I have been in recovery for 13+ years. Each year gets easier. As I update this post, February 11th, 2021, I am eight months pregnant. Pregnancy has healed me in ways I might never have experienced if I’d not pushed the thought that it would “ruin” my body. Pregnancy has not ruined anything. It’s helped set me free.
How I Fell into the Anorexia Trap
I used to think girls with eating disorders were selfish and starving for attention (literally), until I developed one. The start of what I’ll call my “quest for beauty” began when I tried to eat healthier. I remember the exact night I chose whole wheat buns over white for dinner in an attempt to make better food choices. (Let’s ignore the fact that hot dogs were included in my first “try to eat healthier” night.)
That one choice made me feel good.
Really good.
I started leaving bits of food on my plate when I could have eaten more and the power I felt grew. The sensation of hunger started to trigger the happy and accomplished part of my brain until I started restricting more and more food.
People in my circles started noticing my weight loss. Their compliments pressed me further down my path. (Note to reader: Please don’t congratulate a middle school girl on her weight loss. Weight loss as a middle school is hardly ever healthy.)
Once, I heard, “You look great, but don’t get too skinny.”
I said, “I won’t. I can stop whenever I want.”
I was wrong.
Somewhere along the way my “quest for beauty” became more than a quest. It became an obsession.
A loss of control.
Amental illness.
An eating disorder.
I got to the point where I couldn’t stop. Eating disorders are not simple to overcome. It’s not as easy as just eating. Hence the condition, mental illness.
The summer I started trying to eat healthily I would meet my best friend at the beach almost every day and ask her what she ate for lunch. I tried to eat less than her and soon I was skipping meals. I compared myself to girls around me in school, at church, and at home.
By my freshman year (yes, my eating disorder started in eighth grade) I went to school with no breakfast, ate no lunch, endured several hours of basketball season conditioning after school, went home to eat a small dinner, then went on an eight-mile bike ride with my dad.
I kept losing weight. I loved it. But my mom sensed something was wrong and asked if I’d like to see a counselor. I didn’t mind and attended weekly sessions. The only thing the sessions helped me with was identifying that I did indeed have an eating disorder and that I couldn’t stop losing weight the way I thought I could. Food became like a drug to me. I thought about it–
I prepared elaborate dinners and watched my family eat them. I allowed myself to eat only once a day. My go-to food was crunchy Jif peanut butter which I ate out of the jar with a spoon. I never at the meals I prepared. Sometimes I’d get so hungry and crave chocolate so much that I’d stand at the pantry door with the open bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips and eat them by the handful then feel guilty afterward.
I weighed myself every day. If the number didn’t go down every time I stepped on the old metal scale I obsessed about food even more and how I could eat less.
One year after my first attempt to eat healthily I had lost so much weight so fast that I was admitted to a psychiatric hospital for being a danger to myself. I later learned that the doctors found my internal organs had started shutting down.
I endured the hospital, met other girls (and a boy) with eating disorders, and was discharged after two weeks because the doctors said I was a bad case and they didn’t want to use all of my parent’s insurance before my next admittance. I was expected to relapse.
While going through all of this I would cry and ask God why he didn’t make me beautiful. Why could some girls be born with beauty but not me? This and other life changes were probably the root of my disorder. I didn’t believe I was beautiful, and one choice led to another that catapulted me into an eating disorder.
Before I could relapse hard enough to return to the hospital, I entered a program called Mercy Ministries. (Now, Mercy Multiplied.) While there, God touched the ache in my heart and sewed together the broken parts of me. I truly wanted to recover at this point and threw myself into knowing God better, learning how to treat my body with love, and finding freedom from the illness that had taken over my body and killed many good things in my life.
I exited the program free from my disorder and ready to take on the world and help other girls who struggled with the same things.
But I soon found it wasn’t as easy as I thought.
Over and over again I found myself embracing my old thought patterns and fighting with my body and brain regarding food.
“God,” I said. “I’ve given this to you multiple times. Why am I still struggling with it?”
It took me years to realized that I could be free because Jesus has given me freedom through his sacrifice, but that Jesus also instructed me to take up my cross daily to follow him.
Daily.
Meaning I had to give my broken mind to God every single day. It wasn’t a one-and-done thing. This was life and I had to choose to walk in every day, not just once.
Years have passed and I still consider myself in recovery, but I also consider myself free. I think there is a lot more to beauty than most of us think about. I believe in taking care of our bodies, minds, and souls. We can’t expect to have peace with our bodies if there is a war in our minds or disquiet in our souls.
Living in freedom has been a long journey for me. One I am still discovering more about each day. I could fill a book with all of my experiences regarding my eating disorder, but I hope this gives you a glimpse into my freedom, who I am, and what I believe.
My favorite scriptures to go along with recovery come from Psalms 139.
“For you created my inmost being;
You knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
Your works are wonderful.
I know that full well.
My frame was not hidden from you
When I was made in the secret place,
When I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw my unformed body;
All the days ordained for me where written in your book
Before one of them came to be.
How precious are your thoughts, God!
How vast the sum of them!
Were I to count them,
They would outnumber the grains of sand
When I am awake, I am still with you.”
Sometimes I wonder why God would allow me to struggle with an eating disorder, but then I look at my life and realize that I would be a pretty boring person without the life and experiences he has given me through my struggle. I don’t believe God gives us struggles, but I believe he walks through them with us.
No matter what you are struggling with, God sees you. God loves you. He knows. He cares. You are not forgotten. Keep going.
In 2019, I published my debut novel that tells the story of a girl struggling with the internal voice of her eating disorder. It’s called, The Kaleidoscope Girl. I hope it encourages girls to fight the voice in their minds. Recovery is possible. It’s hard, but possible. I wish someone had been there to show me that when I was struggling.
My story is evolving. This is where I am now. I hope it encouraged you.
I share more about my ongoing recovery journey on my Instagram page and also on this blog.