View of God, self-image, eating disorders, anorexia nervosa

Take hold of eternal life!

Jesus is the way,
the truth, and the life

Chapter 2 -
How can the past affect you?



If a person has bruises from the past, those bruises can shape everyday life. They can make a huge impact in the person’s perception of life and how their life turns out.

  In this area there are generally three main causes or influences in which the past has made a strong impact. Behind each issue there are almost always traumatic experiences and rejection, especially from important people. These areas are:

1. Not fully understanding the righteousness of faith and the grace of God

2. Inability to forgive others, feeling bitter

3. Self-accusations

Many people engaged in pastoral care have observed that people have problems specifically in these three areas. The following quotes, among others, address the matter:

Leanne Payne: There are three huge obstacles to personal healing and to that of the emotional life – the inability to receive forgiveness, incompetence in forgiving others and the failure to accept oneself. We will win these obstacles by repenting wholeheartedly, receiving forgiveness, and by wanting to dissociate ourselves from the devil and all his works. (2)

David A. Seamands: Years ago I came to the conclusion that revival-Christian believers have principally two reasons for problems in their emotional life: not being able to understand, to receive and to live the unconditional grace and forgiveness of God in reality, and the inability to show this absolute love, forgiveness, and grace to other people. (3)

Sven Reichmann: Above, we spoke about how sin can have deep roots in the life of a man. Bitterness and judging oneself are two typical roots of sin that we can both see in the prodigal son's brother. As a matter of fact, these roots appear quite often together. Bitterness produces rebellion and anger towards the environment, judging oneself bears the same emotions towards oneself. (4)

So when these three areas – the relationship with God, bitterness towards one’s neighbors, and a distorted attitude towards oneself – come up, there is a reason to consider each one separately. They should be studied so that we would not have a distorted view on any of them.

1. THE Relationship with God

Firstly, in the relationship with God – when man turns to God – a traumatic past can cause a person to have difficulties in believing God’s love for him; he can believe that God loves other people, but not him. For when he feels that he has not gotten approval from his parents or it has been conditional and depended on performance, he may also think that God treats people in the same way.

   This view of God as being harsh and demanding can sometimes lead to the so-called state of legalism. This condition entails, among other things, a person confessing the same sins over and over again without understanding that after receiving Christ these sins have already been forgiven. A person may also continuously hear an inner voice compelling and demanding him or her to do things through which the person wishes to get approval, “Why don't you testify more, why don't you pray more, God doesn't accept you if you are unable to do better,” and so on.

   The remedy for this kind of a legalistic condition is the grace of God – absolute and full forgiveness through Jesus Christ. Understanding this and believing it will certainly release a person from this condition.

   What is interesting in this matter is that in Kenya, for example, when people turn to Christ they do not have such problems in understanding the approval of God. The Finnish preacher Mauri Viksten thought that it is because children in Kenya have a closer relationship with their parents. When they are carried in their parents' arms, they learn to understand that the parents approve of them:

In Finland, a majority of those who come to pastoral care are people who do not really have any sin to confess; there is only an all-encompassing feeling of wretchedness and not having done any good deeds. Commands to "pull yourself together" only add to the misery. It has been interesting to note that in the countryside of Kenya, there is generally no need for pastoral care. The reason cannot be a more powerful teaching of the Bible because teaching is still very undeveloped in many rural areas of Africa where the largest churches of the country are.

   When I was searching for an answer to this odd phenomenon, I noted African mothers who always carry their children with them. When the mother hoes the field, the child remains on her back. The child acquires a feeling of security and acceptance. When the child grows up and turns to God, it is easy for him or her to believe that also God will accept him or her. (5)

2. Bitterness

When a person has gone through painful experiences and encountered rejection perhaps by some people close to them, the second consequence is usually bitterness and anger: bitterness, grudges, and accusations against those people who have hurt him/her. This person may continue to brood about matters that happened in the past and are connected to the past.

   The main problem with bitterness is that a person does not often notice it or does not admit the fact that it is a sin. We may think that after being treated so badly, we have the right to be bitter. But it is just this bearing of a grudge that prevents us from becoming free. If we only learned to forgive we would be freed not only from the past but also from other things. Sven Reichmann has a comment about this:

A compliant, patient heart is free from all bitterness, and such a heart is, according to Salomon, the life of the whole body. Because bitterness sprouts from our lives, an incredible amount of illnesses, suffering, and misery have subsequently resulted. When the sprout is torn away, man will be freed from many sins, all those for which he has lost hope a long time ago. (6)

One side of bitterness is that it can be transferred as anger toward and distrust of outsiders, to people who have never even hurt us. This can happen in marriage, for example.

   If a wife has had a bad relationship with her father, for example, she can transfer these negative feelings to her future spouse (a man might act similarly as a result of having a strenuous relationship with his mother). Perhaps she does not consciously want to be against her husband but she may deep in her heart feel distrust and anger towards her spouse because her father did not care for her. Also, if a woman has experienced sexual violence and incest as a child, the abyss can be deepened even further. It can prevent her from creating a good sexual relationship with her husband, and even cause the sexual desire to be quenched. The past can thus badly disturb the relationship.

   However, there is hope in such situations, and this hope is forgiveness. As a person realizes his/her anger, its roots, and wants to forgive, the past cannot disturb him/her in the same way. The person will have to give up any accusations against his/her parents – and also against the spouse – in order for the marriage to work out.

3. JUdging oneself

The third consequence of having been treated badly in the past and not being accepted as you are is a person starting to despise himself/herself. We may start accusing and looking down upon ourselves, meaning that the anger turns towards ourselves. Accusations such as, "You are nothing,” “Nobody loves you – not even God,” “Who do you think you are?” or, “You have no right to live!” and so on can be quite ordinary. If a person has not been accepted, it becomes difficult for him or her to learn to accept him/herself, and this can be expressed as self-accusations like those described above.

   Some researchers have spoken about the self-image — the image that each of us has of ourselves. It has been stated that our self-image very strongly directs our behavior and our thoughts. So if we have a positive self-image that may have been formed through positive feedback, it is easy for us to get along with ourselves and with others. But if we have a bad self-image gained through experiencing negative influences, it will be much more difficult. It is unfortunate that we are often prisoners of a negative image that was formed by bad early experiences than by what we are experiencing now.

   In any case, if after some painful experiences, a foundation of self-accusation and criticism has been formed, different actions can sprout up. They may only be the consequences from our not valuing ourselves. Some common behaviors have been listed below.

- Nervousness with other people.

- Fearing what others think.

- Being annoyed about our own appearance and body.

- Trying to make up for our own deficiencies by accomplishments and achievements.

- Feeling worse than others.

- Self-pity.

- Suicidal thoughts.

- Having difficulty believing that anybody could seriously love us.

- Fear of the future and expecting the worst.

- Fear of intimacy and fearing that people will not accept us as ourselves.

- Workaholicism can be a consequence of not accepting oneself. For example, the Finnish priest Kalevi Lehtinen told how he noticed his own struggling with this issue:

Driving back home Kalevi noticed that he was not at all uncomfortable with the idea of cancer. To his surprise, he experienced a curious sort of relief as comes to cancer. It would be a glorious way to be freed from everything, especially from fatigue and the continuous feeling of inadequacy, he thought.

   While discussing about such times with Kalevi, one understands the many issues he has gone through with himself after that.

   He realizes that his anger towards himself has a clear connection with his working tempo. This anger has been his sin and temptation ever since childhood.

   Workaholicism comes from anger towards oneself, Kalevi believes nowadays, after having already distanced himself from his own experiences.

   Man must destroy and punish himself by working, and at the same time, he buys acceptance: of oneself and others.

   Having anger towards oneself has no borders, which is why it is so closely tied with death. This is why many people die. Kalevi encountered his limit seven years ago when he understood that he was more than willing to die of cancer.

   He really hated himself, even though his public image did not give any outward implications of it. He despised himself because of his never-ending depression and pain that he – in vain – tried to drown with an absurd amount of working. All of this only added to his stress and stomach aches, however.

   Kalevi himself realized his condition. He knew he was carrying his burden of guilt and shame from his early childhood. He was also aware of a deep drive towards self destruction that had already earlier made him want to die and finally put out the pain inside. (7)

- Eating disorders can be a sign of not accepting oneself. Eating too much can be a sign of yearning for love and acceptance and of feelings of inadequacy.

   Similarly, anorexia nervosa, that mostly appears in teenage girls, is a similar symptom. In this, a person's image of herself is so distorted that even if an anorectic looks at herself in the mirror when she is like a skeleton, she will see herself as too fat. This may often be because of other people's injurious remarks like, "You are too fat." This can lead to excessive loss of weight:

I was diagnosed with anorexia nervosa when I had just turned 14. It started with dieting. I was too fat: I weighed 60 kilos (132 pounds) and was 159 cm tall (5.2 feet). The boys teased me and told me that I’m a fatso…

I was in the 8^th grade of comprehensive school when the public health nurse noticed that I had put on a few extra kilos. I took it as an offense.

   It was the last push towards anorexia nervosa.

   Immediately, I started a diet and I decided that nobody would ever tell me something like that again. In my opinion, my body was sturdy but others were of another opinion. (…)

   I kept feeling like nobody accepts me. When you don't value yourself it is hard to believe that anybody else could either. I didn't let anybody near me. I did listen to my friends talking but I didn't open up to them. (…)

   It seemed that my own value depended on the grades I got from school. I didn't want to be proud of my grades but whenever I didn't do as well, everything seemed to come tumbling down. After a test, I would always weep as I was afraid that it went badly. Self-criticism was hard. (…)

   Probably one reason for my illness was that I’m sensitive. The sensitivity just happened to appear as anorexia. "(8)

- Escaping to fantasy worlds and dishonesty are powerful.

- Alcohol or drugs may also be means of escaping. Through them, one may try to rid oneself of feelings of worthlessness, uncertainty, and insecurity, even if just for a moment. The following text written by a woman is an honest example of this:

The answer of the woman was like an echo of Job's despair, "I just simply don't like myself! There is nothing good in me!” And most of us alcoholics and drug addicts feel the same! They use drugs and alcohol only to be able to live with themselves. It is not because of society, the congregation, or parents that they have sunk so low – it is only because of themselves. (9)

- Homosexuality can also be a result of not accepting oneself and of certain backgrounds that one has had in his or her life.

Jari Iivanainen