Eating Disorders Kill

This is a fact. The National Eating Disorders Association reports that 10-15% of those with an eating disorder will die within 10 years of contracting the disease, whether by complications relating to their eating disorder, heart failure, or suicide.

This is something I remember being told back when I was 16 at Remuda Ranch. I remember bawling when I heard that and looking around that room and not imagining the world without any of these girls in it. That day was six and a half years ago and today I have lost count at the amount of friends that I have lost due to this disease.

I found out tonight that another friend has lost her life to this fight.
I’m still in shock as I write that sentence.

While it has been almost 3 years since the last time I entered a treatment center and am now living in a world outside of hospitals and residential programs, nights like tonight bring me right back to all those hopeless years when I felt so alone.

This is an entry I wrote in one of my journals on April 19, 2007

"I don’t know who I am or who my friends are. Anorexia is my only friend. Am I ever going to get better? What is it going to take? Someone tell me the secret. Fix me. Last night all I wanted to do was slit my wrists and die. I have no self worth. I am 102 lbs, that is GROSS. I just want this all to be over. I want to be normal again if there is such a thing. I feel like the whole world is against me. I surrender. Help me God, save my life."

As I read that I no longer know the girl who wrote it. That girl could not have been me, even though I know it was. 

Hearing another friend has passed away often makes me angry. Angry that they could be this selfish, angry that they gave up hope, angry that they didn’t keep fighting. These are the times I have to stop and remind myself I was that girl who didn’t have any hope and that wanted so badly just to die.
For some reason God decided it was not my time to leave this earth.

These are the times when I get so frustrated. I wish I could help everyone that still feels so hopeless, to find a way to tell people that it gets better, and that this feeling won’t last forever. That true recovery and a life not obsessing about your weight or food is possible.

I’m not one of those bullshit recovery speakers we hear so often at family week that tells you life is just peachy and perfect because it’s not. I have days where all I want to do is cry and run back to the safety and security of my eating disorder, but I push through it and remind myself that God has bigger plans for me in this world than living my life in hospitals hooked up to feeding tubes.

I’m not sure who all reads this blog or if anyone even reads it at all. But if you are reading this entry and are in that hopeless dark place please don’t give up. I know it feels like things will never get better but I promise it can. I was that girl who never believed it but now I’m living proof that things can change.

Don’t give up.
Don’t ever stop fighting.
You are worth more than this.
Recovery is possible.

Recovered

I don’t need anyone. I am past that stage of needing someone to pick me up when I’m struggling with something. I spent five years in a revolving door of treatment centers, hospitals, outpatient doctors, and day programs. I’m better, I’m recovered, I’m cured, or at least that’s what I like to tell myself. I convince myself I’m past everything that nothing is allowed to upset me because that means I’m not better.

As someone who had an eating disorder, I’ve always thought of the world in black and white, and now is not much different. If I struggle with something, that means I am living a lie, and I never recovered, therefore recovery isn’t possible. Now I know that statement is COMPLETELY irrational but that is what goes through my mind on a daily basis and continues enabling the plastered smile on my face and the willingness to cater to everyone else’s needs. Now as I learned this Spring this cycle of thinking ends me back in a world of depression and restricting my food intake. I DO NOT want that to happen again, and lately I’ve been feeling scared. Scared that I’m never going to get past this belief in my core.

Its crazy how much easier it is to be vulnerable inside the safe walls of a treatment center, where you are expected and even encouraged to cry. In the real world you are told to put a smile on your face, to not think about the things that make you sad, and to remember that other people have it worse than you. Is this really a healthy way to be living? Or are we just breeding a generation of overachievers who are really crumbling on the inside but too scared to tell anyone?

I’ve learned these past two years I’ve been out of treatment that the most difficult thing isn’t following a meal plan, or accepting my body, but learning to use my voice. For so long I starved, cut, and purged to let people know I wasn’t okay, I didn’t know how to say the words out loud, I didn’t feel like I deserved to. Now I’m back in the real world and forget that it’s okay to tell people that I can’t handle something, or that I’m upset. I end up crying alone in my room away from everyone so that people keep believing the façade I present to the world. Why is it so scary to say out loud that I’m upset about something? This is a question I’m going to need to spend some time answering. As an old friend reminded me the other day, people relate to others who are real, not people we perceive as perfect and without problems.

So this is my goal for the upcoming semester. To stop saying “I’m fine” all the time, to ask for help, and to remind myself that no one can do it all.

I’m going to end this post with the lyrics of a Kate Voegele song that really resonates with me right now

Most days I try my best
To put on a brave face
But inside my bones are cold
And my heart breaks
But all the while something’s keeping me safe
And alive

But so many people are looking to me
To be strong and to fight
But I’m just surviving
And maybe weak but I’m never defeated
And I’ll keep believing in clouds with that sweet silver lining

And I won’t give up like this
I will be given strength
Now that I’ve found it
Nothing can take that away 

The Big S

Suicide. It’s a terrifying word but it’s something we’ve all come into contact with in one-way or another in our lives. I remember being young and hearing that word and thinking how could someone do that to themselves? It was difficult to fathom. Now this is something I’ve become accustom to dealing with in my short life.

Today marks the one year anniversary of losing yet another friend to his own hand, and it comes on the heels of losing someone else just a few short weeks ago. I see my friends go through this gut wrenching loss feeling immense sadness and anger, and feeling helpless. I feel helpless because I wish I could make sense of it all for them. Because I am not your average bystander who looks on in disbelief, I have tried numerous times to take my own life, and know what it feels like in that moment to not care who loves you, or who would be sad if you were gone, but just want ultimate relief from the unbearable pain of living,

This week I started reading a book called “A History of Suicide.” The book is about a girl who’s 21 year old sister takes her own life, and she tries to make sense of it all in her own life, and attempts to understand what her sister was feeling when she did it. There was one quote that stuck out to me, because it summarizes what everyone feels when this happens in their life.

"We do not want to comprehend that people may and do die of emotional pain, or to recognize the terror in ourselves when we cannot seem to help someone in despair—when our words are empty.”

 

It’s so true, whenever we experience a death we all say to ourselves we’re going to start living and loving to the fullest and no longer taking anything for granted. We’re going to talk to the people who we’ve been neglecting and remind them that we love them. But things always return to normal and soon it feels like nothing ever happened because we all find ways to adjust and move on with our lives. The truth is there’s not much we can do or say that will have an impact on someone in that state. I’ve been there before, not caring who said what to me because I didn’t believe them. The only thing I’ve realized that I can tell someone from experience is it does get better. And I know that sounds so cliché but I’ve seen it happen in my life.

I was looking through old pictures the other day and came across this one. Looking at it brought tears to my eyes because it takes me right back to that place. I look at this girl and see her malnourished, forcing a smile, with no real life behind her eyes. 

 

It’s hard to realize that girl is me just a few short years ago. I can see the look of despair and hopelessness in her eyes and all I want to tell her is don’t give up, it does get better. Now for some reason God did not let me take my life that year, and he worked through the doctors in the ICU to save me. Now in pictures I can see a real smile, and eyes that light up because there is true happiness beneath it. 

Now I know everything happens for a reason and the people that do end up succeeding in taking their lives were taken early for some reason that God doesn’t want us to know. But that doesn’t make it any easier. I think right now instead of mourning the only thing we can do is to keep living our lives and fulfill what they can’t. I am now living for that hopeless girl who spent 5 years in hospitals thinking that nothing could ever become of her life. And that’s all any of us can do.

 

Six Years

I’m trying really hard to write this without crying but tears are flooding to my eyes just thinking about it. 6 years ago…wow. I remember life wasn’t much different, nothing out of the ordinary, until my sister came home crying from school one day in April. She said she wouldn’t speak to me unless I ate something. I had been able to hide my eating disorder pretty well the past year and my parent’s didn’t say much except for yelling at me to eat and calling me stupid. It was my sister’s tears that prompted my mom to bring me to the doctor, it was there that I had a bone scan and was diagnosed with osteoporosis, next they found ketones in my urine and told me that my body was eating it’s own muscles, and the final step was the cardiologist. I remember sitting in Dr. Wright’s waiting room, looking around at the newborns waiting to be seen and thinking I didn’t belong here. I never told anyone about the chest pains, I had always just prayed they would go away. First they did an echocardiogram on my heart, little did I know this would become such a custom that I could tell them where to place the electrodes. Next they took an EKG and I waited, shivering in a paper hospital gown, trying to cover up my ribs peering out the side, for the Dr. to come in. Next thing I knew she came in screaming at me and I couldn’t stop the tears. She kept talking about leaking valves, low heart rate, fluid around the heart, and death. My mom never cried, but looked at me in anger as the paper gown began to become soaked with my own tears. My mom asked what to do and when should they put me in the hospital, the doctor looked at her and said yesterday. The next morning I was on a plane to Phoenix Arizona, over a thousand miles from my home. I was dropped off and told I couldn’t talk to my mom for three days, and after that I could speak to her twice a week for 15 minutes. I remember screaming and pleading with her not to leave me here, how could she leave her first born daughter at a place like this? I promised her I’d eat again but she did not believe me and she got in the car and drove away. Later that day they said my weight was too low and they put a feeding tube down my nose to give me extra nutrition. Everything was a blur, I didn’t have an eating disorder and I didn’t belong here. Little did I know I’d end up meeting some of the best friends I’d ever made in my life and cry 8 weeks later because I didn’t want to leave. Those two months were terrifying and although it didn’t “fix” me it opened up my eyes to what I was doing to myself, made me see that I wasn’t the only one feeling this way and going through these things, and gave me people to lean on. We became a family and there are still many girls that I talk to today 6 years later, and when we start seeing the statistics, “one in eight will die from this disease” come true before our very eyes, we band together and give each other the courage to keep going. And although I still fought my disease for another five years, enduring countless hospitalizations, treatment centers, feeding tubes, overdoses, doctors, and therapy sessions…I know I couldn’t have done it without my Remuda girls keeping me going. I thank God everyday for bringing them into my life and I hope someday I can have an impact on someone’s life and recovery the way these people did on mine.

Progress Is Not Perfection

Tonight I got to hear Renee Yohe, who is the girl whom inspired the movement To Write Love On Her Arms, speak and tell her story. It really resonated with me and as soon as she began speaking I started to cry because everything she said is something that I have felt at one point or another in my life. That we are all doing anything we can to run away from the feelings inside of us rather than face them. Yesterday was the three year anniversary of me entering Castlewood after my final suicide attempt. I started crying in my car today as I was thinking about it, lying in the bed of ICU wondering if my family or friends were going to come see me, if they even cared if I had survived or not. Then getting on a plane the next day to St. Louis, yet another treatment center that I had prematurely deemed hopeless. The three years since then have been full of ups and downs, laughter and heartaches, but I have never experienced this much growth throughout my entire life. I can officially say I have been in recovery for 2 years now from my eating disorder and from self-injury. What I learned from hearing Renee speak tonight is that other people in recovery struggle with this idea that we need to become perfect and have all of our problems be in our past. I felt so relieved when she said she was speaking and giving her story once and felt an emptiness inside because she couldn’t tell anyone she was struggling. I am fortunate that I found the courage to tell someone and I didn’t have to fall too far in my own lapse. I get so caught up in being this role model to others for recovery and think my eating disorder is something in my past that it isn’t bubbling beneath the surface, waiting for me to succumb to it’s deception. I get so caught up in trying to help others, and giving them the tools to beat their own disease, while neglecting my own. For some reason many years ago I decided I was the one who could save everyone else, it didn’t matter if I needed to sacrifice myself along the way. It is something that is still engrained in my mind to this day and I have to remind myself that people look up to someone who is real and has struggles, who talks about what is hard but asks for guidance to work through it. It’s funny how we set such different standards for ourselves than what we expect out of others. How we verbally beat ourselves up day in and day out and don’t think twice about it. This is something I’ve got to work on, allowing myself to feel my emotions without judgments, so I don’t keep wandering this life running away from any feelings that scare me.

So these are my goals from here on out…be kinder to myself, don’t be afraid to tell people what I’m really feeling, and enjoy every day and be willing to take in each lesson God teaches me, and finally remember that I am not invincible.

3AM thoughts

Right now it’s 3am and I can’t sleep because my mind is racing. Not with anything bad just taking time to reflect on this semester so far. I still can’t believe a month ago I had gone back to starving myself for days at a time and now I’m sitting here in bed, after having an amazing night, thinking how blessed I am and how much I love everything in my life right now. I love that life is constantly changing and I’m meeting new people and discovering new things. I used to think recovery just meant stop using eating disordered behaviors but now I realize it’s about really engaging in life and learning things as I go along, which are sometimes good and sometimes bad. Sometimes people (myself included) get so caught up in needing everything right now. Saying I need to know my major and what job I’m going to have, I need a boyfriend to help me feel secure, I need a best friend and a daily routine that I’m comfortable with. But that’s not what life is at all. Why do we hate feeling uncomfortable and taking one step outside of our comfort zone? This past year I’ve found that taking big risks offers big rewards. Meeting new people and doing something completely new is one of my favorite things, as scary as it may seem.

In another direction but equally important, I’ve noticed something else this semester. Why oh why is everyone so insecure with themselves? I don’t know if it’s just because I spent five years of my life around chronic eating disorder patients that I had a skewed view of the outside world but this is something I’ve definitely taken note of. I hate how people have to constantly be so mean to each other or put another person or group down to make themselves feel better. We all get so caught up in thinking we’re the best that we forget other people have feelings too. A very wise person once told me don’t compare your insides to someone else’s outsides and that is something I put into practice to this day. Girls think it’s fine to call someone else a bitch or slut that they don’t even know, or whisper about something they “heard” about them, or stereotype or judge that person because they’re in a certain greek house. I wish people could get to know each other and look past the label of someone else. I’ll admit, I’ve prematurely judged others as well as been called a snob and not given the time of day, we’re all guilty of it but I wish we could come together to try and stop it. I know I’m being a little too idealistic this is just something that’s been on my mind a lot lately. I’ve seen too many people miss out on amazing experiences because they’d rather hold on to a silly perception. And while I know I can’t change anyone else I’m going to continually make an effort from hear on out to not perpetuate gossip, to not put someone down that I don’t even know, and to try and get to know as many people as I can. Because relationships are what make life amazing and I’d hate to miss out on something great because of my own insecurities and stubbornness.

Ok well it’s after 3 and I’m planning on getting up semi early to drive home to Texas to spend the day with my dad, because he’s my best friend and I miss him as corny as that sounds. Sorry if this blog post is random or doesn’t make sense, tonight is just one of those nights where I felt the need to write down the thoughts bouncing inside my head. 

Beauty in Balance

So I know my last blog was kind of depressing, it was also really hard for me to write that and admit that I was struggling again with something that I had told myself I’d never go back to. These past few weeks have definitely been challenging but I’ve continued to do things I told myself I could not do. I spoke up and asked for help, I started to set boundaries with people again, I forced myself to eat 3 meals a day, and I let myself cry and not always be the strong one for others. These are things I had learned to do in treatment but had fallen by the wayside these past few months as I put aside my coping skills and let my perfectionism take over. These days I’m finally starting to feel like myself again, not thinking about calories or my body, and truly laughing and enjoying life.

I’ve realized what set me back these past few months. I began to fall back into the mindset that I had to be there for everyone else and that’s the only way I would gain approval and friendship. I ignored emotions and began starving to numb out because it hurt too much to feel. Then the shame set in because I was supposed to be the example, the girl in recovery who never struggled with that again, the girl everyone looked up to and had a seemingly perfect life with her days of eating disorder and depression behind her. But now I’m realizing none of that is real. It’s not realistic to never struggle with something that was my main coping mechanism for so long. The difference is I don’t have to let it rule my life. I can see the warning signs and ask for help. I have too many things going for me to give up now, let my eating disorder rule my life and run back to treatment to escape when things get hard. And although it hurts to fight back I can already see that it is worth it.

I also want to thank all of my friends for encouraging me that it’s okay to struggle, and telling me that other’s look up to someone who is real and has struggles rather than someone with a smile plastered on her face. Now I can see that this journey will never be perfect, there will always be highs and lows, but no mater what happens I can get through it with help and support from others. I’m learning to find the beauty in balance and reminding myself how amazing it is to feel true joy.

“He who trims himself to suit everyone will soon whittle himself away” – Raymond Hull