About three years ago a parasite/disease took over my body and changed everything about my normal self. This parasite is not uncommon, but some people still struggle with how to help those who are affected by it. This particular parasite is what is actually formally known as an eating disorder. At first my eating disorder behaviors were unnoticeable, even to me. Then I began to feel as though I was never going to get rid of the living being inside my head telling me how to eat, to exercise, to behave, and how to feel. Before I knew it my life had been taken over and I felt I could not breathe without my eating disorder. Recovery was never in mind.
My second semester of my freshman year of college I had just transferred to a university in the heart of downtown Chicago. Thirteen hours away from my parents, the only person I knew was my best friend from high school. I was scared, but I was used to moving (this may have been why I emotional avoid things that are difficult).
After a few months, I had dated one jerk who left me feeling empty and undesirable. I didn’t like the supposed friends I had made. I didn’t find smoking and drinking to be enjoyable, especially since alcohol made me feel worse.
I knew I wasn’t being myself, nor was I comfortable showing who I really was. I put on a mask every day and finally I felt suffocated.
Lost, lonely, and depressed I turned to food, hiding out in my dorm room binging on Ben & Jerry’s and other junk food while crying/watching television. The turning point of this depression stage was when I had my first suicidal thought. I was walking on a path directly next to Lake Michigan and thought “what if I jumped in, but just didn’t swim?”
I thought I was insane. I felt I had no right to be suicidal. Everyone thought I had a great life and I did. I must be insane. All I wanted was to feel better. That’s when my eating disorder began to talk louder. “As long as you lose weight and become skinny, you will finally feel better.” This was the only voice I heard.
“No more Ben & Jerry’s. No more sweets. More exercising. Less eating.”
The summer before my sophomore/junior year of college I transformed. I lost weight, died my hair and had a new determination to find better friends. This was going to be my year.
The attention given to you after or when you are losing weight is sickening. All of a sudden I was no longer a wallflower. People told me I was gorgeous, beautiful, and had so much self-control. Suddenly my eating disorder voice had just turned up a thousand notches.
My workouts began to increase to an unhealthy amount. There was not a day I could go without working out. Compliments kept coming so my monster inside my head kept growing.
I met a guy who everyone in my sorority fawned over. He was a womanizer. His game was just to hook up, no strings. I was not that kind of girl, but I loved the attention he gave me. I no longer went to bed lonely, craving more out of life. He filled a nice void. But I made him take it slow. He saw I was different and so we began dating. Looking back I only dated him because everyone else wanted him. I felt I had achieved what no one else could. I was addicted to having attention. In reality, the guy and I had nothing in common. I only stayed with him because I didn’t want to look like I failed at a relationship. I had to be perfect.
Our relationship began to dwindle after a mere two weeks. I craved attention so even when we didn’t have anything to talk about we would still “hang out.” One night, our hangout session was moving at too fast of speed for me and then he almost took things too far. I felt hurt and violated. Nothing happened but, he was a person who supposedly cared. But in that moment he didn’t care about me or how I felt. I was disgusted with myself. The feeling of worthlessness increased. A week later we broke up.
Distancing myself from emotions was my new addiction. I never felt the pain of someone hurting me, or the feeling of abandonment, or the fear of always being alone, or the idea I was never going to be perfect for the world. Instead my eating disorder absorbed my feelings and utilized my avoidance to grow the commands and thoughts in my head.
No confidence, no boyfriend, and barely any real friends, I turned to food. I let myself finally eat the foods I wouldn’t let my skinny-self eat. But, the monster told me I must get rid of the food. So I began to purge.
I learned everything I needed to know in order to maintain a “skinny me.” After all, a skinny me was the only way I was going to feel less lonely.
My purging behaviors grew. I was getting rid of my “bad food” through purging. I was also emotionally avoiding and covering up my feelings with my eating disorder. The brief moment I couldn’t feel anything was all I was searching for, but that moment didn’t last very long. My purging continued in order to find an emotional numbness, until one of my worst bulimic episodes.
One day I had barely eaten any food, but I purged and binged on sweets to avoid my thoughts. But I couldn’t stop. It got to the point where I was gagging air because I had nothing left to give. I could feel my body giving up. I finally listened to my body and stopped purging. Scared and overwhelmed by my situation, I called an eating disorder hotline. I was embarrassed and didn’t talk much.
After finding a therapist, feeling as though I hit rock bottom and scaring myself, I finally called my mom. I don’t know how I started the conversation but once I talked I couldn’t stop. Secrets I had been keeping for months spilled out. The feeling of disappointment was strong. I felt I had let the woman I have looked up to my entire life down. My mom was and is the reason I wanted to get better.
“This is all of my fault.” These words my mom said years ago still resonate with me today. When I heard this I became even more disgusted with myself. How could I hurt someone who gives all she has to me? The hatred I had or myself and my ED I didn’t want to handle, so I buried all of my emotions.
I began going to therapy every week. The purging stopped, but my ED voice never stopped talking. During therapy I was never completely open and honest. Although I had a turning point, I still wasn’t willing to dig deep enough in my emotions to fight ED.
I began to try to incorporate “bad” foods into my meal plan. My ED voice was screaming inside of me. My healthy self didn’t want me to purge anymore, but I couldn’t fight ED. So, whenever I ate a “bad” food I would increase my workouts. Now, I couldn’t start my day without working out. During therapy I never mentioned my excessive workout sessions. I knew once I let the truth out my therapist would want me to change my behavior. I wasn’t willing to give up my unhealthy relationship with working out because I felt it was the only thing keeping me sane.
The following year I moved twice to complete two different internships in two different states. The moving didn’t help my health. I stopped seeing my therapist. I told my parents I was completely “cured.” During my internships I continued to over exercise and cut back on my food because I loved how much weight I was losing.
After my internship my parents took me to Disneyworld for my birthday. Instead of being excited my stomach was in knots. Ed kept spitting questions in my head: “where are you going to exercise?” “How are you going to eat healthy?” “You are going to get fat.” These were my only thoughts as I was going to the happiest place on earth. I had a major panic attack when I found out our resort did not have an exercise room and I freaked out. I started yelling and complaining about how I wasn’t able to exercise. If ED wasn’t controlling my brain my healthy self would say, “why should this matter?” Instead ED told me to run every day, which of course took time away from being at the parks. I could tell I was ruining my parents’ vacation, and I did care but I couldn’t stop my behaviors.
It is hard to stop something you believe is making you better. But like a drug, you can’t see how badly ED is affecting your life until you are ready to admit you need help.
After the trip I began dating a boy I had met during my internship. Imagine a self-centered, immature, jock and you’ve got my ex. Again, I was only in a relationship because I craved love. I couldn’t love myself because of ED, so I wanted the affection a guy could give me to fill the void.
The relationship was a disaster. My mother would always tell me I need to love myself before I can let someone else love me. This saying is said a lot, and it is extremely true. Know you have amazing qualities and are beautiful. Don’t think “I’ll be good looking when I…” Love the body that allows you to live. When I was dating my first few exes I didn’t feel beautiful. Instead I listened to him when he told me I had to eat salads to stay fit, or, I needed to go running to have an athletic body. The comments about looks were endless. Maybe he didn’t notice what he was saying, but every comment ED repeated over and over inside my head. Eventually I ended our relationship.
Immediate relief rushed over me. Now I could focus on myself, school, and work. Of course I thought I was “healthy” and didn’t need to work on my ED. In the next few months I graduated college, continued working at my other internship, and began to date again. But starting in June a few of my roommates were causing issues. I wasn’t sleeping well because of the living situation and I began to feel like I didn’t have a home.
The stress and my emotions finally caught up with me. I began buying food and hiding it in my car. I couldn’t tell I was digging myself into a hole. The whole time ED was telling me to use food to erase my stress, homesickness, and the rest of my emotions. My binges were okay as long as I worked out for a long time. I always based how long and extensive my workout was on what I ate the day before. One day I knew I was going to over exercise because I had eaten too much according to ED. I didn’t eat anything in the morning so after working out for a while my body began to give up again. I was barely able to walk to the locker room where all I saw were black dots. I had exceeded my limits and was scaring myself again.
But I didn’t learn my lesson and continued to exercise rigidly, but my binges were growing. After I left my internship I thought my secret binging habits would stop, but they didn’t. Stress again took over and my binges began again.
I believed I was extremely ugly and would never succeed at anything. ED was the only voice I heard now. I was lying to my parents about my eating habits. The lies were my way of asking for help. I didn’t know what was happening to me. All I knew was that ED told me I was fat and the only way I could be happy for a second was through a binge.
When I was at work or school I would put on a mask. I wanted people to see me as perfect and not someone who felt like she was constantly hitting rock bottom. No one knew about ED and that’s what mattered. As long as everyone saw me as perfect I believed I didn’t need help. I would plan my binges at work and go to the grocery store after, sneak the food in, and eat to cover my feelings. I was embarrassed by what I was doing. There were many times I would cry or yell at myself about how stupid I was to binge but nothing helped. My normal self was lost.
My turning point was when my father talked to me. My father’s idea of good communication is no communication at all. He doesn’t talk much, but when he does it’s important. My relationship with my parents was hurting because of my health. I was constantly lying and arguing with them, which they didn’t deserve.
One night my dad and I were walking my dog and he told me he knew about my binging episodes. He said he and my mom didn’t understand what was going on, but they knew I needed help. They wanted me to get better. I started yelling at him. I didn’t want to deal with the reality my dad was giving me. I could feel so many emotions wanting to escape, the pit in my stomach was growing but all I could do was run. I spent that night locked in my room crying and hiding. I knew then I really had to change.
My first therapy session was scary. I wanted to hide all of my deep embarrassing emotions and thoughts. Even now I still want to bury how I feel, but I understand how unbeneficial this is. If I want to get better I need to talk, write, or find another healthy way to deal with my emotions.
Therapy was helping but the recovery was not easy. I continued to relapse, binge, restrict, feel ugly, feel like recovery was impossible, and want to hide from the world. But Bobbi would tell me what is past is past, each day is a new day to start recovery. I would talk to her or my mom about my binges and then move on. Talking in a safe and non-judgmental environment helped my path to recovery. Bobbi made me realize my feelings were normal, which is the best thing I could have asked for.
The demeaning and controlling voice inside my head became quieter. I learned whenever I heard ED to talk, text, or write it down. Pulling my thoughts outside and seeing or hearing how I was thinking of myself helped me take control over ED. Finding someone or a journal to confide in helped me realize what I was feeling and start to take control over my body again.
Now, ED no longer has control over me. Sometimes I can still hear ED telling me I need to binge, or exercise longer, but I now have the power to say no. I still go to therapy and I still journal. Reading various books about eating disorders helps me normalize my feelings and work on myself.
Without Bobbi’s help I don’t know where I would be. Bobbi pushed me to find my normal self and taught me to be happy with my normal body.
My road to recovery was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, especially after failing multiple times. But failing is good. It shows you are trying to better yourself. Recovery sucks, but it leads to so many amazing things.
If there is only one thing you take from my story it’s to remember you will have many bumps and failures during recovery, but you must be willing to find the hurtful emotions and feelings deep down which ED is using to control you. One day you will be free. You will fail during recovery, I failed countless times, but it is possible for you. You have the strength. I believe in you.
