Abstract

Behind eating disorders lie extreme self-control and extreme indulgence. Like you are too demanding of yourself, which leads to psychological distortion. When extreme self-control collapses at a threshold, it leads to extreme self-indulgence, the people use indulgence and loss of control to console themselves. And then, they feel guilty and self-reproachful for losing control, leading to self-restraint once again. Base on this, I created a VR storytelling and game play experience. In my story, I personify these two extreme characteristic and describe a person who lives with them in one room.Their interaction show how the main character struggle and find balance between these two extremes under the influence of an eating disorder.

Research

There are lot of causes can lead to eating disorder, like genetics, body anxious, peer pressure, bullying of other people, or experienced traumatic event. Then, I watched many films, literature, documentaries, and real-life cases about this topic, and I found a commonality among them. this commonality is also the theme I want to show in my thesis. basically, it has a common psychological factor behind it: A need for control. The control comes from you demanding yourself too much from life, or we can say perfection. but the control is extreme and self-destructive. which will lead to bad consequences to your body and mental. You will need to find comfort.  So these people may turn to food as a way to cope with stress, pressure, and other negative emotions. they use food as a source of distraction from their problems. But, same as the need for control, they are both extreme and unmanageable.  However, under this unmanageable comfort, a strong wave of self- blame, guilty follows. You want to cleanse yourself and once again enter a state of extreme self-control. This an endless cycle that hard to escape.......

Technical Details