As many of you know, I am an advocate for healthy body image and eating disorder awareness. I think it's time I told you why.
My story begins in February 2007, trying on dresses
for a church Valentine’s Day event. As I undressed in front of the mirror, I
looked at myself and was shocked. I had love handles. Where did those come from
and how long had they been there? It was on this day, after that look in the
mirror, that I started worrying about my body. I had always been little, short
and thin, without effort. I had always been able to eat what I wanted, when I
wanted, without a second thought. At 16 though, after hitting puberty, my body
chemistry was undergoing a drastic change. I was filling out, going from girl
to woman, and I didn't like it. Growing up had always been a scary concept for
me. In fact I remember being just a little thing, elementary school age, and
telling my mother that I was worried about going off to college and leaving
home. I constantly longed for the days when I was younger and things were
simpler, especially after my eyes were opened to many deep-seeded family
issues at about this time.
These worrisome thoughts continued to take up
residence in the back of my mind for the next several months but I never did
anything about them until an opportunity suddenly presented itself to me. It
was June 2008 and the night before a friend and I were supposed to leave for a
week-long church camp, I woke up with the stomach flu. This particular illness
hit me once a year like clockwork until my adult years and whereas in most it
is called a "24-hour bug" for a reason, it could easily lay me up
completely for three days. By some miracle, after being sick all night and into
the morning and missing the bus to camp, I awoke after only 12 hours feeling
much better. My mother proceeded to drive my friend and I to Galveston to meet
up with the rest of the kids. As is typical for me after a stomach bug, I
didn't have a big appetite and in fact couldn't eat much at first. What little
I did eat was basically crackers and other bits of bland food. Now I can't
recall when or how the idea exactly hopped into my head, but somewhere within
those first couple of days I realized that this could be just the way to
ease the worries about my body and weight that had been plaguing me over
the past few months. I knew about eating disorders, just as pretty much any
teenage girl does, but, just like most, I didn't know enough. Whatever the
thoughts were that were going through my head at that point, I continued to
limit my food intake that week, even as I began to get well. Don't
misunderstand, I knew exactly where I was headed I just didn't understand the
gravity of that place. I knew from day one that there was wrong in what I was
doing and I think I wanted help from the emotions that were buried deep inside
and fueling this new thing, so much so that by the end of the week I'd
confessed to my older sister and returned to normal eating patterns...for the
time being.
Over the next three years I would battle a restrictive
eating disorder off and on many different times with varying severity. The main
issue with me was always how fast it took hold and due to my already small size
and probably the presence of an autoimmune disease I am now aware of but wasn’t
then, the physical ailments that go along with it came about in a matter of
weeks. Though most wouldn't be able to recognize a period of relapse or
remission in photographs during that time, I can. I may not have looked
physically smaller to the untrained eye, but I was always cold, had irregular
and infrequent periods, shed a lot of hair, felt constantly exhausted and
irritable, and my heart palpitations worsened significantly. And on the inside,
I was becoming obsessed and terrified of getting fat and therefore terrified of
food.
I cannot stress enough that the absence of a fail
appearance and/or diagnostically significant amount of weight loss does NOT
mean that there is not a serious problem. An eating disorder is present first
and foremost in the mind. The way we feel about ourselves and the imperfection
we see is the disease. It is the mind that attacks the body. The rest are just
symptoms.
I remember significant events during those years by
whether or not I was eating normally. Every memory is colored with the
preoccupation and loss of joy eating disorders bring. In some cases I can even
remember what I did or didn't eat on certain occasions, which is very abnormal
for my memory elsewhere. Nowadays I'm lucky if I can remember what I had for
breakfast this morning.
I was obsessed with numbers, be they the ones on
the scale or the back of a cereal box. ED sufferers become very restrictive on
what they will and will not allow into their bodies. Even as a child I had been
a very picky and monotonous eater so this felt relatively normal to me anyway
and came pretty easily. The difference between, for example, athletes on
restricted diets and eating disordered individuals is, again, in the mindset.
With EDs it's a compulsion. We can't not do it. You get to the point that a
cookie feels punishable by death. I remember grocery shopping was a nightmare
during this time. I had to read the back of EVERYTHING and evaluate the calorie
content, fat content, and sodium to decide if it was passable or not. Most
often I would pick a number and refuse to buy anything over that calorie
content. As I shopped my number would become lower and more unrealistic, making
finding anything acceptable a real challenge. Then, on top of that, I felt like
everyone was watching me, especially the checker and other customers in line,
judging me for what I was buying. All this often resulted in my spending an
hour or more in the store and leaving a complete anxious, overwhelmed mess with
maybe a handful of items.
Another thing I became obsessed with was serving
sizes. Rarely did I eat anything apart from the serving size suggested on the
box. I assume this began because the amounts listed of calories, fat, and
sodium correlate directly with the serving size. Even in this state I was lazy
with math. At my worst point I was down to 200-250 calories a day. To give you
an idea of just how little that is, it’s about the equivalent of an apple, a
Special K bar, and maybe a yogurt (not that I ate yogurt. Dairy is one of the
hardest food groups for many Anas because of the high fat content). Just your
average turkey sandwich with cheese on white is more than that. I had a journal
in which I kept both a record of what I ate and the content of the different
things I was allowed to eat, though that list was so short I’d committed most
of it to memory.
I’d sit in front of the mirror for long periods of
time, dissecting what needed to be changed, always seeing fat here and
chunkiness there. There were many days I couldn’t even bear look in the mirror
at all.
During most of my stint, I was similar to Tracey
Gold who called herself a “lazy anorexic”. Working out was never really my
thing. Towards the end, after I’d entered college, I picked up the pace on that
part of it but it wasn’t part of the equation at all for the first year and a
half to two years of my illness. My apartment had a work-out room that was
accessible by key 24 hours a day so the majority of my elliptical work (my
preferred method of torture because it burned the most calories in the shortest
amount of time and like I said I was obsessed but still lazy) was done in the
early hours of the morning, before I’d ever been to bed. Just like everything
with me though, once I started working out, it was almost impossible to stop. I’ve
been a perfectionist as long as I can remember and it’s never enough. It’s
always one more mile or fifteen more minutes, always pushing my body to the
limit and then creating a higher one. Even to this day I have trouble
respecting my body when it tells me it’s time to quit for the day. I always
strive for more and have trouble accepting anything less than the best from
myself. Most often these work-outs occurred during homecoming week. I wasn’t
sleeping anyway, due both to the float building and the insomnia that had
plagued me since high school, and maybe that’s part of the reason that I
relapsed during homecoming week every year, without fail, until I was a senior.
In October 2011, I entered recovery from EDNOS
(Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified) for what would be the final
time. In the two years since I have had only one relapse. Make no mistake
though, I am still in recovery, every day, and will continue to be for the rest
of my life. Just as they say “once an alcoholic, always as alcoholic”, so it is
with eating disorders. Once you’ve been there, no matter how many years it’s
been, it’s always a weak spot. It doesn’t have to hold you back and there are
some days when you barely notice it at all but it’s something you always have
to be mindful of and keep in check. I haven’t stepped on a scale of my own will
and volition in the past two years and when weighed at the doctor’s, I always
stand backwards. That is my one falling point. Seeing that number is the one
thing that could guarantee a relapse at this point because I’m not past that
part yet. Most days I can look at my reflection and be okay. I have recently
found pride in having the body of an athlete but while I know the number on
that scale doesn’t really mean anything, it still holds power over me.
Hopefully there will come a day when it doesn’t anymore.
My treatment plan today is 4-fold. Firstly, I take
medication. I have a few other conditions that warrant it as well but basically
it helps keep my mind and emotions relatively stable so I can focus my mental
and emotional energy on working through things without brain chemistry I can’t
control getting in the way. Second, I have an amazing therapist I meet with
once a week. While my ED isn’t generally on the fore-front of our sessions, I
have someone to go to who can help me talk through the struggles and the times
when those old thoughts start to creep back in so we can nip them in the bud.
Third, I have a service dog that, like the meds, keeps my other conditions in
check and helps ease my anxiety in a positive way. Besides, it’s kind of hard
to not love yourself when you’re constantly in the company of a creature that
sees their whole world reflected in your eyes and thinks you are the most
perfect creations God ever made. And on the practical side, I love him with all
I have and eating disorders are selfish diseases. If I’m sick, I can’t take
care of him, which is the least I can do since he takes such good care of me.
The biggest thing for my recovery though has been horses, most particularly the
sport of equestrian vaulting. While there are many benefits vaulting gives me
in this sense, such as keeping me in shape and giving me a place to put my
drive, die-hard work ethic, and perfectionism, the biggest thing it does for me
is give me the will to stay in recovery. I think I can honestly say that
without vaulting, I don’t know what would’ve happened to me or where I would
have ended up but I do know there’s a definite possibility that I would’ve
ridden this thing until I was in so deep I couldn’t find my way back out. The
first summer I started vaulting I very quickly came to the realization that I
could not both vault and restrict. My body simply couldn’t handle it. I was
losing strength and my vaulting was suffering. So, I had to make a choice
between my eating disorder and the sport I had fallen in love with. At that
point, it was that simple. Now that is NOT to say it was easy. It took a lot of
commitment and hard work to get to where I am today and even after two years, I’m
still not 100%. I don’t know that I ever will be. I still have good days and
bad days, it’s just most times the good outweigh the bad and I can shut down
those ED thoughts pretty easily. On the bad days, I have to draw on the life I’ve
gained, the sport I love, and how far I’ve come to get me through the
temptation and self-doubt.
There are three main messages I would like to drive home:
1)
Don’t judge a book by its cover
2)
Keep your eyes open
3)
Recovery lasts a lifetime
Don’t judge a book by its cover
I talked about this a little bit already but don’t think
because someone doesn’t look sick that they aren’t in trouble. Eating disorders
can go downhill fast and get serious without warning. This also leads into my
second point.
Keep your eyes open
During the entire three years I struggled with my
disorder, those closest to me didn’t have a clue. While I mostly wanted to keep
it to myself, there were definite times when a part of me was desperately
calling out for help, for someone to see me, to love me enough to stop me from
destroying myself. Eating disorders are never invisible. If you know what to
look for, you can always spot them, hopefully when they’re very first starting
to develop.
Physically, what you’re looking for is more than
being skinny. The biggest thing is disproportion. You’ll notice a skull that
looks larger in comparison to the rest of the body and often limbs, as well as
hands and feet, that appear the same. The jaw line and the collar bone are
probably two of the first places weight loss is evident. In my photographs it’s
in these places where I look most different. The biggest thing though, and I
can’t stress this enough, is behavior. Behavior around food is obviously the
biggest one. Moving food around the plate or cutting things into very small
pieces is a common trick, as well as excessive chewing. A dramatic limitation
in diet as well as comments about calories or fat content is also a sign,
particularly when it involves a refusal to eat food previously enjoyed. Body
comments can also point towards a problem. Comments about looking, feeling, or
thinking one is fat, especially when these comments are uncharacteristic is indicative
of the shift of focus and belief that occurs with eating disorders. Something
else that might occur is changes in clothing. You might notice the individual
starting to wear baggier clothes with long sleeves and pants. Many people think
this is caused by the person trying to hind how skinny they are becoming. At
least with me, it was the exact opposite – I was trying to hide how fat I
thought I was.
These are just some of the things someone on the
outside might see in someone who has or is developing an eating disorder but
there are others as well. I will say it again – these are NOT invisible
disorders if you keep your eyes open.
Recovery lasts a lifetime
Something really important for both loved ones and
those in recovery to understand is that recovery is a lifetime process.
Personally, I don’t believe “recovered” exists. I think it is something we
always have to work at every day, it just gets easier as time goes on and the
voices get quieter. Recovery also takes a lot of work, even if it’s not the
kind you can see. There are still days I have to force myself to eat a meal I
don’t want or convince myself it won’t kill me to have another cookie. I will
NOT read the back of any boxes anymore and when I was first recovering, I went
through my stuff in the kitchen and placed post-it notes over the nutrition
facts so I wouldn’t be tempted, nor would I be able to catch a glance by
accident. You do what you need to do to make recovery work for you.
For friends and family, just be there. Read up on
as much as you can but let your loved one tell you what they need from you and
just be there to love them and listen to them. They probably already think they’re
crazy and they definitely don’t need you reminding them. Don’t be afraid to ask
how they’re doing if they’ve been open with you but please be straight forward
about it. The one thing I couldn’t stand was when I’d catch people I’d told
sneaking glances at me while I was eating, like I was stupid enough to not
realize they were watching me. I’ve always told people to just ask me if they’re
legitimately concerned, don’t treat me like a patient in the asylum.
The last thing I would like to leave you with is
probably the biggest misconception of all: it’s not about food. Let me say that
again, eating disorders are not about food. They’re about emotions; pain, fear,
anxiety, a world spinning out of control. There are emotions we don’t know what
to do with and things in our lives we can’t control and this is the way some of
us choose to deal with those things. While sometimes eating disorders start
out, or at least appear to start out, with athletics or modeling or something
external, there is always an underlying cause that’s on the inside. Restrictive
diets and leotards don’t make someone anorexic. You could have a team of twenty
gymnasts of about the same size, on the same training schedule, and eating the
same limited diet and have nineteen perfectly healthy girls and one with an
eating disorder. Many scientists have now begun to think that certain qualities
in a person, such as personality type, combined with personal history put some
of us at a predisposition, or at the very least a greater risk, for developing
eating disorders than others.
All I can tell you is about my journey and what a
journey it has been! While I’ll admit going public still scares me a little
bit, this is a journey I’m proud to be making and a part of me I don’t want to
hide anymore. The one thing I do ask is if any of you know my natural,
biological family, please do not share what you have learned with them. My family
dynamic is complicated to say the least and they aren’t in the place to be able
to handle this. I am a big part of what holds things together and the decision
to share something so intimate with them is mine and mine alone to be made when
and if I see fit. I’d also like to note that this is real and relatively unedited.
I sat down and just started typing, never really intending to share all the
details but I realize now how important it is to share them, to paint a picture
of what a life consumed by an ED is really like, the reality of recovery, and
why we choose it despite the rockiness of the road. My hope for all of you who
read this is more than a better understanding of me but a better understanding
of a disease that has become a cultural phenomenon and happens much more often
than you think. Not all stories are the same but I hope knowing what an eating
disorder looks like for me will help you to better understand the nature of
this beast and learn that, as Romans 8:28 says, “we know that God causes all
things to work together for good to those who love Him and are called according
to His purpose.”
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