I'm not proud of having had an eating disorder or the fact that even today I still struggle with the balance between healthy and unhealthy, I feel that now I can speak and write about my experience in an enlightening way. I suffered from an eating disorder most of my teen/young adult life. It wasn't pretty and it sure wasn't healthy for me. Along that path that I took for myself, I learned a lot about me, myself and I. The lowest weight for me was 95 pounds and I still remember weighing myself that day and thinking, "wow, that's great". Now days, I do realize how unhealthy that mental behavior was for me. I would literally go days without eating more than 200 calories worth of chewing gum. I kept a diary of exactly what I ate, how many calories it contained and how many bites I ate of it. That's awful, isn't it? It is. And I didn't realize that back then. Now days, I'm a healthy adult who eats way too much but sensibly. However, there are still those thoughts and feelings that creep into my mind almost every time I have a meal.
So anyone who reads this probably wonders why I would ever want to put this out there for the entire world to read. I know it's way too personal and embarrassing. The point being is that yeah, it's personal and it's embarrassing to talk about out loud. But me talking about my issues with food and body image is what helped me change. Along with lots of running and thinking and music while running.
I wrote an article for Examiner.com to get accepted as a Eating Disorder Examiner is South Carolina. I wrote there for awhile but discovered that the site wasn't fully functioning all the time. I decided to take my articles else where, but I was looking through articles I had saved the other day and came across the article that got me accepted. It was my personal essay on my own eating disorder. I decided that the best place to publish this article again would be my own blog. Here goes! If I can change one person's life through my experience I will be very happy knowing I reached out to someone.
Dying to be thin: A personal story.
This is an intimate look into the mind of a recovering eating disorder patient. I suffered with an eating disorder my entire teenage life, and still struggle with it being an adult. I have recovered, and doing well, but seem to look back and wish someone had told me what I now know about life, body image and healthy eating. Looking back on the days when my eating disorder was at it's worst, I now realize how much denial I was truly in. I couldn't see the bigger picture, only a few hours in front of me. I had no clue that I was so deep in need of help that I honestly had to fall before I could catch myself again. I guess the saying is true, sometimes you really have to hit rock bottom before you can help yourself crawl out. I feel motivated now, being healthy and happy, to share my opinion and thoughts with those who struggle with an eating disorder now to prove that you really can change things around for the better and live a normal healthy life.
Back to the beginning. When the world thinks of someone with an eating disorder, they see skin and bones. That's not the case for many people. I was in those awkward teen years, just turning 13, going to middle school, and was chubby. I wasn't obese, but I wasn't considered 'thin'. I also had a family history of most of the women in my family were thicker rather than thinner. At that time, I noticed girls in middle school that were considered 'pretty' were pretty much stick thin and popular. I noticed magazine covers and TV shows, and thought "I want to look like that." So I decided to go a on diet to lose a few pounds, as I said I wasn't obese, but I wasn't thin. After that, I tried the popular late 90's trend, The Atkins Diet. At 13, I followed this strict diet and lost my 'chubbiness' and become healthier. It took a year, and I was then 14. I learned some healthy eating habits along the way and I lost enough weight, that for an average 14 year old girl, I was now considered a 'healthy weight'.
The obsession began. After that I began to realized how much attention I got from losing weight. I had more friends, boyfriends, I was more popular - average teenage stuff. I remember thinking, "Wow, this makes me feel so much better." I noticed that losing weight, somehow, made everything better in the world. Any problems I had seemed so much smaller, the more weight that I lost. I also began to see that you *could* transform your body into anything, if you tried hard enough. I continued to diet. The obsession grew to an unhealthy level in no time flat, but at the time, I honestly did not or could see what I was doing. I started to skip meals, exercise a lot, and even lie to my parents about eating. Pretty much anything to skip eating, I would do. I discovered that I could buy diet pills over the counter, so I began consuming more than the average dose of diet pills. Yes, a 14 year old could buy diet pills, I was never checked for an ID. In between the time I was 14 until I turned 16, I didn't realize that my habits had grown unhealthy. I was completely in denial and hid my problem well from my family and friends.
The breaking point. At 16, I was so consumed with my unhealthy obsession/love affair with my eating disorder (though, at the time I *never* thought of my habits as an eating disorder) had become so persistent, it's all I could think about. My thoughts were consumed with how I would not eat in front of anyone, get out of eating, or what I would eat next time I did decide to eat. It was an awful and violent cycle of obsession with food and not eating food. I would really be hungry, decide not to eat, and then think of all the food that I would want to eat. But as I stated before, at that time, I never considered that I had a problem or this behavior wasn't normal. It never occurred to me. It was one day in summer, I had went for a run, came back and had an awful headache and I went to sleep it off. After that, I remember waking up and feeling like I couldn't move. The next thing I remember was being rushed to the emergency room. My body was actually shutting down from the lack of food, nutrition and strain I had been putting on my body. My compulsive exercising combined with the lack of food, nutrition and vitamins had taken a toll on my body. Not to mention the numerous diet pills I had been taking. My body was failing. I don't honestly remember too much from that time, except thinking "What is happening?" and "How could this happen?".
The turning point. After I had been rushed the emergency room, they had stabilized me. I was in a hospital, I had no clue why, and my family was deeply concerned, and all right in front me. I realized at that moment, what had happened and it hit me like a stack of bricks. Everything all at once. After that, doctors recommended I speak with a counselor, which I did and everything started to fall into place. I realized I had a problem and had had one for years. A few months later, I had learned new healthy eating habits, and had taken up a love for running with a new light. Instead of controlling my life and emotions with food and lack of food, I began to channel my feelings into running. It was the only therapeutic help I needed. I also know that not everyone with an eating disorder was as fortunate to have such an easy recovering process.
The life lessons I learned. I have recovered from my eating disorder, and I live a healthy life today, however there are times when I still struggle with imbalance. There are some days I think to myself, "I should just skip a meal..." or "I shouldn't eat this or that...", but in truth, I believe, just because someone has recovered from an eating disorder doesn't mean that the mental aspect of it ever leaves you. You can improve yourself, and you can learn to live healthy, but there is always a part of you that has that eating disorder in the back of your mind. It's all about balance, self control, and strong will. I hope this look at my eating disorder will help others look into their self and find strength to get healthy and have a better quality of life.
Image Credit Provided By: treatment-centers.net and coloribus.com
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