[My therapist] saw the re-emergence of anorexia as evidence that I was, indeed, repressing a child within, And that the child was reacting vehemently. The solution to this most recent problem was not to give lectures on eating habits, but to explore the emotions of the inner child. This anorexic episode was not a coincidence, but just the latest form of defense, Not wanting to eat was linked to not wanting to feel. "Thing of your buried fears and irrational feelings as being like those little roly-poly bugs," he said. "You know, the ones that crawl around under rocks. When you turn a rock over and expose them to light, they quickly form a little hard-shell ball. When the threat of exposure is gone, they quickly run under the closest rock." You have painful and frightening feelings within you, so frightening that you'd rather suffer indefinitely, sometimes rather die, than look at them in the light of day. Your defenses are the rocks you hide under. Therapy is a process that seeks to put your worst fears, the roly-poly bugs, into the light, which is exactly what a part of you wants to do, The part you've been displaying here recently.
"But it isn't the only part of you. The other part is so desperately afraid that she'll do nearly anything to avoid the scrutiny. So she finds more rocks the bugs can hide under. The rock of rage. The rock of I-don't give-a-s***-about-anything....And now the latest one, the rock of anorexia. This isn't a separate illness, Rachel; it is just one more rock to hide under, one more place to avoid facing the same feelings.
[...] The rock of anorexia is a big one, very intense. It might seem as if all is lost and things are getting worse. The fewer rocks there are, the more bugs will be found under the ones that remain. `[...] This isn't a time to run; it's a time to feel."
