Early Experiences and Today’s Behaviors
Core Beliefs & Schemas
This topic is one of several eating disorder topics to which everyone can relate. We all have core beliefs and schemas.
Mrs. Daugette, one of my favorite therapists at treatment, (and her referenced CCI Health handout) define core beliefs as extremely stable and enduring patterns of thinking that are learned in childhood, adolescence, or even adulthood. Sometimes they are healthy; sometimes they are unhealthy.
A schema is a mental framework or concept that helps organize and interpret information. So it represents the cycle of patterns of thinking, beliefs, and subsequent rules and behaviors. Think of a wasp infestation. You can kill individual wasps or you can deal with the nest. A schema deals with the nest. They are the basis of how we view ourselves and our world. Unhealthy schemas must be reversed to fully recover.
Our core beliefs are conclusions about ourselves we arrive at based on what happened early in our lives... our experiences. No one is excluded from negative experiences in this life. It's part of the trouble of living in a very fallen world.
If you only experience the thoughts exemplified a few paragraphs down from time to time, they are situational. However, the regularly patterned thinking of these unhealthy schemas points to negative core beliefs. Typically, these result from ongoing encounters with a variety of negative experiences such as, but not limited to, the following:
These encounters can even extend into the adult years. Abuse, prolonged stress, or trauma also influence the way we think about ourselves.
Unfortunately, these become subconscious beliefs; we operate under these core beliefs without even being conscious of them, which ends up reinforcing them because of the way they affect our actions.
Even many years later, and even when our circumstances are quite different from those in the past, we continue with this pattern of subconscious, negative core beliefs. Those earlier experiences lead us to believe something about ourselves. These often take the form of "I statements." And the strong negative beliefs about ourselves lead to strong negative emotions about ourselves.As a result, in order to self-protect and ensure we function "well" in life, we develop rules and assumptions for how we live our lives. The subconscious goal of these rules is to protect ourselves from the truth of our negative core beliefs.
As an example, a person who subconsciously believes she is worthless could develop subconscious rules such as "I must please other people; it is not okay to disappoint anyone." "It is not okay for me to express needs." "I must strive to do everything as close to perfectly as I possibly can."When we live by these "rules," we naturally adapt our behaviors to follow them so as not to experience the negative emotions about ourselves, as long as we follow the rules. This means that our day-to-day behaviors are based on the rules we've created in order to avoid feeling the negativity of what we believe to be true. And as we do that, we are setting ourselves up for failure and unfortunately keeping our negative core beliefs intact, because we never challenge them. And when we slightly "break" a rule, which is inevitable, it reinforces that negative core belief all the more.
It's a vicious cycle that repeats itself over and over and over again, year after year, decade after decade, reinforcing the beliefs with each full circle.
Here are some examples of negative core beliefs. Though negative core beliefs are common to everyone, these specific ones are the most common beliefs shared by those with eating disorders, and personally, the ones with which I struggle most often.
Counter-dependence: I don't know who I can trust. I don't want to be hurt, and I don't want to be a burden. So I fix problems myself and don't ask for help.
Self-subjugation: I must ignore my wants and needs and instead, focus on the wants and needs of others. My needs are not as important.
Self-sacrifice: If I focus on my own needs rather than those of others, I am selfish. That thought is horrific to me. I must be willing to do everything within my power to help someone else, no matter what's going on, or I am a terrible person.
Fear of Losing Control: I must keep strong feelings in check, or I'll lose control. I must strive to control as much as possible; otherwise, if something bad happens, it is my fault.
Emotional Deprivation: I don't deserve for anyone to care about me. Who would even want to meet my needs. If I get frustrated with someone, I am selfish.
Abandonment/Loss: It is very likely I will be abandoned or left alone. (seen often in adults with unexplained separation anxiety or reluctance to form close relationships)
Defectiveness/Lovability: I know that I'm damaged and flawed. But what if others see a flaw in me before I do? If I already assume the worst all the way around, it won't hurt so much just in case they do.
Mistrust/Abuse: I don't let others get close to me because they'll hurt me.
Social Isolation/Alienation: I'm so different from others that they don't really want to be close to me. They just feel bad for me and tolerate me. Sometimes there's a little relief in my negative thoughts if someone thinks well of me. But I doubt that they really do. They just want to be nice.
Shame/Embarrassment: There's something so unacceptable about and wrong with me that I must never let others see the real me. When others disagree with me, I am ashamed for having the thought that brought the disagreement. I must NEVER disappoint or cause anyone close to me negative feelings or I am a horrible, awful person.
Perfectionism: People may think better of me if I exceed their expectations. Mistakes are never acceptable. If I make one, it means that I'm incompetent. There is no grey area. If the outcome fails to meet expectations, it was a complete failure.
Failure to Achieve: I'm not as good as I should be or as good as others wish me to be so I avoid competition, because I will fail or disappoint. I must do well and get the approval of everybody who matters to me, or I am failing them. I must be a high achiever or I'm lazy and incompetent.
Self-punishment: As a disappointment to myself and others, I deserve to be mistreated, to hurt, and/or to go without.
Mrs. Daugette recommends the best-friend test when trying to discern which thoughts should be challenged. Would I believe the thought/rule/belief to be true of my best friend? Absolutely not.
I can challenge these beliefs 100 times over, up one side and down the other, for my family and friends. But when I think of them as related to me, it just feels like a completely different issue. It feels like trying to cram the wrong puzzle piece into a space just to make it work. It's dissonant.
But I challenge it anyway. So then, why can't I just correct the negative thought and move on with things? Why does it continue to feel dissonant and untrue? Why does it feel so awful to challenge it with what others are telling me is truth? Even others close to me are frustrated by this and cannot understand why I can't just accept it.Mrs. Daugette says to think about it like believing in Santa. It served me well as a young child and brought about good things and happy memories. But once I realized the truth, I easily let it go.
The reason I can't "let it go" in relation to negative core beliefs so easily now is because I adopted and owned the beliefs for thirty-five+ years. They have guided my behavior in such a way that has reinforced them all these years. Had someone told me they weren't true at the age of eight, I probably would have readily accepted it.
The good news is that while we cannot change the past, we can trust in the sovereignty of God. Somehow, He works all things for good. We can do something about the present moment and our actions that maintain the negative core beliefs we have about ourselves. Things can be different. The cycle can be broken. Our minds can be renewed.
I believe the answer lies in the process of releasing ownership of the negative core beliefs and taking ownership of what God says about us. So much about that sounds cliche, but what's in my mind is definitely not.
Most people born into Christian homes were taught that our identity is in Christ. Unfortunately, that's part of the problem. Often that very Christian home is the home where you lived when your experiences began forming those negative core beliefs. You believed what you were taught about God, because you believed your Christian family was teaching truth. But it was only believed at face value because of the core beliefs that had already begun settling in. Because, again, your belief systems about yourself and who God says you are were taught to you in the same home. They just didn't line up with one another. But you believed what you were taught anyway.
It doesn't mean that you didn't love God or want to live for Him and certainly does not imply that you didn't respond to the Gospel and place your trust in Christ alone for salvation. It just means that those same experiences that formed your core beliefs were also the filter with which you processed what you were taught about God. And that, too, remained engrained, decade after decade.
So I do believe the answer to challenging and reframing these core beliefs is simple. But the process is long, challenging, often confusing, and difficult. This shouldn't be surprising, as it is such a big part of the recovery process.
You can't change something you've believed and reinforced practically your whole life in one day. And probably not even over a full year. The timeline is different for everyone, but we can begin today.
Here are two practical steps to take in beginning to walk in that direction:
1. Pray
Pour your heart out to God, whatever that looks like. In your mind, on paper, speaking, sobbing... however it comes out. Tell Him how badly you want what He tells you in the Bible to sink down deep and saturate every cell of your body. Ask Him to renew your mind. Ask Him to begin washing away the stains from the lies of your core beliefs and to replace them with the healing truth of what He says about you. Unfiltered, unaffected by any experience or memory or doubt. Straight from His heart to yours.(Note: Be prepared to be shocked by the truth of how absolutely horrible we all are - wicked, lost, and dying, deserving of no good thing. Dust, incompetent, shameful, flawed, worthless on our own. As disobedient, sin-sick people, we would be CRAZY to have any confidence in ourselves. We shouldn't expect to feel good about ourselves. All of those thoughts described above are true about the people we are without Christ. But also prepare to be completely amazed and overwhelmed by the goodness and grace and immeasurable love of Jesus Christ for you. Because at our very worst, He loved us so that He gave His life in our place. He took all of our shame, our sin, our incompetence upon Himself. And because of Jesus, because of the sinless blood He shed for us and the righteousness with which He's clothed us, we ARE worthy. Certainly never on our own, but because of Him! He said we are worthy when He gave His life for ours. Our status before God is set by Jesus alone. If Christ is in us, we have no reason not to be confident. Our identity in Christ gives us reason to challenge every one of those thoughts and negative core beliefs. We are free from needing personal worth because of the Gospel that tells us WE ARE WORTHY. [And additional note - thank you Bekah for making this so beautifully clear at the women's conference.])
2. Get a new Bible and set aside time to spend reading and processing it every day.
I'm not sure exactly why, but I do feel that a new Bible has been significant for me in this process. My precious friend gave one to me the day before I entered inpatient treatment for the first time. I cannot even describe how different my time in the Word has been since then. Perhaps the new Bible represents the new, unfiltered understanding? I'm not sure, but it has been like a fresh beginning for me. I suggest a journaling Bible. Fill up the margins with things you learn as you read. What God says to you about Himself. About who you are in Him. Things you want to remember. The unfiltered, liberating truths of His promises. Songs that come to mind. While in treatment, I dated the things that I wrote. I LOVE going back and reading and remembering everything about it. Just don't feel inhibited to write on every page, if the Lord so moves in your heart. Remember that we cannot understand our identity in Christ unless we have an understanding of Him. Though we will never fully grasp all of His attributes, we can flood our minds with all that the Bible tells us about Him and allow it to wash away everything else. But we can only do that by immersing ourselves in what He says, without any filters.We can't change our past, but we can change the way it affects us today. Pray and find every opportunity to grow in your knowledge of Jesus. Trust Him with the timeline. It's not a race. It's a God-ordained process.