My Eating Disorder Story

A love story; ED

2009

Almost a teenager, around 12 years old is the first time I can pinpoint a fork in the road of my life. My best friend likes to say you have three points in your life that change your path, this is one of those. My dad had always been absent as a father, even though he was present physically.. At the bare minimum at most. But at this point he had made the decision not to be present at all. So, even though back then I wasn't self aware enough to sort through my emotions.. or why certain emotions were present, all I knew was that there were storms going on inside my head, and in my heart. I turned super rebellious, and eventually to drugs. I ran away, I stole from people I didn't know, I stole from people I loved. I was horrible. It was like the storm escaped me and tore through the lives of every person I touched. In and out of jail, and all along nobody suffered but the people who truly loved me, my poor mother and grandparents. I really put them through hell.. But they never gave up on me, they never loved me any less. Eventually I came to a point where I had run out of chances, and my choice was to either straighten up NOW or spend a year in jail. I chose to change my life. This is a super short version of what happened, and my dad played a huge role.. But that is another story for another time.

2013

This is the first time I introduced myself to ED. I had been exposed to him briefly throughout my life, because my mom has had an on going struggle with disordered eating most of her life too. So naturally there were the common behaviors we display that I witnessed, without ever really knowing what they meant or that they were significant in any way. To me, they were just normal and they never really registered in my mind in a way that made me feel like I needed to mimic them, not consciously anyway. There was the body checking, the self depreciating comments she made about herself, and the constant mention of some sort of diet. I always saw her as the most beautiful woman in the world, and still do. And my reactions to these behaviors were a display of that, as I mostly just assured her she didn't “look like a house” and could eat whatever she wanted. I told her I thought she was beautiful. Looking back, I could see that I internalized some of these things in very small ways where I started to criticize my own weight, and body image. I always thought I was chubbier than the other girls even though in none of my pictures as a child, do I look chubby in the slightest bit. Anyway, I’m fifteen now and fresh out of this rollercoaster of the past few years, and now that Im not coping with drugs, I unknowingly introduce myself to ED. It starts off innocent and with the best intentions, I just want to lose a little weight. I start cutting foods from my diet, I don't eat fast food anymore, and anytime I slip up I punish myself. I workout every night to a strict routine, and guess what? I start losing weight. So I'm like hell yeah its working! I feel confident at first by the fact that I can be so disciplined. I feel almost like I'm better than other people because look at the restraint I can exercise, and look at how dedicated I can be. I find comfort in this, and I can see no downfalls to eating “healthy” and exercising, damn have I done a good job.

2017

I’m getting ready to graduate high school, I work at a pizza place. And even though I haven't realized it, me and ED have a really strong thing going. I’m wrapped around his finger, every bit of him entangled in every space and corner of my mind, my life, my everything. When I think about this time, I imagine him like smoke, how it moves and caresses everything it touches.. Just everywhere.. No distinguishing between me and him. I remember being absolutely miserable.. Inside and out. By this point the list of things I am allowed by him to eat is next to nothing.. Pretty much vegetables and bananas. I couldn't even eat a piece of gum because it wasn't worth the five calories to me. Five calories, five. I barely made it through my work days, I was short fused and mean to my family, most regrettably my baby brother. :( I obsessively washed pans after my family used them because of the leftover oil. I wouldn't leave my fruit near the stove because I was afraid oil would get on them. I weighed everything to the gram on my little scale. I couldn't go anywhere for longer than an hour with my friends, my family, by myself without being so tired I felt like I was going to pass out. I was truly starving, wasting away. Every day the calories got lower, til I was eventually only allowed nine hundred a day. The restriction got higher, I got thinner, weaker, sadder, less myself. I came to a point where I found myself honestly saying that something had to be wrong, because if I had to live like this forever it wasn't worth living. I had to do something, and this is when I found a test on NEDA (national eating disorder association). I don't remember what exactly led me to it, but I took it and the results were what you’d expect after reading this far, I was sick.. And I knew it.

2018

I found a place in Colorado that was about a thirty minute drive from my house that provided therapy specifically for those who struggled with eating disorders, and I made my first appointment. I went to a one on one session and a group session each week, and this is where I learned everything about what was happening to me. My therapist, I will never forget her.. Her name was Cody. She was a wonderful woman who put me at ease, and really understood. Nobody ever really understood up until this point how much suffering i was in, because this type of issue along with all other mental health problems tend to be dismissed. Especially when you look at anorexia from the outside in.. you would think someone is doing it to themselves, which is inherently true.. You would think “just stop” or “just eat, you look fine!” and I can't tell you how many times I've heard those phrases. You might think someone is looking for attention, or sympathy by starving themselves. You might think it's vanity. In reality it's none of those things. For me it's about coping, about control. Even though I wanted to eat, I couldn't. If I ever ate more than ED allotted me to, or something outside his “safe” foods, the angst, which is the only word that comes close to enveloping the feelings I would experience, was just not worth it. To make those horribly overwhelming feelings go away or dissipate after doing something I wasn't supposed to, he would tell me ways to compensate. Things I would hear would go something like “you shouldn't have eaten that, now you need to work out for 2 hours instead tomorrow.” or “you're gonna get fat, just go look I can see it on you already.” And that's another huge part of my experience with him, the body dysmorphia. If I ate something not allowed, I would look in the mirror and literally see with my own two eyes that I was fatter than before. Not more bloated, not fuller, fatter. There is no way to quite explain the feeling of knowing that, logically, it's impossible to immediately gain weight after you eat something.. But seeing it with your own eyes, and feeling it with your hands, and in your body. That is a very hard thing to dispute. It might be weird to hear of my eating disorder like it's another entity that exists inside my head, but that's what Cody taught me to do. To distinguish the healthy self, from the disordered self so I could tell which voice was the disordered thoughts speaking. In this way, it was easier to counteract them when they arose. She gave me a meal structure, and a timeline of when I should eat.. because I had ignored my body for so long I couldn't tell when I was hungry or full until it reached either extreme. She taught me why things that happened would happen, and that it wasn't only one thing that caused me to get sick. She called it the perfect storm. Genetics, environmental, personality traits, etc. that all came together to make it more likely that a person will develop an eating disorder. I'll never forget her telling me that there could be twins that grew up in the same circumstances, one would experience a traumatic event that would trigger the disorder, and the other would never experience the trigger and never develop it. I went for a few months, and even though she always wanted me to admit myself to inpatient I never did.. And eventually stopped going. I should've gone longer, but it was enough time to allow me to reach a point where I could function at least a fraction of the way a normal person would.

2022

Up until this point, the progress has been super slow, but looking back I’ve made leaps and bounds of it since I stopped therapy. It gave me all the tools and all the information to be self aware enough to make changes very slowly, and very small.. But still something. Since then I’ve learned to be able to go out to eat, to worry less about what I’m eating, and to get to a healthy calorie amount. I learned to not beat myself up so much when I hear him criticize me, because I know it's just a thought, and I let it pass. I’m not recovered by any means.. Or not by what I would like it to look like for me I guess, because I know recovery is an ongoing life process. I struggle with it every day still, and I still have a lot of disordered behaviors. I still track all my calories, and weigh my food. I still get down on myself because of my body image, or because of what I eat. But.. something happened to me that changed everything. I got injured. I was experiencing a lot of pain so I went to the doctor, and turns out I had a minimally bulging disc.. I suspect from a whole lot of factors that eventually came to a breaking point. Working out so hard without rest or recovery, while also depriving my body of the nutrients it so desperately needs. From constantly overworking myself to keep from my thoughts and to make me feel like I was worthy of whatever it is I thought I wasn’t. From a vegetarian diet full of fake food that was probably causing a lot of inflammation in my body. I also suspect I have a lot of unresolved trauma that is stored in my body. Just not taking care of myself, not loving myself, not listening to my body for so long that it came to a point where it had to go to extremes to make me. It has been the hardest experience I have ever, ever endured. This experience of unimaginable pain that immobilizes you, and fear that blinds you to ever believing it will get better opened my eyes up real quick. To the fact that it's such a shame.. That I’ve allowed myself to be so miserable, and so stagnant for so long. What a shame that I didn’t see that having legs to walk and lungs to breathe is enough. A body without pain is enough. To be able to dance, exercise, work, and run.. Is enough to be happy for a lifetime. Just how beautiful, strong, amazing, resilient my body is for just existing and working and keeping me alive. It loves me so dearly.. And oh how badly I’ve treated it, truly brings tears to my eyes and breaks my heart at this very moment. It doesn't matter what it looks like.. Or how it compares to any other.. At all, it never did. I love it so tenderly, so fully now. I can finally hear it, and it's the most beautiful feeling. To love me. So now I’m beyond ready, to put in all the work that it takes to recover. My body loves me, and does its best every day to keep me alive and healthy.. I’m never gonna spend another second of my life not doing the same. I’m not angry at myself for how I got here, and all the mistakes I made along the way.. I was only doing the best I could with the information I had, and that's all any of us can do. I love me for all that I am, all that I’ve ever been, and all that I will be.

This is a love story, because ED was the only thing there for me in my darkest times. My comfort, my coping mechanism. Like a toxic relationship with someone you love. Someone that hurts you, but is also the only one there for you when you’re at your worst. Letting him go always felt like I was losing a part of myself.. Like the one thing I always knew I could turn to. Even though he was killing me. It felt like my illness had become so ingrained in who I was, it was part of my personality. It's hard to let it go, and if you know even a fraction of what this feels like I’m so sorry. I am here in this place with you, and I have been in that darkness. You are not alone, you are not seeking attention, and if you ever are questioning.. You are sick enough to get help. You deserve help, you deserve food, you deserve to know what it's like to love yourself so deeply. It's possible, don't ever give up. I promise you, it's possible. <3