ED is a Radio I Can’t Turn Off

And I No Longer Like the Word “Recovery”

Disclaimer: It’s been a long time since I’ve formally written anything, so I’m admittedly (and probably evidently, as you continue reading—if you continue reading) a little rusty. My apologies.

I think this has been a long time coming. If I’m being honest, I’ve been struggling for a while now, feeling unsettled but not wanting to sit down and face my discomfort by putting words on paper (or text on screen, if we’re being literal here). The thoughts have been lurking, festering just beneath the surface, and I’ve been adamantly fighting to keep them there.

But you can’t just ignore that kind of pressure, or you’re bound to erupt.

My “eruption” happened early this morning—this beautiful, glorious morning, on which all three of my boys either slept in or got up and QUIETLY (a rare state in this house) occupied themselves. It was the type of morning that doesn’t come along often when you’re a mom, one that offered the rare opportunity to catch up on some much needed rest.

So of course, because life works in mysterious (i.e., annoying) ways, it was on this enigmatic gift of a morning that I found myself, ironically—cruelly—restless.

Oh sure, I spent the morning in bed, but not getting the sleep my haggard mind and body desperately need right now. Nope. Instead, I spent a good hour or so on my phone, furiously typing in the “notes” app. Why? Because in these rare moments of silence, I could no longer ignore the words that have been fighting their way to the surface for so long.

I could no longer ignore—or PRETEND to ignore—ED.

He really is an effing sunnofabitch.

When it comes to eating disorders, you hear the word “recovery” thrown around a lot:

“I’ve been in recovery for X years.”

“I’m working toward recovery.”

“The road to recovery is long and hard*.”

*That’s what she said. Sorry. Those of you who know me know I couldn’t help myself.

I’ve used phrases like this myself.

But lately I’ve found myself cringing at the word. It just doesn’t sit right with me anymore. Maybe for some people struggling with eating disorders, it’s a comfort. Maybe for some, it’s an inspiration. Maybe for some, it’s exactly what they need to hear to fight ED.

But I’ve finally realized I’m not one of those people.

When I couldn’t put my finger on why the word was bothering me so much, I did something pretty rudimentary: I Googled it. From bed, of course, because duh. (Ah, bless you, modern technology.) Here’s what I found:

Recovery: a return to a normal state of health, mind, or strength.

And there it was: the word “normal.” Google was waving a big old red flag in my tired, wrinkled face.

If there’s one thing I know about ED—or about anything really—it’s that there is no “normal.”

Once you live with ED, you can’t go back. Not completely, at least not in my experience. He flips your “normal” on its head and then gives it a couple of spins on a merry-go-round for good measure. (Excuse the park metaphor—it’s summer vacation and my kids are active.)

I’ve come to think of it like this: Living with ED is kind of like living with the radio on 24/7. Sometimes he’s just background noise, and even though he’s always playing, you barely even notice anymore. Sometimes he’s an annoying commercial, trying to sell you something you really don’t want (and definitely don’t need). Sometimes he plays jibberish, and his lyrics don’t even make sense. Sometimes he plays something that makes you emotional, that takes you back to a place of pain or heart ache.

Sometimes it seems like he’s on repeat, and you find yourself thinking, Didn’t I just hear this song? Can’t he play anything else? but you still find yourself singing—sometimes even dancing—along. It’s a subconscious act.

It’s hard to fight the familiar.

My point is this: ED is always there. Once ED is in your life, he’s in it for good, at least in my experience. Thoughts about food, my body, and how the two interact are with me every moment of the day. When I’m in the shower. When I’m making my kids breakfast. When we’re sitting at the table playing Candy Land. When we’re at the park. When I’m out with friends. When I’m rocking my toddler to sleep. When I’m having sex with my husband. When I’m working out. When I’m not working out. When I’m watching Netflix. When I’m asleep (yes, I have dreams about food and exercise).

When I’m trying to enjoy a rare morning of peace and quiet in the comfort of my own bed.

So many times since ED has entered my life, I’ve asked the question, When will it stop? When will I stop thinking about calories? When will I stop worrying about my body? When will I be able to spend a day without guilt or anxiety about the food I put in my mouth?

When will I be normal?

(There’s that word again.)

But what I think I’m finally starting to realize is this: It won’t. It won’t stop, because ED is like a radio with no off button and limited volume control.

So I have to be aware. I have to be vigilant. I have to get better at tuning him out. Because I’ve come to learn that the more I silence my own voice, the louder his becomes. The less I fill my life with the voices of others—friends, family, people who bring genuine joy and love into my life—the more pronounced his voice becomes.

I’ve learned that when it comes to fighting ED, you can’t become lazy. You can’t become complacent. Because when you do—the second you stop thinking for yourself—ED is there to fill the silence. 

So maybe for me, there is no “recovery.” Maybe there’s only management. Maybe there’s only letting go of any preconceived notions of “normal” and learning how to live within the soundtrack my life’s been set to.

ED plays some pretty damn catchy songs, and I’m still trying to teach myself how to separate the good songs from the bad ones.

But I’m getting there.

**********

By the way! It's been over two years since my last post, and if you haven't noticed (via the pic on my blog page or the fact that I referenced having THREE boys in this post), I am no longer a Mama to just my crazy twins. I am now a Mama to crazy twins and a crazy toddler. Say hello to Harvey Lew. He's sweet, funny, smart, and a little bundle of constant energy that is constantly trying to keep up with his big brothers (he does a pretty good job).

Cuddle time on the couch

Styled himself. Note the shoes are on the wrong feet and also too big.
(They're actually his big brother's.)

He doesn't know all his colors yet, but he can accurately
identify Mario ("mah-yo") and Luigi ("wee-wee-jee!")

Cutie <3

To the Woman Lost in Her Eating Disorder

To the woman struggling, the woman caught in the death grip of her eating disorder:

I see you. I know you’re trying to hide—to disappear—but I see you.

I see you because I was you.

*

Do you remember those yellow rubber Livestrong wristbands that were all the rage in the early 2000s?

I do. In fact, I’ll always remember. I’ll remember because while other people were using them to show their outward support for a worthy cause, I was using one to support the ongoing deterioration of my self-worth.

I was using one as a catalyst for my own self-destruction.

I can recall, very vividly, slogging away on an elliptical in a tiny workout room near my college campus, periodically sliding that yellow band slowly up and down my withered arm: I would start at the emaciated wrist, traverse the path to a bony elbow, cross the spot where the bulge of a bicep used to be, and finally end at the top of a protruding shoulder bone.

I would leave that bright yellow band there, for a few minutes—tucked beneath my armpit—and relish in the knowledge that it still fit there, that all my hard work was paying off.

I would leave it there to remind me that the hours of exercise, the days of starvation, the constant sense of being half-alive, was worth it.

That isolating myself from friends and family was worth it.

That living the shell of the life I once knew was worth it.

That being numb was worth it.

That ED—the disease that had possessed me with a ruthless, unforgiving ferocity—was worth it.

I convinced myself that as long as my arm was skinny enough for that little yellow band to encircle every part of it, everything I was doing was worth it.

And yet, even though I believed my destructive behavior was worth all of the consequences, was worth losing myself, I never stopped feeling worthLESS.

*

That’s what anorexia does to you. That’s what an eating disorder does to you. It tricks you into thinking that you’re working toward something—an accomplishment, a meaningful goal, a happy ending in which you’ll finally feel fulfilled.

But there are no happy endings, no dreams fulfilled, no real achievements. Those are all figments of your imagination that ED plants in your mind to keep you under his control.

You can never reach your goal because there’s always another one. There’s always more weight to lose, less food to eat, longer workouts to perform.

There’s always more you can do to become less.

And so it becomes a manipulative cycle. ED convinces you he’ll make you happy if you just keep giving him a little more of yourself, until finally there’s nothing left to give. Eventually, you’ll forget that you ever even hoped to be happy, because happiness becomes an elusive, intangible concept—like the soft serenity of a cloud in the sky that you can clearly see but know you’ll never touch.

It’s like signing a contract with the devil. You sell your soul for empty promises, and you end up with nothing but—

Emptiness. In every possible sense of the word. Physical, emotional, mental, spiritual.

*

This is the part where I’m supposed to talk about the turning point in my life. This is the part where I’m supposed to tell you that everything works out in the end, that there is light at the end of the tunnel.

That you are stronger than your eating disorder.

But I’m not going to do that. Not today.

Today I’m going to tell you the truth, and the truth is that not everyone beats ED. The truth is that you’re not inherently stronger than your eating disorder. The truth is that you have to choose to be.

The truth is that people die from this disease. The truth is that I was almost one of them.

The truth is that you could be one of them, and that if you don’t make the choice to fight, you probably will be. I don’t believe you want that. I don’t believe that you—the real you, the you without ED—is ready to sacrifice your life to this disease.

So don’t. Instead, CHOOSE. Choose right now not to become an empty statistic. Choose right now to fight for what you want.

Do you want to be that girl on the elliptical, measuring her worth with a small yellow band, suffering quietly—senselessly—as a means to an (unhappy) end?

Do you want to continue sacrificing yourself for empty promises?

Do you want to BE empty?

Do you want to just keep going through the motions, the ones that are slowly killing you?

Or do you want to STOP?

Stop and look at what you’re doing to yourself. Stop and ask yourself if there's something you're blatantly ignoring: an instinct, a deep-rooted feeling that you want to stop, a sign from the universe... 

*

It was right there—literally at my fingertips—all along: the words I needed to see.

Livestrong.

Live. STRONG.

*

You have to choose. No one else can do it for you.

Choose to live. Choose to be strong.

Because even though I’ve never met you, even though you don’t know me, I know you. And I see you.

I see that you’re worth it. Just like I was—just like I am—worth it.

It’s about time you see it, too.

*

For more information on National Eating Disorder Awareness Week, and what you can do to help save a life, check out nedawareness.org. And please, if you know someone who's suffering, consider sharing this post <3

I Am Not My Eating Disorder, but It Is a Part of Me

Recently, I’ve noticed a strong social media movement aimed at removing the stigma associated with mental health issues. Celebrities are coming out to talk about their struggles with postpartum depression, people are bringing awareness to the many different faces of eating disorders, and individuals turning to medication to treat their depression are finally viewed as heroic rather than weak.

As someone who’s struggled with some of these issues myself, I’m happy to see this push toward awareness and acceptance. I applaud the individuals who’ve had the courage to emerge from the shadows, sharing their stories and shedding light on the mental health problems that plague so many of us.  

I encourage them—and others—to keep these conversations going.

But. BUT. I’d also like to clarify—perhaps even challenge—one of the themes that’s emerging as a result of the push toward mental health disorder acceptance.

“You are not your disease.”

Think about it. How many times have you heard or read that in one form or another?

You are not your depression.

You are not your anxiety.

You are not your eating disorder.

It’s that last one that really strikes a chord with me, although I’ve struggled with my fair share of the other two as well.

Anyone who’s read my past work knows I have a long history with an eating disorder.

Scratch that. “History” is indicative of the past, and mental health issues—even those you “recover” from—are never completely in your past.

You see, sicknesses—like depression and eating disorders—change you. Permanently.

They mark you.  For life.

They leave scars: Some figurative, and some literal. Some physical, and some emotional. Some that still have a tendency to jolt you awake in the night, rousing you with a sharp, sudden twinge of pain; and some that leave you with a dull, lingering ache—like a torn muscle that’s repaired itself, but remains stiff and sore from the growth of new tissue.

Some that will never heal, and some that slowly numb with the passage of time.

Some that make you feel weak, and some that make you feel like a warrior.

Some visible, and some not.

But as someone who bears these kinds of scars, let me assure you of this: Even if you—or others—can’t see them, I know they’re there: carved into my mind, stitched into my heart, spanning my very soul.

So, no, as many others have affirmed, I am NOT my disease.

I am NOT my eating disorder.

But it is a part of me.

It’s the part that makes me push beyond my physical limitations. I’m a runner, and some days, it’s the broken part of my soul that motivates me to keep moving. It’s the brokenness that fuels my determination, that help me focus, that makes me feel strong.

Odd, I know, how the very thing that once starved my body now fuels my soul; but my eating disorder reminds me of weakness, and that drives me toward strength. I know what it is to live in a body so emaciated it can barely function, and because I remember that feeling, I now revel in its renowned power.

I take pride in the swell of my leg muscles as they continue to carry me forward. 

It’s the part that ensures my children are cared for, even when I’m exhausted. I am all too familiar with the abyss a person can fall into when not properly nourished—either physically or spiritually—and I refuse to watch my children fall into that black hole of self-destruction.

So even when I’m frustrated, or tired, or battling my own personal demons, I make sure my boys are well-fed. I make sure they know they are loved. I make sure they are aware that they are always, always ENOUGH.

It’s the part that inspires me to write, to connect to others through my words. I can’t stand the thought of others suffering the way I once did, the way I sometimes still do.

It’s the part that makes every laugh, every smile, every tiny personal victory, a little brighter. It’s a matter of perception: light always looks more radiant in the presence of darkness. 

It’s the part that gives me perspective. I can see now that memories, not calories, are what count.

It’s the part that makes every bite of cake, every spoonful of peanut butter, and every finger-lick of cream cheese taste SO FREAKING GOOD. How—HOW—did I ever live without this stuff?

It’s the part that reminds me to cherish every moment of this life (no matter how corny that sounds). Because it brought me so close to the brink of losing it.

It’s the part that makes me irrevocably, uniquely ME. It’s a part of my past, a part of my story, a part of who I’ve grown to be.

In an ironic way, my eating disorder has given me substance. Its scars fill my soul with joy by reminding me of the misery that accompanies emptiness (both literally and figuratively speaking).

Sometimes, I like to think of myself as an Easter egg. (My boys are obsessed with Easter eggs, even as we approach Christmas). A fresh egg is fragile. Its shell is prone to crack, and if it does, everything inside of it—what makes it an egg—leaks out.

But when you boil an egg—when you expose it to heat and stress, when you push it to its breaking point—you give it substance. You make it tough. Then, even if its shell cracks a bit, the inside remains unchanged. It is solid. It is resilient.

And it has the potential to be any color you choose it to be.

I am not a disease. I am no more a disease than I am a number on a scale (something it has taken me a long time to acknowledge and accept).

But I have been changed by one, and I am all the more beautiful for it.

My Weight and My World

“The weight of the world is love.
Under the burden of solitude,
under the burden of dissatisfaction
the weight, the weight we carry is love. ”  

-Alan Ginsbergy

*

Today I feel fat.

Today I am plagued by toxic thinking.

Today my weight is my world. And I’m forced to carry it with me. I can feel it pressing down, threatening to crush me.

Today I am extra aware of the friction between my thighs, the spot where they touch when I walk.

Today none of the clothes I put on fit right. They’re too tight, and they hug me in all the wrong places…

…and today, all the places feel wrong.

Today I don’t like what I see in the mirror. I see her. The one who mocks me. The one who manipulates me. The one who tells me I’m not good enough.

Today, food is my enemy. Everything that touches my lips expands my belly, engorges my hips, and poisons my mind.

And, God, do I hate it. I hate recounting calories over and over and over in my head. I hate compulsively pinching the skin beneath my rib cage and analyzing it between my fingers. I hate getting dressed, and—even more so—getting undressed. I hate feeling disgusting. I hate feeling inadequate.

Today I want to hide.

*

In the past, I would hide on days like today. I would allow my feelings to dictate my actions. I would refuse to eat. I would work out at least twice as long as usual. I would not face the day. I would not face myself.

I would lose myself in the darkness of my thoughts.

I would disappear.

But this is not the past. This is now. And now, I have you: my vibrant, charming, beautiful baby boys. I have you to remind me how precious every moment of every day is. I have you to pull me back from the lure of all-consuming shadow.

Now, I have light.

*

So today I will not hide.

I will throw on a pair of sweats and embrace the feel of the elastic waistband, pressed against the scar that spans the loose skin of my abdomen. I will thank God for that scar, and for the two precious angels that came out of it.

I will not starve myself. I will ask you to help me bake cookies, and I will giggle with you as we snitch the dough and lick the beaters. I will wipe the flour from your cheeks and chomp at your fingers as you feed me chocolate chips. And I will not let the sweet memory-in-the-making be tainted by the bitterness of unwarranted guilt.

I will look in the mirror and smile at the woman you call “Mama.” I will let her pride and worth shine through, shattering the shallow reflection of the woman who once stood there, taunting me.

I will bounce you up and down on my thighs and give you piggy back rides. I will toss you in the air and spin you around to our favorite song. I will dip you at the chorus and revel in your boisterous laughter and the way your hair tickles my face when I pull you back close to me. I will be grateful that my body is strong enough to play with you.

*

My weight? It’s meaningless. I carry it superficially.

But you? You are my world. I carry you in my heart. You are a weight I choose, a weight I embrace.

Today I will feel fat. Some days I do. I am still healing, and I still have moments of weakness. 

But I will also feel happy. I will feel grateful. I will feel blessed. I will feel good enough.

Because I have you.

Thank you for showing me the light.

Deciding to Heal

February 22-28^th is National Eating Disorders Awareness Week. Please check it out at http://nedawareness.org/.

This is something that is extremely difficult to talk about, and—in fact—I’m writing things here that I’m fairly certain even my husband will be finding out for the first time. I composed this a while ago and have, on multiple occasions, allowed my mouse to intermittently hover over the “publish” button before ultimately deciding that I wasn't ready. But I’m not sure if I’ll ever really be “ready,” and, given what this week honors, I can’t think of a better time to just put it out there.

Note: I am totally aware that eating disorders exist among both men and women, but for the sake of conciseness in this post, I’ll be using feminine pronouns, mostly because I’m speaking from my own experience, and that makes the most sense to me.

So here goes: I suffered from an eating disorder through much of high school and nearly all of college. I’m not talking about a trendy, misguided, “I’d-look-so-hot-with-a-thigh-gap” whim, I mean a full-blown, can’t-function-like-a-regular-human-being eating disorder. A true eating disorder (ED) is not a fad. It’s not something to make light of with “thinspo” and “pro-ana” posts on social media sites. It’s not something you joke about among friends with glib remarks like, “Oh, I’m rockin’ a bikini at the beach tomorrow, so I guess I won’t be eating today.” It is an all-consuming, life-threatening disease. It's the kind of thing that makes you forget who you are, where you are, why you are. The kind of thing that rouses you in the middle of the night and compels your barely functioning body to shuffle through your dorm hallways, stopping at the nearest communal trash can to scavenge for food. Because your mind and body are no longer on the same team, and your mind has finally yielded to your body's survival instincts. Because you know that if you keep any food in your own room, you’ll end up eating it. And you aren't allowed to eat. 

It's the kind of thing that starves you until you're forced to consume your own identity for sustenance. The kind of thing that leaves you weak and emaciated, that strips you of your ability to run—the one thing your body could do that made you feel strong, alive, and in control. The kind of thing that dictates how you spend every second of every minute of every hour of every day, and leaves you unable to even stand on your own two feet, let alone run on them. 

It's the kind of thing that isolates you from friends and family, because you forgo any social function that will involve food. The kind of thing that leaves you scraping the bottom of your piggy bank for gas money, because you spend your entire summer working out instead of getting a job. Scratch that: Working out is your job, and you do it for eight to ten hours a day. The payment you receive is another rib showing, or your clavicle protruding perhaps another millimeter. 

It's the kind of thing you look back on, years later, with one of your beautiful, vibrant children bouncing up and down on your non-skeletal thighs, and think, My God, the things I could have missed.

A lot of times, you hear that an eating disorder isn't about eating. It’s about control. It’s about finding the one aspect in your life that you can control, when everything else seems to have spiraled out of it. That’s part of the reason it’s so difficult for an eating disorder victim to open up about her condition: She has to admit that she’s lost charge of her own life—ironic, considering a pathological need to be self-sufficient is often what prompts the unhealthy behavior in the first place. I think this obsession with control is difficult for people to understand when they’re not going through it themselves. Without divulging too much detail, I will say that I had a lot of anxieties, and traumas that I hadn't worked through, and all of those suppressed emotions eventually manifested themselves in the power-game known as an eating disorder. I wanted to feel empty, physically and emotionally, so that’s what I strove for. I wanted to disappear instead of confront my emotions, so I slowly wasted away. Eating disorders are not about looking good in a bikini. They are not about vanity. If so, you wouldn't see most eating disorder victims dressed in baggy sweats, hair pulled back, face often pale and void of even a single swipe of makeup. If it was about having a “good body,” they’d want to show off their “accomplishments” to the rest of the world. Instead they hide.

I hid. I hid for a long time. At times, I still hide. Not in the manipulative, secretive ways that I used to, but I hide from the past, and the emotions that it brings up. I don’t want to write my entire story on here, partly because—to be honest—I don’t think I’m ready to relive all of it quite yet. There is a lot of guilt that comes with recovering from an eating disorder, as you wake from the fog of starvation and realize just how much you've hurt the people around you. It’s the kind of thing that can never be completely eradicated from your conscience, no matter how much you apologize, sort of like some of the destructive mindsets of the disorder itself. For years, I wouldn't even admit that I had a problem, in part because I honestly didn't think I did. That’s what an ED does to you. It warps your sense of reality. It convinces you that the things you’re doing are normal, and that no one else understands that. Suffice it to say, I hit my worst point my sophomore year of college, dropping well below the “unhealthy” BMI range, and using my protruding shoulder blades to shrug off the concerns of all the counselors, coaches, and PEOPLE WHO LOVED ME that were trying to help.

And there were plenty of them. But when I was at my worst, I was irrational. I truly believed that the people around me were overreacting. Recovery wasn't something that anybody could force on me; it was something I had to reach for myself. And I know it’s a cliché, but sometimes you truly do have to hit “rock bottom” before you can climb your way to the top. It's brutal, but the gratifying thing about it is that once you reach the summit, you can stand firmly on the knowledge that you have the tools, strength, and willpower to pull yourself out of the dark.

When my ED started to become visibly noticeable to others during sophomore year of college, I had no choice but to start seeing doctors and counselors, at least if I hoped to remain at school and be a part of the cross-country team (incredible ladies who, even at my absolute worst, stuck by my side; I can't imagine being surrounded by a stronger group of women). So I went through the motions. Counselors. Weekly weigh-ins* (see Note, at end of post). I said what I thought they wanted to hear, nodded at the “coping mechanisms” they suggested, and told them I knew I had a problem, all the while anxiously glancing at the clock and calculating how much time I had left before the campus gym closed. I did have one counselor who eventually helped guide me down the road of recovery. However, I had to be the one to build that road first, and, in order to do so, I needed building materials. The first one I stumbled across was fear.

There was a gym I worked out at regularly that had this tiny little cardio room in the basement, where I felt I could work out for hours, away from the prying eyes of people who might recognize me. I was there late one Friday night, trying to fit in my daily requirement of exercise before heading back to my dorm room, eating a 100-calorie-snack-bag of fat-free popcorn and a couple packets of Splenda, and passing out for the night. I don’t know what was different about that night, but at some point, I looked around that secluded little room and realized just how alone I was. While probably almost every other college kid was out spending her Friday night with friends, I was slogging along on an elliptical in a deserted basement. All of a sudden, I felt a pain in my chest. It may have been real, it may have been imagined. It may have been a panic attack or something in my heart metaphorically breaking over how pathetic I was. And I thought, Oh my gosh, I am going to die. This is how I’m going to die. Alone in a basement. And they won’t find me until they close for the night. Because no one else is here. Because no one else is this pitiful. I hadn't just isolated myself in the gym. I had ISOLATED MYSELF. PERIOD. So I stopped mid-elliptical-stride, got in my car, and drove home to my mom. I wasn't ready to tell her what had happened—about my fear, my terrifying epiphany—but I took solace in the fact that I was under the same roof as someone who loved me unconditionally. Sometimes, the best thing you can be for someone with an ED is simply there.

My recovery was gradual. I didn't just go from 10 hours of exercising a day to none. It was seriously like weaning a drug addict: I had to go slowly, or the withdrawal would become too much and kick me right back to where I started. I began paying attention at my counseling sessions and integrating the tools the counselor gave me to deal with my anxiety. I opened up about issues in my past that I hadn't even realized were feeding my ED (poor choice of words). I slowly realized that it was okay to embrace all of the love and support that people who cared about me had been throwing my way.

This post isn't for the people living with eating disorders, although I would be beyond thrilled if it does manage to help a fellow victim. This is for their loved ones—the people who feel helpless, neglected, terrified. I can’t imagine what it’s like to watch someone you love slowly, miserably kill herself, and not be able to do anything about it. And I pray I never have to. I want to tell you not to give up, and not to feel like you’re failing. I had the best support team imaginable in my corner—my best friend (my mom), my remarkably persistent and compassionate cross-country coach, my at-the-time fiancé (now husband), and countless teammates and family members—but all of the support in the world didn't matter until I was ready to make a change. And once I took that step, I welcomed all of it.  But that first step had to be mine.  No crutches. Some of the strongest roots of an eating disorder are the needs to be independent and to take ownership of your body; it only makes sense that growing out of one necessitates the same. At least in my experience. You can't always move the roots, but you can feed them a different way of thinking, so that they grow into something beautiful instead of a parasitic weed. 

So please be patient.  Of course keep trying to break through—how could you not?—but don’t beat yourself up if you feel like you’re not getting anywhere, like you’re not helping. Because you are. You are helping by being there. By caring. By loving. You are a safety net. Hang in there, because one day that person you love will jump—or be pushed—toward recovery, and she’ll need you around to catch her.

And to those of you who were there to catch me (you know who you are): Thank you. Everything I am, everything I have, I owe to you. In the ultimate Trust Fall, the loving web of your interlaced hands lifted me back up to safety.

I was lucky. I didn't suffer any permanent damage from my ED, except for a brief period of anemia that sidelined me for part of my junior cross-country season. My friends and family didn't give up on me, even when I pushed them away. I managed to keep my grades up, didn't have to drop out of school, and—miraculously—never ended up in the hospital. But I very well could have, and I thank God every day for blessing me with the opportunity to build the life I have now.

I’m still healing. I don’t think you ever really stop. When I eat in front of people, I sometimes feel like they’re scrutinizing my plate, trying to determine if I’m eating “enough.” I can get self-conscious ordering at a restaurant for fear that the waiter or waitress is judging my choices. At family gatherings, I sometimes feel like people are pushing seconds on me. Maybe they are. Or maybe I’m just paranoid because of past experiences. Occasionally, I snap irrationally at my husband when he offers to watch our kids so I can sit down, relax, and eat lunch, because a part of me is still conditioned to the idea that everyone I know is constantly trying to make me eat. I still have a lot of the old ED feelings, but I've learned to deal with them. We can’t control how we feel, but we can control how we react to those feelings. And I've learned that isolating yourself is counterproductive to healing. I don’t want to be alone.

I’m writing this not only to bring awareness to the issue and to support people who know someone with an ED, but also to repave my own road to recovery. I’m sure anyone who knew me when I was at my worst would tell you that I had an ED, but I wouldn't have. Public acknowledgement is a big step. I’d like this post to be the proverbial nail in the coffin that my ED is resting in, and I’d like to bury it for good. I apologize if it seems at all disjointed, as I had to compose it in pieces, much like the manner in which I had to put myself back together during my recovery. I needed to take moments to pause, reflect, and cry. But that’s okay. Tears can be healing, and we can’t truly move on from the past until we acknowledge it.

And now? I intend to just keep moving forward, bringing the people I love most along for the ride:

After completing my first post-baby marathon, one day before the boys turned 9 months.

Post half-marathon PR. My greatest cheerleaders, and my reason to keep going.

Post Snickers Marathon <3 Candy bars don't scare me anymore. 

After the Army Shadow Ten Miler in Fort Hood.

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*A Note on Numbers: Please, do not enforce or encourage “mandatory weigh-ins.” I can tell you from experience that this is one of the most counterproductive things you can do for someone with an eating disorder. When I suffered from mine, everything was a numbers game. How many hours could I work out in a day? How few calories could I survive on? How low could I get the scale to read?  Getting below 100, then 95, then 90; it never stops. When I was forced to undergo “weekly weigh-ins,” I responded in one of two ways: I upped my workout regimen and restricted my intake further so I wouldn't be freaked out by any rise on the scale; or, I got so nervous that a low number would result in further treatment or a hospitalization (my worst fear, because then I wouldn't be allowed to work out) that I dealt with the anxiety the only way I knew how—exercise. So you can see that both reactions led to the same response: digging myself deeper into my eating disorder. To this day, I don’t look at the scale when I have to step on it at the doctor’s office. I don’t know how much I weigh, and I don’t want to know. I tell myself it’s because I don’t care, but I think it’s really because I don’t want to care. Putting a recovered (or recovering) eating disorder patient on a scale is like handing a shot glass to an alcoholic. Unless absolutely critical, I think weigh-ins are a bad idea. If they absolutely have to happen, I recommend they be done blind.