Recently, one of my friends from the first time I was in treatment asked me to send her a story of where I'd been and where I was now. She said she was making a scrapbook of these eating disorder stories that she could look at when she was feeling down to remind herself of how strong all of us were. My first thought was, "Wow, that's a good idea." But then I was gripped by anxiety and fear because I had never done this before. As many times as I had been asked to, I always glossed over the "history" part and focused on my second treatment experience and eventual recovery. I gave myself time, and finally sat down to write this. It's a lot longer than I expected. But I think it's good for me. I need to have my story written down for myself. And I hope maybe it will inspire some of you beautiful, strong people.
Trigger Warning: mentions of severe eating disorder behaviors.
One of the reasons I’ve never written my story is that when I look back on the beginnings of my life…it’s not like I had a terrible time. For the most part, my childhood was happy. I mean, sure, I could tell from a very young age that my parents weren’t happy together. But I had friends, even despite moving several times as a young kid. I had good grades. I had a dad, I had a mom, and I had a sister. My parents got divorced, but that happens to almost every kid nowadays it seems. But what happened to me, really? I was never sexually assaulted. None of my parents died. I lived in a middle-class home and got good grades. Of course…that’s really just me trying to downplay my story. Trying to make myself and my story seem unimportant.
But it’s not. Every little thing affected me in some small way. And I did suffer through some traumatic events. My story is important. Everyone’s is. I just like to tell myself I don’t matter, even still today.
Like I said, my childhood was relatively happy. I was an incredibly dorky kid, but I managed to maintain a happy group of friends throughout elementary school and into middle school. I hit puberty a little earlier than a lot of girls, but I don’treally remember it bothering me. There are some nasty comments I remember, of course, from girls. And a lot of focus on weight and body image from my mom. So I was occasionally uncomfortable with my body, but up until about 7th or 8th grade…I was okay with all of that. Other things? Weren’t so okay.
As much as I like to downplay my parents’ divorce, it certainly had a profound effect on me. It meant that at the age of 12, I was put in the uncomfortable and completely inappropriate position of having to care for my 41 year old mother. Not physically, but emotionally…and in a lot of other senses. My sister and I cooked for ourselves and had to push my mom to do things, get us places on time, get herself places on time. At the exact time I was developing and turning into a teenager, I had lost the thing I needed most: a mother figure. I had no one to guide me through the crazy world of puberty and boys and hormones and emotions. Sure, I could’ve reached out to someone, but I choose instead to ignore it and pretend I was just fine with everything that was happening. Over the years, my dad remarried to a woman who was a much better mother figure overall. But as my sister went through her own traumatic teenage years, the focus on me slipped and vanished. Everyone assumed I was the perfect daughter, who was always happy, had no problems, and didn’t need someone to talk to.
I upheld that illusion for a long time. I had lost my mother, in a way, but I pretended it didn’t matter. A few years later, I lost my Great Aunt who I loved very dearly, and was unable to go to her funeral. But I pretended that was okay too. (Noticing a pattern here?) I navigated the scary halls of middle and early high school by myself. Again, pretending I was just fine with everything. But I wasn’t. Deep down inside, I was screaming for help and love and a voice to speak with. My life felt out of control, as lives do. But I didn’t know how to handle it. Almost unconsciously, then, I turned to food and weight.
This process started almost innocently in 2007, with me deciding I wanted to eat healthier, but (as things will) the problem progressed and grew until I found myself literally being eaten up by the black whole of anorexia. I didn’t recognize it at the time, of course. As the pounds dropped and my appearance changed, I upheld the illusion of perfection. I was fine.
I wasn’t, of course. My life continued to spin out of control until I found myself in January of 2009 sitting in a cold hospital being told to remove my clothes so I could get weighed. Sitting down in front of a veggie burger and milk with another patient and a kind, but entirely too cheery counselor. Having to share my feelings and my life with a group full of people I didn’t know. Losing my 16th birthday to the white walls of the hospital, despite all of the attempts by my friends there to make it the best it could be.
I wish I could say that first hospital experience helped me, but I don’t think it did. Because I hadn’t fully begun to talk about anything, really. I had been without my voice for so long that when I found it I didn’t know how to say things. Instead, I used it to tell the people who mattered the things I thought they wanted to hear. And it worked, apparently. For I was discharged after a month, on my way to being physically healthy but far from being emotionally stable. I was doing all of this for my parents, because I wanted them to be able to see me as the perfect child again.
Somehow, I managed to hold up the illusion for about half of 2009. I appeared healthy and I was happy some of the time, but the thoughts never went away. I hate the way I looked, I still hadn’t talked about anything that mattered, and I just felt so alone. I managed okay, until…
The train struck. That’s what it felt like, at least. I was walking through my life wearing a mask, calmly moving along as best I could. And then that train hit me directly in the heart. September 26, 2009. I lost a dear friend and a beautiful human being. I won’t pretend I was one of Nick’s close friends, but I loved the way he lived. I had grown up with him in my classes, and I loved his energy and spirit. As semi-close friends, he could always put a smile on my face on days I was down without even trying. He did the same for everyone he met, even strangers in the hallway. And the loss happened so quickly, so unexpectedly, that I found myself gasping for breath. I grieved and cried for 3 weeks, attending his memorial and making our own little memorial for him with friends. After that, though, I didn’t know what to do.
I felt guilty that I was so sad when we weren’t even close friends. I felt awful inside, so sad and raw, but I didn’t feel like I could talk to anyone. I didn’t feel like I was allowed to be that sad. So after his birthday in December, I stopped trying to publicly discuss any feelings I had. I stuffed them inside. I thought about him daily, wondering why. He was such a beautiful person. He deserved to live more than I did. I wanted to live a life comparable to the one he did and was leading somewhere out there in the stars, but I didn’t know how. Instead, stuffing my grief and putting on a smile, I slowly but surely fell into a full-blown relapse.
I couldn’t handle life anymore. I’m ashamed to admit there were certain days I just wanted to die, and I hoped what I was doing to myself would kill me. I resented attempts by my parents to make me better, because I knew the world wouldn’t miss me if I was gone. Not like Nick.
Deep down, though, underneath the eating disorder and the darkness, this wasn’t how I wanted to be living. I wanted to cry and dance and breathe and laugh and love. I wanted to talk, but my voice had been swallowed up in the darkness. Over the course of an awful summer filled with 8 hours a day of miserably working out and actively restricting, so much worse than my eating disorder had been before, I knew I needed help. I was absolutely terrified. As many times as I told myself (or anorexia told me) that I wanted to die, I knew I didn’t want to. But I also knew I was on that path. If something didn’t change, I certainly wouldn’t be breathing in a year.
And so it was with a sense of relief that I found myself sitting in my doctor’s office with a scarily low heart rate, being told I absolutely had to check in to the 8th (medical) floor of Children’s Hospital. There was a certain amount of anger and fear in that room, but deep in my heart, where the true me found a place to shine, I was relieved.
After a hard 5 days hooked up to a heart monitor and being unable to do anything but eat, go to the bathroom, and watch television, I walked with relief back into those walls of the Eating Disorder Unit. I found myself hugging Gary and Stacie, the counselors I had connected with so well the last time. Finally, I was letting my barriers down. I was getting the help I needed, whether Ana wanted me to get it or not.
Now, I won’t pretend my time in there was easy. Those 3 months were some of the hardest of my life. I think I cried about 90% of the days I was in there, at one time or another. And until the second week in November, I still didn’t know how to beat my eating disorder. I wanted to so badly, but I felt she was so much more powerful than I was. I couldn’t even begin to fathom the idea that I held any power or light within me that could overcome such darkness. I didn’t allow myself to fully grieve Nick until the beginning of December.
But those 3 months were also…wonderful. These people cared about me. I made so many friends who I traveled with through the painful beginnings of recovery. I’ve always liked the metaphor that someone with an eating disorder is like someone who has been in a shipwreck and is clinging to a wooden board in a treacherous sea. Then, when the helicopter comes, you don’t want to let go of that piece of wood because it has helped you so much to survive. You don’t trust the ladder to carry you. You’re comfortable being uncomfortable.
So, yes, recovery is a hard decision. I honestly don’t think I fully chose it until December or even January, when I realized how much I really did want to live. Throughout those 3 months, I finally learned how to express myself. I began to dance again, even performing a story of my eating disorder through dance. I began to write and I began to talk. And finally, I began to laugh again, truly enjoying little moments in my life.
I’ll never forget what the counselors, doctors, and friends did for me in those 3 months. They gave me a second chance at life, one that ever since I have held onto with conviction. Sure, I still suffer from self-doubt and definitely don’t always believe in myself, but all of them still do. Looking back now, I know I was in an awful state in the summer of 2010. And I can’t believe that I am where I am now, almost 2 years since being strapped empty and powerless to that heart monitor, staring numbly at a white ceiling. I couldn’t see the stars beyond me, the love around me. I do now honestly know that without those 3 months, without the people who reached through my burning fences and held onto my hand through the beginning steps of recovery, I WOULDN’T BE ALIVE TODAY.
But I am. I chose recovery for myself. For Nick, yes, but mostly for myself. Because I knew I had to live. I wanted to live.
Again, I’m not going to pretend it has been easy. Through the beginning months of 2011 I struggled with recovery, at many times desperately wanting the feelings Ana gave me, the emptiness and numbness. I had to remind myself often of all she had taken from me and how much I deserved. Luckily, I met and immediately connected with a beautiful group of girls in my hometown who loved me and accepted me for exactly who I was, even with all of my flaws. With their help and with the knowledge that everyone from Children’s still believed in me, I began to believe in myself as well.
I graduated high school at the top of my class with an IB Diploma. I (amazingly) went to prom with a very good friend. I spent my days and the hours late into the night laughing and studying with friends. I spent my summer working and smiling, not being bogged down by an incessant need to perfect myself. And I went off to my dream college in Hawai’i, stable, happy, and alive.
Of course, even today things are tough. I struggled through the beginning months of last year to find myself and my friends at college, but the confidence came eventually. I struggled this summer to find people who cared for me, until I realized that Connecticut just wouldn’t be my home. And every day, I have to tell the little voice in the back of my head saying “You don’t deserve this” to shut up.
Unfortunately, I don’t think the eating disorder ever goes away fully. I have to keep a strong lookout for symptoms and thoughts. I’m not “like” a lot of my peers, because my entire teenage years were spent consumed by an eating disorder, hiding my pain, and, often, sitting in a hospital room. But I try. Every day, I remind myself why recovery is right for me.
Now, more than ever, I also try to spread my message and hope to friends and strangers alike suffering from an eating disorder. I remember feeling like no one could understand me. I remember being ashamed. I remember fooling myself in 2008 into thinking I didn’t’ have a problem just because there was such a stigma around the “anorexic” label. So through NEDA Walks in my hometown and being honest and open about my past, I hope to help other women (and men) to feel not so alone. I hope they understand there is nothing to be ashamed of. And I hope, above all, the y understand that asking for help and being in recovery shows more strength than limiting calories or purging or overexercising.
I’m not ashamed of my past. It has shaped who I am today. My favorite nurse, Shana, once said she wanted my life, “except, you know, the eating disorder part.” I thought about that for a while, and while I would never wish an eating disorder on anyone, and I wouldn’t go back and wish it on 14 year old me, I know it’s part of my life. It taught me so much about the person I am and the life I want to be living. I am a much stronger person today for going through all of my struggles. And I don’t try to hide that fact.
Because there’s nothing shameful. We are powerful BECAUSE WE SURVIVED. No shame. No pity. No silence. It’s time we talk about eating disorders, as a global society. It’s time we understand them. And it’s time that all of us realize how beautiful and strong we are as women, despite our histories, scars, ghosts, and especially despite what other people say.
I dance today in the rain and float gently on the ocean knowing that while my life still may be out of control, I have the power and right to make of it what I want. And I want to live. Because after all this time, after all the pain and grief and jungles, after all the nights spent crying, hungry, wishing I truly could disappear, after the nearly 4 years stuck in a bone cage, I LOVE BEING ALIVE.
That alone is a powerful thing.
Inspirational quote/photo of the day: "I like living. I have sometimes been wildly, despairingly, acutely miserable, racked with sorrow; but through it all I still know quite certainly that just to be alive is a grand thing.” -Agatha Christie
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