Scarred Skin and Wiggling Worms: What I Learned from my Eating Disorder

Abstract

ABSTRACT I was 36 years old when I was diagnosed with binge eating disorder, which was a shock. I was sitting in my dietician’s office, holding my newborn in my arms, expecting to receive the regular recommendation of specific ingredients and a food plan. But instead of prescribing a diet, Dr. R. helped me take the first step to recovery. Learning about eating disorders and body dissatisfaction allowed me to see a mirror image in my clinical practice as a dermatologist. I started recognising somatic manifestations of psychological distress on my patients’ faces. Just as my obsession with the number on the scale ultimately hid a deeper emotional trauma, I started noticing that some of my patients, obsessively focused on their pores and acne scars, were in fact battling with their own mental health. Writing in the backdrop of a global pandemic, the Beirut port explosion, and Lebanon’s economic collapse, itself exacerbating a nationwide mental health crisis, I share my struggle with my body image and eating disorder, and how it changed my practice of medicine.