We Are More Than What We Look Lke

“Need to starve myself so I look like a Victoria’s Secret model. Need to diet so I look good in a bikini for Spring Break. Almost summer, need to start working out so I look good in shorts and a tank top.”

It never ends. Girls constantly publically hating their bodies. Thinking that maybe if they say everything that is physically wrong with them and work to fix it will magically cure everything in their lives.

Well I can tell you it doesn’t. My anorexia didn’t start because I was upset with how I looked but then again it never does. We as a society become obsessed with our appearance, thinking if we focus so much on the things we can control we won’t be upset by the things in our lives in which we have no power in.

Thinking if we look like the girls on magazine covers then guys will like us, or more importantly one day we will wake up and like ourselves.

Why can’t we all just admit that we don’t like the choices we make, the sins we commit and the things about our personality that we would give anything to change. We can’t take back the horrible thing we said to the one we love so instead we focus on changing our bodies and our food intake.

Not everyone develops an eating disorder this way but I did. Desperately needing an escape from the things in my life and finding control any way I can.

What is so frustrating is girls think that just because they’re not in a hospital with a feeding tube it’s okay to talk this way. To publically hate their bodies and transcribe all the ways they are changing it. Putting on Facebook and Instagram their daily diets, current weight on the scale and images of who they want to look like. It makes me so angry, as we have come so far as women in society just to belittle ourselves this way.

As someone recovering from a deadly eating disorder I am not afforded the luxury to partake in these things. I have to fight the images shoved in my face by society daily and remind myself I am more than what I look like.

I just wish others could join along in this. Take a stand against dieting and trying to fit their body into some unattainable mold. Start being kind to themselves and praise the things they do well. Take pride in more than what they look like but for the things they can offer this world.

If we could all start to do this just a little more, we could redefine beauty and maybe change the world and impact others in more ways than we could ever imagine.

The Fence

I’ve been sitting on it for many months now. One foot in each world. One world is the madness of the eating disorder. Using every behavior I possibly can, resorting to actions I haven’t done in years. Letting the depression take over until I feel hopeless and unworthy of life. The other foot is in life. Going to school, being with friends, exploring new things and giving myself grace and compassion.

The problem is I don’t know how to find the gray area in anything. I swing so wildly between the two that it becomes a plastered smile on my face until I can sulk away and use the coping mechanisms I’ve known for so long.

I’ve been lying to myself. Saying I’m in recovery. Saying my using behaviors is only a one-time thing. That this is the last time I will go running until my chest hurts, and this is the last time I will purge until there is nothing left but stomach bile. This is the last time I will go a day without eating. I’m in recovery. I’m fine. I only do these behaviors once every few weeks so it doesn't really count.

The truth is I haven’t been in recovery. And last week my therapist asked me what it would take for me to get off the fence. To stop lingering in between these two worlds, having a foot back in my eating disorder life in case things get too hard.

I’ve thought for many days about my answer. And the only thing I could come up with is I want to want to get off the fence. I’m so scared to jump off the edge and throw myself back into life because I don’t want it to be from a false place. I no longer want to be that poster child for recovery and act like I have no struggles.

All I know is for the past 8 days I’ve eaten three meals a day. It may not sound like a big deal but I haven’t done that since I left treatment for the last time in April. I gave up my diet pills and diuretics and I’m taking it one day at a time. And for the first time in forever I actually feel like I am in control of my life again. And it feels pretty good.

Full Circle

On this exact day seven years ago I was on my way to Tulsa Oklahoma to check into Laureate. Leaving high school for the third time to enter yet another treatment center. I didn’t want to be there, it was just another place to put on weight until I could get out and starve again. What I didn’t expect was the girls I would meet and the friendships I would form. Granted, we may have treated it like summer camp, but those 6 months are filled with memories and life lessons I will take with me forever.

Fast forward to today, I watched a girl I met on that day seven years ago get married and begin to start a family of her own, while my Laureate roommate from all those years ago sat by my side.

How did we get here? I honestly don’t know. There were different phases of it all. Us wanting to hold onto our eating disorders while our parents tried desperately to keep us alive. Then watching the girls we spent those months with begin to lose their battles, and holding each other’s hands as we attended their funerals. And finally beginning to grow up and figure it out. We stumble and we fall but we’re there to pick each other up and say keep going when the road gets hard.

I can’t put into words how much I needed this weekend to remind me of where I came from and where I’m going. I may only see these girls every few years but they have always been my rock when I needed one.

I can’t wait for more future weddings so I can once again look around and think how did we get here? I may not know the answer but I’m so glad we did.

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

They say a picture’s worth a thousand words

Well the words these pictures say aren’t always true.

You wouldn’t look at these pictures and think this is a girl who is starving herself. This is a girl who is running at 2am and throwing up in the bushes so her roommates don’t know. This is a girl who swallows half a bottle of pills just so she can get a few hours of sleep, but doesn’t care if she stops breathing in the process. You wouldn’t say any of those things, but it’s what is true.

I’ve had quite a few people privately send me a facebook message saying they know we don’t really talk but they also struggle with similar things and my struggle has helped them know they aren’t alone. It made me think about the image I put out to the world, particularly on facebook. I try so hard to make the world think everything is great, that I am happy and living an amazing life, that I no longer struggle with the demons of my past. I tell myself maybe if this is what I put out to the world it will eventually come true.

Well I can tell you the case is quite the opposite. The more you see me smile in public the more I am purging in the bushes in the middle of the night.

I am sharing this with all of you not to have you feel sorry for me or give me some words of advice, believe me I’ve heard them all. But to remind you that what you see isn’t what you always get. That maybe we can all start to tear down our perfectly painted walls and let people see that we’re not perfect. We’re all just trying to get by.

I am currently 11 days behavior free and I can’t tell you right now if I’m going to make it to day 12 or day 112. But I’m waking up each day and putting one foot in front of the other. Because that is all any of us can really do.

Let’s all stop painting a picture for the rest of the world and start to say what’s really going on. An old friend told me once that just because life is messy, doesn’t mean it can’t be pretty awesome.

Let It Be

I’m not sure what I want to say. I just felt compelled to write tonight.

A big part of me wants to shut down this blog. I am embarrassed by my struggles and so many years of touting pro recovery only for me to end up in a relapse this year.

I thought when I left treatment this last time in April that things truly would be different. That I had learned to love myself while showing myself compassion and grace. That I was confident in who I was and could go forward in my life, no longer struggling with this disease.

Like usual, I was wrong. In May, just a month after I left treatment, I was back to starving. I pulled myself out of it by focusing on my internship this summer and ignoring almost all negative emotions that were festering beneath the surface. Great, things are back to normal, I don’t have an eating disorder, and life is great.

August came. And so did the stress and soon following the starvation.

“Just go back to it Kelly, the anorexia is all you have. If you keep doing this for a few more months it will kill you and you won’t have to live in this pain.” This was something I told myself every night.

Then recruitment happened. I threw myself into another activity and forced myself to eat so I could participate. “Life is good. I don’t have an eating disorder.” This all too familiar sentiment became creeping back in.

Now I’m sitting here embarking on a new phase in my life. I’m alum in Alpha Xi; my friends are no longer built in at Monday chapter meetings. I’m getting older and having to make decisions about the direction I want my life to go. And if I take a moment to actually stop and let myself think I’m terrified. I’m terrified that I will keep falling back on my disease because I can’t actually do life. Terrified that I have to become an adult. Terrified of being happy.

It’s all so confusing and I hate that tears are dripping down my face as I’m writing this. I hate not being the strong confident girl that I portray to the world. But the truth is right now I’m in limbo and figuring it out as I go.

Maybe this semester will be great or maybe I’ll fall back into familiar behaviors but whatever happens I have to let myself be in it. I have to let go of the plans I have laid out for every minute and let it be.

I’m going to leave y’all with this quote that perfectly sums me up right now:

“So, this is my life. And I want you to know that I am both happy and sad and I’m still trying to figure out how that could be.” -Charlie, Perks of Being a Wallflower

"In order to get from what was to what will be, you must go through what is"

I haven’t posted since I left Castlewood. Weird to think that was April 2^nd.  Life has been a whirlwind these past two months. Having periods where I’m back in the depths of my disease thinking there was no way out but death to periods where I’m truly experiencing joy and standing firm in my recovery. I haven’t told really anyone about either of these swings of emotion, but I thought I should put it out there. To remind people that going back to treatment does not mean you come out fixed and happy. Life is still hard and I’ve had to swallow my pride and ask for help. Help with the meals and sometimes help to just get through the night.

The last 2 months I have learned and gotten to experience so much through these highs and lows. I have been reconnected with old friends who have never stopped praying that I’d make it out on the other side. I’ve seen friends whom I knew in their lowest of lows experience the most magical days of their life. I’ve figured out what I want to do for a career and was offered an internship in that very thing. I’ve cut people out of my life who have treated me horribly, now knowing I deserve better.

The work I have ahead of me is a lot and can be downright daunting but I’m excited to see what the future has in store. Recovery will continue to be an everyday battle but with the people I have by my side, I know I can get through anything.

Definitions

Recovery. That is a definition that has changed in my dictionary over the past 6 weeks. 6 weeks ago I felt broken and lost, like I had failed. I was back in my eating disorder and questioning if I ever really was in recovery, or if it’s even possible. Maybe this will be my life I thought, a few years of maintaining no symptoms and then back in the hospital having failed once again. I came back to treatment 6 weeks ago feeling shameful. I shouldn’t be back here, I shouldn’t be having any struggles, and I didn’t even think I had an eating disorder anymore.

I have been reminded in my time here that this is recovery, falling, asking for help, and getting back on my feet. Before I came back I always felt like I had to be the poster child of recovery. Never having any problems or struggles, recovered, cured, must always have a smile on my face to inspire others. Unfortunately doing that is what landed me back here.

I am no longer the girl with the plastered on smile that helps everyone else in their recovery and doesn’t have any problems of her own. That’s not real, that’s not me. I am going to have issues arise, and I am going to fall on my face again. But doing that and talking to people about that is what recovery is. I will never be cured, or “over this” it is something I will need to be cognisant of the rest of my life.

I am returning home tomorrow a completely different girl than when I left. I am so excited to continue my journey. I know it will be hard but I am no longer scared because I know out of the struggle comes strength. I am worth recovery and I deserve this. And for the first time in a long time I can say that and truly mean it.

“Set backs are bumps in the road, they are not the end of the roads.”

I wish I could post a new blog about how great life is and how well I'm doing but that wouldn't be being honest. For the past two and a half years I've tried to have the perfect recovery and be an inspiration to others but it's getting hard holding myself to impossible standards. The past two weeks I've been restricting my food intake by a lot. I'm not proud of it, I'm ashamed and I've tried to keep it hidden from everyone so I can keep up this facade of the perfect recovery. It's so hard admitting that life gets hard, that I still have eating disorder thoughts and sometimes just want to run back to the comfort of a treatment center. But I refuse to give up. I refuse to have come this far just to put my life on hold again. I'm going to show myself and everyone else what real recovery is, having stumbles and then getting back on the right track. I'm going to start being honest with people and stop trying to do everything on my own.

So I saw this on my friend Jennee's blog and it is perfect for what I am going through right now and something I need to remind myself daily.

TO LET GO ~ 
Does not mean to stop caring, it means I can't do it for someone else.
To let go........
Is not to cut myself off, it's the realization I can't control another.
Is not to enable, but allow learning from natural consequences.
Is to admit powerlessness, which means the outcome is not in my hands.
Is not to try to change or blame another, it's to make the most of myself.
Is not to care for, but to care about.
Is not to fix, but to be supportive.
Is not to judge, but to allow another to be a human being.
Is not to be in the middle arranging all the outcomes, but to allow others to affect their destinies.
Is not to be protective, it's to permit another to face reality.
Is not to deny, but to accept.
Is not to nag, scold or argue, but instead to search out my own shortcomings and correct them.
Is not to adjust everything to my desires, but to take each day as it comes and cherish myself in it.
Is not to criticize or regulate anybody, but to try to become what I dream I can be.
Is not to regret the past, but to grow and live for the future.
To let go.....
Is to fear less and love more.

~ author unknown


I'm ready to let go

Impact

The past month I haven’t been doing well. My head has been flooded with thoughts of hating my body, wanting to restrict, over-exercise, anything to not deal with the emotions I know are bubbling underneath the surface. I know the feelings are there. Not feeling good enough for people, feeling helpless and out of control in certain situations, guilt, overwhelming expectations, the list goes on and on. I’ve been painting a smile on my face, acknowledging I’m not dealing with anything, and white knuckling my way through my recovery. Sounds like a great plan right?

Today it all came to a crashing halt. I went to urgent care because I’ve been sick for the past week; I got on the scale backwards like I normally do and told the nurse not to tell me my weight. I guess she didn’t hear me because before I knew it she was uttering the numbers and I felt my world crashing down. I haven’t known my weight since the last time I left Castlewood; the number just messes with my head so much. And when she said that number out loud today all I could think about was what the scale used to say, and how I’ve let myself go. Calculating in my head how much my uggs and clothes weighed to get to the real number.

For the first time in a year I restricted my food today. I can use all the excuses in the book, I’m sick so soup is fine to have as a meal, but I know that wasn’t the reason I did it. I wanted to feel like I had willpower again, that I could control something, that familiar feeling of emptiness in my stomach. I feel lost, confused, angry, frustrated, and sad. Why am I doing this? Why am I letting this get to me? I know where this road goes. That voice in my head tells me I can just lose ten or fifteen pounds and stop there, still being healthy. And right now I’m too tired to fight it. Is this how my life is going to be, constant struggle in my head and having my eating disorder waiting in the shadows when things get tough? If it is then I don’t want to keep fighting it. I either want to be rid of it forever or reclaim it as my identity I knew for so long, there’s no in between.  

It’s going to get better, it’s going to be okay, and I can keep fighting. These are the words I’m going to keep telling myself until I believe them. Because I don’t know what else to do.

Guilt

I’m better. I’m cured. I don’t struggle anymore. I no longer have an eating disorder. These are things I say to myself and others everyday.

I hold so much shame around having an eating disorder, all of the things I did in it and all the people I hurt. I was a different person back then, a crazy person, a person I want nothing to do with. I try so hard to distance myself from that girl that I end up denying the fact that she was a part of me.

I don’t know if it’s the expectations I perceive from others or the ones I put on myself that makes me think this way, probably a little of both.

I’m really ashamed to admit this but the last few weeks I’ve been really triggered by a lot of things. I haven’t acted on any of it but my mind has been consumed with thoughts of thinking I’m overweight, needing to starve, over exercise, or take diet pills. Really anything to gain a sense of control and not feel anything that is going on around me.

What’s going on? I’m not supposed to have these thoughts; I’m in recovery, which means I’m past all of this right? Never struggling again. I know rationally that none of that is true but it feels so daunting to accept the fact that this is a battle I’ll have to fight for the rest of my life.

I know what’s really at the core of it but it’s hard for me to admit it.

One word. Guilt.

Seeing people around me struggle and not knowing if they’re going to make it consumes me with guilt. I feel guilty that I survived and others didn’t. I feel guilty that I’m living my life and others are fighting for their lives. I should’ve done something more, I shouldn’t have distanced myself so much, I should have given better advice, I should’ve been there.

If I could die and they could go onto live a normal happy life I would do it in a heartbeat.

These are the thoughts that overwhelm me daily.

I know God brought me out on the other side of this disease for a reason, and I know maybe someday somehow I will help someone. But right now I feel like a fraud and I feel helpless. I want more than anything in the world to use what I know best to numb out and stop feeling. But I won’t. I’m going to keep talking, writing, sharing, and asking for help. Because I’ve come too far to turn back now. And I have faith in the big man upstairs that He knows more than me.