As the last submission for the week, I thought that this
story had a great message to end on. Eating disorders can feel like mountains
that are impossible to climb, but as someone who has recovered, the view from
the top makes all of the hard work worth it.
Many emotions are surfacing as I sit down to catalog the unfolding of the last few years. Writing about my disorder demands honesty and introspection--two things I don't always feel comfortable applying to one of my biggest secrets.
Several years ago I was on a study abroad in the UK. At the time I was really out of shape,
meaning, physically incapable of doing much.
One day, our group set out to scale the one of the highest peaks in
Scotland, Ben Lomond. At base camp I was
certain I wouldn't make it. I prepared a
list of socially acceptable excuses to quit halfway through: a sprained ankle, dehydration,
accompanying another quitter back to camp; reaching the summit was honestly not
even an option in my mind. Well, as the
ascent got vertical and hot and windy, my escape plan surfaced as an easy out,
but as I looked around at my friends I could see they were struggling too. Sensing their strained efforts on the same road
gave me the courage to be seen panting and gasping and pausing at every
switchback. Eventually I could see the
final climb and knew I was going to make it--as sure as I had been that morning
of the impossibility of setting foot on that summit--there it was! In reach!
I huffed up the jagged incline with an energy and confidence I'd never
felt before, and when I finally stood overlooking the shadow-dappled valley
sprawling long and deep below me, I wept in disbelief. For the first time in my life, and in a
beautifully physical, tangible, calculable way, I could look behind (or in this
case, below) me and see a great distance covered--proof of progress--of leaving
something far from me and walking toward a greater goal.
My eating disorder isn't a mountain I've conquered just
yet--but I am on my way and tonight as I plunk out my story, I feel much like I
did on that mountain. I can look back
and see that despite my doubts and fear about the future, I have come a long
ways from where I've been, and that gives me courage to press on. I hope something in my experience is a thread
of connection for someone who needs it.
I'll begin at what I think is the beginning:
I started gaining weight in the third grade. I remember sensing my mother's concern at my rounding
figure and resenting her efforts to curb my food intake. I began comparing myself to the slender girls
at school. Soon my weight began
affecting my athletic ability in PE; I felt great shame in that and began
avoiding physical activity and its accompanying embarrassment. I'm not sure when but it was around this time
my binge eating began. I ate for
comfort, for entertainment, and perhaps in rebellion. My weight skyrocketed and my confidence began
a downward spiral I'm still in the process of calculating.
Junior high and high school were particularly painful. By this point my weight and eating habits
were out of control. My parents took me
to concerned doctors and diets were administered, but I never stuck to
one. I ate in secret, I binged at
school, at home, probably every day. I
was miserable, but I don't think I was fully aware of how sick I was. I longed for social acceptance, for attention
from boys. I developed a moral
superiority complex around the slender girls at school, placing myself above
them by degrading their 'vanity' or their 'immaturity.' I made them into the classic mean girls in an
attempt to make me feel better about my miserable self. That's had a lasting effect on me and I wish
desperately I could undo the damage I authored to myself and my view of others
during those years.
My junior and senior year I got more serious about losing
weight. My parents sent me to a weight
loss camp. I joined the track team (a
self-inflicted humiliation that I look back on with great tenderness and
self-love; I am proud of doing something hard, physically, emotionally, and
socially). Track season was the first
time I ever slimmed down. The weight
came back and by sophomore year of college, I was at my highest weight
ever. Half way through sophomore year I
deferred college to serve an eighteen month volunteer mission for my
church. I spent some time at home with
my family in the months leading up to it and my mom and I went on a pretty restrictive
diet together. While the diet was
effective, I developed an unhealthy relationship with food and became
well-practiced in deprivation.
Understandably, the weight loss and the resulting confidence gave me a
high that was hard to come down from. I
left on my mission determined to continue my weight loss, no matter the
cost.
Over the next year the weight slowly came back. When I recognized this I snapped into a
control mode that scared me. For so many
years of my life I had no self-control whatsoever, but in those few months at
home I had replaced my addiction to food with an addiction to weight loss and
the lengths I went to in my rebound were scary.
I began purging--something I had never done before and I got very good
at it. In a very short amount of time I
lost all the weight I'd regained and more. I lied to everyone around me about
what I was doing. I was deep, deep in
self-deception, refusing to admit to anyone, let alone myself what was going
on.
By the time I went home I was thinner than I had ever
been. These habits continued and
intensified as I began dating my future husband. During our engagement I lied about the
obvious weight loss and secretly engaged in purging, restricting, and
more. What I didn't see then was how
transparent the situation was to everyone around me, especially my fiance, and
how hurtful it was to him that I not only refused to share my struggle with
him, but that I lied about it too! Not a
recommended way to begin a marriage.
Dress fittings sucked me into dangerous depths of deception
and self-abuse. On my wedding day I was
smaller than I had been for decades.
I'll say it again, it was a high.
An unstable, self-consumed high.
To his everlasting credit, I married a man who cared enough about me to
call me out on my lies and destructive behavior. Those first few months of my marriage were
full of painful conversations and realizations about what I was doing and the
damage it was breeding. That was the
beginning of honesty. For me it was
hard. I wasn't ready to give up my
desire to be thin. I felt justified in
chasing a dream I'd been deprived of for my whole life. But soon the charade caught up with me and I
was forced to give up my secret vices and tools one by one. Sadly this surrender wasn't by choice. I wish I'd had the courage and the love for
my husband to trust him with my struggle without being caught in lies
first. But slowly I let the walls be
knocked down and then with his encouragement, I sought help in a recovery group
for women with eating disorders.
I remember hearing some of the women speak about being on
the other end of recovery. I scoffed at
their evangelical testimonies that they were totally healed-completely free of
the chains of the disorder! I knew
better. This monster will haunt me for the rest of my life--sure I might learn
to hide him away in a closet and eat and be healthy, but you can't kill
him. You just can't. Well, I was wrong.
As I attended meetings and grew in humility, I began to
believe that recovery, in the truest sense, is possible for me. I saw a genuine light in the eyes of the
recovered women I befriended. I began to
trust the confidence they exuded and became willing to abandon my fears and faulty
thinking. Hope came pouring into my
life.
I'm still insecure about my body and their are days I fall
back into old patterns. But I've been
blessed by the influence of amazing souls who point me to my true identity and
worth. I am surrounded by true
beauty: it is not perfection or
idealism. It is the love that redeems
and values broken things, making them whole.
I'm okay with my imperfections; I'm in the process of embracing them,
and the miracle of it is that as I do, I become better able to embrace others
as they are. I guess that's joy of
ascending out of the lowlands of personal struggle--for we all travel those
dark and lonely valleys, whatever they may be.
Climbing out and up gives us a perspective that can cheer and strengthen
others--to see their potential and love them in their low places.
I'm a better person for working through this challenge. It's given me a chance to look myself square
in the eyes and conquer demons in the darkest corners of my heart. It's bred compassion and charity for
others. I'm happier for separating
counterfeit beauty and enduring beauty. Life has become very bright with hope as I climb to higher ground.
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