes place at her mother’s home after leaving the facility. She was at rock bottom, close to death with no will to keep living. But in a pivotal scene Ellen’s mom, who admittedly was never there for her in the way she should have been, voiced acceptance of Ellen (even in her shameful, broken condition) that she had never known or felt before. Hearing her mom speak words of love and acceptance changed her.
This is just what Christ does for each of us. His love and acceptance not based on anything we’ve done or failed to do; his love cast on us simply because of his goodness and grace.
When Ellen was met with grace, it became louder than the condemning voice in her head. For my daughter it was no different. When she realized God loves and accepts her even in her sin, his grace began squelching out the shame, and his perfection became more certain than all her self-salvation strategies. It was then she started to relinquish control and find freedom from her eating disorder.
As a mom, I too had to get to the same point of Ellen’s mom in realizing I could not fix my daughter. But as a believer, God was showing me where I too needed to rest in who Jesus is for me.
How easy it is for any of us to not see the many ways we try to secure life in false sources. But clearly depicted in this film is what life looks like when hope and happiness is bound up in things that were never meant to satisfy. Seeing the brokenness and living in the brokenness make sense why Jesus wept. After gathering my thoughts to discuss the show with my husband I realized my tears sprung from overwhelming gratitude that Jesus meets us in the midst of the brokenness and never leaves us alone.
For eating disorder resources click here.
