During the dark times of my recovery, I wasn’t really thinking about doing crafts. We all know that when we get in so deep into the eating disorder, we can’t see anything but that monster.
Sometimes, between therapy sessions, I would draw out my feelings and show them to my therapist. She liked my creativity. During one session, my therapist asked me to draw a picture of how I saw myself. From there, I started using crafts to help battle eating disordered thoughts.
Here are five ways that crafts have helped me and continue to help me in my recovery:
1. They alleviate the intensity of eating disordered thoughts.
When I am having a bad feeling or the eating disorder is trying to compel me to do something that is against my recovery, I do a craft. One example of a craft I do is looming. It may not turn out right the first time; however, doing the looming calms me down and allows me to do something constructive. If I make a potholder that doesn’t turn out perfectly, I know I could either redo it or leave it the way it is, and enjoying the process of doing the craft without worrying about perfection. There are times that I let it go because ED focuses on perfection and I am getting away from that.
2. Crafts take the focus off of ED.
When I do poster board projects, I put things on the poster board that don’t pertain to the eating disorder. For one poster board, I put a lot of French-themed stickers and other things on there and wrote about it. It was fun because I included things that I like to do and my own hobbies. I also did another poster board themed “I Can Do This!” Again, I had different stickers and wrote on them. The point of the project was focusing on recovery and staying there.
3. Shopping for crafts is fun!
Going to the crafts store is fun, too. There are times that I go in there with the intention of getting one craft item and I come out with three. I can get so many ideas while I’m there that there is no room for the eating disorder in my head and that is a great thing!
4. The anticipation and planning of the crafts excite me!
There are times when I plan the crafts to get my thinking away from the eating disorder on to more constructive thoughts and ideas. The planning process is as much fun as doing the craft itself because I don’t think about bad, destructive thoughts when I am doing the crafts. My creative side takes over and kicks out the nasty thoughts!
5. There is a sense of accomplishment when finishing a project.
Whether it’s a shirt, poster board, potholder or painting a cup, I get the feeling of accomplishment whenever I finish a project. True, it may not be perfect, but that is creativity and it doesn’t have to be perfect. In the past, I used to get mad at my errors on projects, but now I accept them because they came from me. To me, it is more authentic because it came from the heart of the person.
Katrin attends Macomb Community College, where she majors in psychology. She loves encouraging others to fight against ED, watching wild weather like tornadoes and taking pictures of thunder storms.
