Today I want to share a few of the things that helped me to overcome my eating disorder (ED). Let me start by saying that everyone's experience is different. My ED is not your ED. This is my experience. Also, by no means am I saying that overcoming an ED is as easy as acknowledging these things. It's hard. It takes work, it takes support. Keep pushing, and keep these in mind.
It's easy to overlook your symptoms of an eating disorder. I would often tell myself that my restriction is "just a diet". The guilt of consuming food would convince me that throwing up my little meal needed to be done. The voice inside my head was screaming so loud that I couldn't hear my body saying stop, you need to eat. Don't let that voice drain out the physical symptoms. The dizziness, the stomach cramps, the hair falling out. These are the things that made me realize what I was doing to my body. This was not a pretty place to be. You don't want to be in a place where you don't recognize your own body, or a place where you realize your body is withering away. Let this be the wake-up call; listen to your body.
When I was finally honest about my disorderly eating, I immediately saw the effect that it had on my family. Everyday my mom would ask me "what have you eaten today?". Every time I would lie and say I ate much more than I actually had, a little part of the trust my mom had for me died, a little part of our relationship went down the drain. When you hurt yourself, you hurt your loved ones too. As I was fading away from reality, I was fading away from my family as well. It was that sense of loneliness that was a slap a cross the face. I wanted to connect again, I wanted to be truthful, I wanted support. Reaching out may be the hardest part of having a mental illness, but it's also the most important.
This part may sound a little weird, but stay with me. The TV show Glee played a part in my recovery. In the show, it first seems that disorderly eating is normalized behavior for the cheer leading team. It's not until the captain gets pregnant that we see some acknowledgment of this unhealthy behavior. The pregnant captain of the cheerleading team, Quinn Fabray, said,
"When you start eating for somebody else so that they can grow and be healthy, your relationship to food changes. I realized that if I'm still willing to eat right to take care of this baby, why am I not willing to do it for myself?"
No, I was not, nor am I, pregnant. Still, the point of this quote helped me realize that I deserve to be healthy. Food exists to nourish me, not punish me. Why don't I deserve to be nourished? Why don't I deserve to be strong? I do. You do.
Of course my recovery also depended on therapy, support from my family and medication. These are the things that I realized on my own. I can sit here and tell you that you deserve to eat, but it won't matter unless you figure it out for yourself. Keep fighting.
