From Beginning to (Hopefully) the End of an Eating Disorder

It started in dance class when I was 17. I was wearing a leotard and jazz pants, and was about to go on stage for a performance. Everyone was complaining about their figures, and someone commented that I was lucky to be so little. People had always made comments like this to me, because I was petite and had generally been a smaller-bodied person. I was used to being small and never really thought I would be anything but small. But after hearing this subtle and unassuming comment, I recall looking in the mirror more skeptically at my body in the metallic lilac leotard and realized, with extreme unsettledness, that it was no longer “little.” How I reached this conclusion, I don’t know, especially as I reached this directly after someone told me I was “little.”

But looking through the eye of a critic, I noticed the weight that puberty had distributed on my previously thin body. I noticed the new softness on my stomach and legs and the way in which my hips had expanded outwards. I suddenly came to the realization that I was now  “wide.” I didn’t have a desirable hourglass body, I just had extra weight on me in places I disapproved of. And since that one crucial, yet subtle moment, I haven’t been able to unsee this “wide” version of me. Once I identified with this word, there was no going back.

It started innocently, with just a bit more awareness around what I was eating and how much I was moving. I skipped snacks when I wasn’t particularly hungry, and I left food on my plate when I thought I should be done with eating. But it slowly turned into more.

I remember when I started “checking” my body frequently during freshman year of college. There was a big mirror at the end of my dorm hallway that I would scrutinize myself in front of each morning at 8 am on my way to class. I would turn around in front of the mirror, examining all angles of my body. I would lift my shirt up to reveal my stomach, which always appeared bloated to me. This body checking spiraled quickly. Soon, I was changing my outfit multiple times each morning, and having borderline breakdowns each time I felt uncomfortable in each item I tried on. With this, the dieting and the calorie cutting began, accompanied by the running until exhaustion. I found strength and power in watching the number on the scale fall down, and I was rewarded with little hits of dopamine each time I saw the number drop by a pound or two. By the time I went home in May for summer break, I had developed full-blown anorexia.

The summer my anorexia took over was also the summer that my beautiful, kind mom was dying of cancer. She had been sick my entire freshman year, but it was in these few hot months of summer that her cancer started to win the battle. As I cared for her, I continued to lose weight. Family members and friends didn’t comment on my weight, maybe because they thought my weight loss was “just grief” and therefore acceptable. If there was reason for my weight loss, perhaps it wasn’t worth commenting on. Perhaps this was just a side effect to sadness and not something notable.

In all honesty, my mom’s cancer did set fire to my eating disorder. I wasn’t in an environment in which recovery was feasible because I was so upset and preoccupied with the devastation and grief facing me. But even surrounded by my relatives and friends, no one commented, despite the fact that I was at an objectively unhealthy weight. The one person who did notice was my sister, but she was across the country and barely knew the extent to which I was starving myself. Everyone else seemed to cast a blind eye, which led me to believe that maybe I wasn’t thin enough. Maybe losing weight was just one more thing I wasn’t good enough at. Maybe I needed to lose more weight in order to beat the demons inside me that told me I would never be good enough.

It wasn’t necessarily attention I was seeking. I think I just wanted to be better. I wanted to be more loveable. I wanted to be in a perfect body so maybe, just maybe, my life could be better. I thought losing weight would bring me the sense of fulfillment that was missing from my life. Maybe being happy with my body could cure the anxiety and the depression I had been experiencing. Maybe being closer to perfect would give me the friends I wanted and the love I so craved. I thought being perfect on the outside would fix my imperfect inside.

My mom passed away on August 10th. She had been in a deep sleep for several days, and we knew this was it. I remember sitting next to her when I heard her breathing pattern change, and I called for my dad, sister and grandmom, who had all been upstairs eating pizza. The moment she died was devastating, but it also felt unreal to me. I didn’t process it the moment it happened.

And somehow on this day, one of the worst days of my life,  one of the memories that still stays with me is the fact that I refused to eat the pizza. My mom died, and the pizza is still burned into my brain. I still associate her death with not eating the pizza. I didn’t eat anything that night. I tried to cope with significant loss by avoiding eating a fear food. I guess the pizza was something I could control, in a situation in which I lacked all other sense of control. I couldn’t save my mom from cancer. So I didn’t eat. Because this was in my control.

At my mom’s memorial service, I wore a form fitting black dress with ruffled sleeves. My friend’s mom approached me during the service, and casually said to me “You look great honey! Have you been dieting?” I was at my lowest weight then, and objectively speaking, I was completely malnourished and extremely unhealthy. My eyes were sunken, my face was pale and my ribs poked out through my dress. And yet, she thought I looked great, and that I was doing a good job of dieting. She thought the eating disorder looked good on me, that sick me looked better than healthy me.

I remember my sister’s anger at this comment. And now I, too, see this as incredibly flawed, and even heartbreaking. To think I was at my mom’s memorial service when someone had the nerve to compliment me on my eating disorder. Even to think at that moment, when someone so special had been permanently taken away from me, that my weight was worth commenting on, is remarkably sad.

I went to inpatient treatment in Arizona, where I listened to countless stories of all of the other girls who had experienced the same pain, despite their slightly different stories. I followed all the rules, as that was something I was good at. I woke up at 6 am every day to be weighed and to have my vitals checked, and I refrained from eating or drinking before the daily weigh in. I finished the food they put on my plate, and only took a 15 minute slow walk each day, a huge difference from the miles I had been running prior to treatment.

I felt safe, because everyone around me was eating what I was eating. Everyone around me was in “weight restoration” mode. The comforting idea that we were all in this together was enough to muffle the voice of my eating disorder. During support group, where at least one person wound up in tears each session, I never cried once. I didn’t really know how to be vulnerable, to feel my feelings in this sort of setting, and I didn’t know how to share what I was going through as it somehow seemed insignificant. It felt as though I didn’t have enough of a story, or a trauma, to make my story important enough to share.

When I returned home, carrying 10 new pounds on my body, I settled into a routine consisting of therapy sessions twice a week and frequent appointments with my dietitian.  I followed a meal plan intending to keep my weight “up,” eating a bagel (with cream cheese) and drinking a cup of chocolate soy milk for lunch. I varied my fats and proteins, and tried to hold myself back from exercising too “intensely,” as only gentle movement was permissible.

People told me I looked “great” and that I looked “healthy.” “Healthy,” which was intended to be a compliment, was particularly triggering because to me; healthy suggested I looked heavy. Healthy meant I was wide again. I wanted to be thin and beautiful, not healthy and plump. Aside from this, healthy meant they thought I was better, like I had fully recovered from this disease with the addition of a couple of pounds.

But I wasn’t better. I was far from better. I was anxious, I was depressed and I hated the fact that I needed to buy new jeans. All of these comments combined with this new weight made sticking to a meal plan that much more difficult. I couldn’t get comfortable in my new body. So I began cycling between losing weight, and then remembering I really did want to recover. But each time my weight increased, panic would ensue, and I would slightly alter my meal plan again and allow my weight to fall back down to a safer number.  I’d begin to win the dreadful battle, and then I would fall short, feeling too overwhelmed by the loss of control. I would begin to get a taste of what recovery could feel like, but then I would revert back to the familiar, taking comfort in the ability to feel the angles of my hips again.

My eating disorder started innocently, with the desire to fit into a smaller size of jeans. I had no idea this desire to be prettier would take control of my life, or that it would turn into a devastating illness. While it could seem like my disorder grew out of vanity, it became infinitely more than this.  My obsession with food and my body grew out of my deepest insecurities. It developed as a way to cope with the sadness and brokenness I felt, and to distract myself from my fears of not being liked or loved enough. It grew out of my fear of being alone in this world, a fear which was only deepened by grief. I didn’t know how to cope with the world or with my thoughts, so I did the only thing I knew I could rely on, which was controlling my body.

A part of me is not prepared to lose my eating disorder, as it has been my trusted friend, keeping me safe  for all of these years. When I’ve been lonely or down, food has been there for me. But I cannot deny that my relationship with food has also destroyed me. Anorexia has damaged my body, and has put me at grave risk of dangerous and severe health complications. Emotionally, it has distorted my perception of both myself and the world, and has numbed me to both the highs and the lows in life. It pains me to think that my eating disorder has hurt some of the people who I care the most for, and who care the most for me.

I’d like to believe I will fully recover from this dangerous disease, and that I will find the freedom others in recovery so highly praise. But I know it’s a battle that’s not easily won, and a battle that may have to be fought over and over again. Because I know it’s more than just fighting the intrusive thoughts at meal time. It’s about fighting the constant anxieties that sneak into every moment of every day, from when I get dressed in the morning and have to accept what I look like in my new jeans, to when I have plans with friends and feel insecure in how my body appears. It’s about fighting the panic I feel when I have to order from an unfamiliar menu. It’s about fighting the urge to compare my body to a stranger’s body when I pass her on the street. It’s about ignoring my friends when they talk about the calories they consumed that day, or how they skipped breakfast. It’s about not being triggered when people send snapchats of their workouts, or when they post their half marathon photos on Instagram.

One thing that brings me hope is the realization that I haven’t always had this disordered relationship with food or my body. When I was younger, my weight and what I ate were not central to my values or core beliefs. I ate foods I enjoyed, and my main form of exercise was playing outside with the neighborhood kids. I didn’t critique myself in the mirror every day and I wore clothes that I liked, without criticizing how they looked on my body. Food was just a part of life. It wasn’t my whole life. I’m very envious of the young girl I used to be. Her innocent, carefree view of her body is what I desire now. And knowing that at one point in my life I was free from this illness, inspires me to keep fighting. It shows me that somewhere inside of me, I’m capable of living without this disorder.

I want to eat devil’s food cake on my birthday without having an internal panic about the calories. I want to go to a restaurant and choose the pasta I really want, rather than the “safest” option on the menu. I want to buy the oversized sweater because it’s cozy and warm and perfect for winter, rather than frustratedly putting it back on the rack because it makes me appear “too big.”

I want to recover from this illness. I want to finally be free. I want to know what life is like on the other side of this mountain. I want to know what it’s like to live without the constant anxiety, without the constant emotional turmoil. I want to be able to look in a mirror and be OK with my reflection, even if that reflection is bigger than it used to be. Yes, it may take me awhile. And yes, it may be a messy journey, filled with ups and downs. But if I can make it to the other side of this, I know with certainty it will be worth it.