Tag: AnorexiaRecovery

Reflections // On Endings

kgooden15

It’s a Tuesday night. I put down the book I just finished, fluff the pillow my head is resting on, blow out the candle burning atop my bedside table, and look to my left.

I see my dog, just lying there next to me. She has no idea I’ve just finished one of the greatest novels I’ve ever read, nor does she begin to understand the period of mourning I know I’m about to enter.

Is there a word for the aching sadness you feel after finishing something wonderful?

I wish it could all last.

There it is again— the pounding reverberation within my heart, reminding me that I have just been a part of something wonderful, but that these experiences often cannot be sustained.

That I will often feel moments of perfect bliss and peace and joy and comfort, but that the lifeline of these moments are oh so short.

That I can feel unyielding, perfect joy, but that time will always thieve and conspire.

I am reminded of our use of “inimitable” to describe the nature of joy, and I think, “how right that is.”

Haunted.

I am haunted by these feelings. Questions I’ve always had re-enter my mind as I wonder how Life dares introduce such joy and wonder knowing it’s own limit of fleetingness.

How it can remind you of such beauty in it (and of human potential within it), yet reproduce unrelenting grief and endings, all in the same breath.

What fairness is in it?

I sit up, and begin to reflect (I wonder if reflection is a source of such conflict).

I think of being a child, crying my eyes out in my mother’s arms on every New Year’s Eve, revealing to her my fear of the passage of time and begging her to “stop the newness.”

Or at least, the clock.

I’ve never been good with endings.

How do you cope with the reality that there’s a last time for everything?

There was a last time you sat on your dad’s shoulders and there was a last time your mom tucked you into bed.

There’s going to be a last time you laugh with your sisters and there’s going to be a last time you hug your best friend.

There’s going to be a last time you feel exactly as you feel right now and there’s going to be a last time that person says, “love you.”

I don’t know.

For as long as I can remember, these questions have plagued my mind. I’ve spent years searching for answers, knowing deep down my most sincere questions will remain unanswerable, for life leaves so much to the imagination.

When I couldn’t find the answers and was left unsatisfied in my search for both fulfillment and knowledge, I settled for control— of my body, of my circumstance, and of my inner world.

When I couldn’t understand change or the way life forced me to grow, I settled for jadedness— a growing pessimism towards inevitable (and often unforeseen) challenges.

And when I couldn’t understand love and companionship, I settled for isolation— withdrawal and cold indifference, masked as comfortable solitude.

The crackling of my candle wick brings me back to my bedroom— a place I couldn’t have imagined, shared with someone I didn’t even know to dream of.

How life has changed me.

How change has gifted me.

I lie down.

I continue reflecting.

I am thinking of 2022, but I am also thinking of 2021 and 2020 and 2019 and of life until this point. Because what good is reflection with limitations?

I am me today, but I am also the “me”s of every day and every moment before today.

I close my eyes and pull my blankets up to my chin— something I’ve done for as long as I remember. Perhaps an ode to my former selves and who I have always been.

Today, I am grateful for Life and for every opportunity it has granted me to evolve— both in ways I desired and in ways I might not have thought necessary.

I am learning to appreciate change as the only constancy in life, without an overwhelming need to control.

I am learning to feel joy, without the worry that it will one day end.

I am learning to embrace peace, without the fear that I cannot sustain it.

I am learning to remain present, without imminent pressure to engage with the future.

I am learning to continue searching and yearning, without carrying the weight of unanswerable questions or the unknown.

No matter the questions, and in spite of life’s unknown answers.

I am holding so tightly every dream, goal, and hope I have for 2023, knowing that Life will lead me where I am meant to be.

Just as it always has.

Where Am I Now? Eating Disorder Recovery and Reclaiming My Spot at the (Dinner) Table

kgooden15

CW:// eating disorders

Hey.

Long time, no write.

It’s good to see you again. I’ve missed you.

It’s funny. I sat down at my computer this afternoon and had no plans of writing or publishing anything today, but I quickly found myself navigating the searchbar, locating my blog site, and opening up a blank page. I wasn’t aware that I felt I had any thoughts to share today (especially with it having been so long). But I suppose I came here for a reason, and I now know what I’m meant to write and share.

I’ve begun writing this post a few times now, desperately seeking some alternate topic, higher theme, or interesting story I could tell here today, mainly to distract from what it is I’m feeling. But, as we’re aware of, feelings *know.* I can’t seem to shake what my mind is enduring and fixating on lately, and I know that my own inability to allow escapism to suffice is indicative of a greater need to share openly, to write with transparency, and to live honestly.

I think we owe that to one another.

I imagined that my first blog post of 2021 would be a reflection of my first year of graduate school— an honest depiction of my experience, a vulnerable expression of the wide-ranging feelings I’ve yet to feel dissipate, and a reflection on the many challenges, growing pains, and ultimate triumphs and successes I bore witness to throughout my first year in a PhD program. I still long to write this post, and I know that I will. But right now, I’m not yet ready.

Instead, I’m ready to talk about another hard thing: eating disorder recovery.

It’s always difficult for me to know where to begin. In my experience, I’ve found that things move so quickly in recovery (or in relapse) that it’s nearly impossible to keep track of what’s going right, what’s going wrong, or even what feels the hardest in the mundane everydayness of it all. Even now, as I sit here writing, I’m wondering if I have my thoughts ordered well enough to compose a post most reflective of how I find myself doing these days.

It’s no secret that recovery is hard. There’s not a single aspect of healing from an eating disorder that is easy, nor is it a journey that I feel ever truly ends. There’s an undeniable discomfort in the re-feeding process (for restrictive EDs), and weight restoration is something I’ve found to be particularly difficult in my own recovery, both physically and mentally. Nobody prepares you for tackling the harrowing kind of fear, guilt, and shame that accompanies the consistent and active watch of your changing body, perhaps into the body (or level of health) you vowed to abandon forever. Beyond the weight, though, challenges I never anticipated have arisen in my pathway towards recovery throughout the years, many of which I never really talk about.

Maybe it’s because I’m afraid that vocalizing them will make them real.

Maybe it’s because I think I can overcome my own obstacles without any enlistment of help or support.

Maybe it’s because I don’t like the possibility that I could be failing at my own recovery— a signal of that loss of *control* I so deeply despise.

Or maybe it’s because there’s a part of me that still remains; one that fails to care for my well-being and chases my own destruction.

But now, a little over three years into my recovery journey, I am beginning to understand the importance of radical honesty. The kind of vulnerability and openness that holds a key to unlocking the same in others, thereby making the world a safer, more honest, and true place. The courageous kind of acknowledgment of mistakes, hardships, and shortcomings, no matter how difficult, for it is only then that we can begin to imagine a culture in which leaning on one another and carrying each other through the darkest of times is the beating heart of all that we do.

That is the world I yearn for, so that is the world I must work to create.

Still, honesty is hard. Even after all these years.

When I first left treatment, I didn’t feel ready. I knew that I wasn’t, but in light of the circle of honest vulnerability I’m advocating for here, I didn’t care. I entered a partial hospitalization program involuntarily, and though I quickly accepted my lack of a choice in the matter, I promised myself that once I got through the summer months of program that I could abandon this whole “recovery” thing forever. In other words, the consolation prize I conjured up for myself was, in fact, the rapid and graceful return of the eating disorder that had almost taken my life and had landed me in the state I was in.

Promising myself the safe return of my eating disorder is what fueled me throughout my stay in treatment. I arrived everyday at 8am, cried my way through three meals and two snacks, and quietly sat my way through individual and group therapy sessions, only subconsciously focused on the gift of my eventual exit. I remember days where I maintained attempts to be present, to work my way through the underlying pains that helped cultivate my eating disorder voice, and to attach a greater value to my recovery as opposed to my disorder, but these days were few and far between and the attempts futile. Sure, I made it through the days okay with no observable breakdowns. But, the moment I returned to my car, there I was; on the road again, fighting the urge to rid my body of the nourishment I had just given it, sobbing my way through motivational podcasts, wondering if I would ever be able to have a life again.

The truth is that I had no intentions of “getting better,” that I possessed no will to recover, and that everyday, I still faced overwhelming, all-encompassing desires to pursue my own invisibility and disappearance. I so badly wanted to escape the pains and perceivable chaos of my life that I convinced myself it would be easier to give up and give into the deadly symptoms of my condition, for at least that would gift me with a sense of control and esteem.

I was experiencing deep pain, and I was chasing it. And, I was good at it.

The summer went by, I gained the weight I needed to in order to leave treatment and return to school in the fall, and, just like I had promised, I abandoned my own recovery immediately upon my return. The relief I felt no longer having to weigh out my portions of food in front of a dietician, no longer having to check in with a therapist about the heaviness of the mental disorder, or sitting in rooms desperately willing the clock to move at a faster speed was unlike any I had ever felt before.

I went back to San Diego, jaded but unhealed, only with the intention to revert to my old ways. I couldn’t wait to restrict again, to get back to exercising compulsively, and to watch my body shrink once again, along with the size of my life.

The cycle continued for the remainder of my third/final year of undergrad, but I was somehow able to make it through. Amidst all of the self-sabotage, I had still managed to return to campus and graduate a year early; an accomplishment that, looking back, I largely attributed to the level of “control” I believed to have in my life and my capacity to manage everything, in spite of the relentless turmoil I felt inside my head and with my body.

My real recovery didn’t begin until the summer following graduation in May 2019. They say that there is nothing like traveling to open your eyes, widen your horizons, and remind you of the vast and beautiful intricacies of life like seeing the world, and I felt every bit of this cliché. It was in Paris that I began to feel the first waves of freedom, perhaps most apparent in the shape of croissants, lattes, and macarons. I remember the visceral feeling of the guilt falling off of my shoulders more and more everyday, and even though I couldn’t understand why, I was happy.

These waves of freedom were accompanied by the welcome arrival of new and beautiful perspectives, more reflective of such vastness, limitlessness, and wonder of the world, and less so of the binding and inescapable cage of shame I had constructed so deliberately.

I felt myself longing for more freedom. To hold onto the feeling. To chase that freedom and wonder, rather than the control and smallness that had defined my recent years.

Still, I kept waiting for that wistfulness to leave me. I wondered if it might leave me when I returned home. If I would be able to silence the voices in my head pushing only for my own destruction should they arise again. I feared that my brain might be able to conjure up a spell that trapped my “free self” back into the web of my disorder the moment I stepped off the plane.

Maybe brains can do that, but mine didn’t.

After that trip, the eating disorder voices never returned. And if they did, I was unaware, for I was so deeply cherishing the freedom and life I had just gained back. That trip marked the beginning stages of my recovery, undoubtedly defined by small steps forward and large leaps back. Still, I no longer felt the everlasting pang in my chest, urging me to do all I could to become small and insignificant. To make my body as small and weak as possible, so that my life may ultimately mirror its model. I wanted to recover, and I wanted to chase that kind of freedom that I now knew to be possible forever.

Since then, my recovery has bore witness to the highest of mountain tops and the steepest of valleys. There have been some good days, but there have been many more hard ones. The discomfort of relinquishing control in return for freedom is a transaction I am continually working on and one that never seems to subside, and I endure raging body dysmorphia more days than others. I still often cry at the end of long days, particularly when I have tried to challenge myself and indulge in a fear food, have fought the urge to over-exercise, or refrain from compensating my caloric intake with laxative abuse. And most of the time, I don’t feel happy about or proud of my attempts to leave ED behind and to recover instead.

This lack of joy and pride might seem trivial, but it is not. In fact, it has been precisely these feelings (or lack of) that have brought on practical complications in my recovery and have prompted lapses and relapses time and time again. Once proud of wearing my badge of “recovering anorexic,” I have also known myself to spend weeks, even months at a time, beckoning the re-entrance of my disorder back into my life. Though difficult to admit, restricting food, pushing my body to exercise compulsively, and sustaining my life at the size of my self-imposed cage is still one of the greater comforts I constantly seek. Anorexia has convinced me that this cage of control is safe and protective, that it serves me in deepening my will and preserving my ethic, and that it will never leave me.

COVID has not been kind to those of us in eating disorder recovery. I have found myself falling back into comfortable patterns to keep my symptoms manageable, desperately clinging onto things I know are at best inhibiting and at worst wholly sabotaging.

Alone and bombarded by media messaging about diet and exercise, I resented my nourished body. With my social routines so wildly disrupted, I struggled to know how to move and eat intuitively. I would spend hours looking at my body in the mirror— pinching, checking, weighing, obsessing— wondering if it was the glass or my brain that was warped. I am currently facing the weight of these challenges still.

It remains an active choice for me to make everyday whether or not I want to value my recovery. Right now, things are hard. Truthfully, I’ve doubted my ability to continue on and to face the relentless, seemingly insurmountable challenges my own mind presents me with, looking out for my moments of vulnerability. I feel fragile, and I don’t think people understand that much. I wake up everyday hoping that it will be an easier one— that I will be able to consume what I need in order to sustain myself and bolster my recovery; that I will be able to maintain the will to do so.

The exhaustion has set in deeply lately, and I am once again fighting the urge to give in. In many ways, I feel as if I am back to square one and that I have completely failed myself. My recovery was going well, until it wasn’t.

And so things go.

As the world reopens, new challenges have emerged. It still feels like being stabbed in the heart when people comment on my body, or when people compare my body to other women’s. I mean that literally— I feel a physical pain in my chest when I am reduced to my bodily appearance; the body I am still working on tolerating. I am self-conscious about eating and exercise in front of others.

My social recovery muscles are quite atrophied from prolonged disuse. And all of a sudden, I feel that my body is on display again. There is social pressure to share photos online, stroll the beaches in bikinis, and wear short skirts to parties. But participating in these activities opens me up to commentary from others, and I run the risk of feeling like I am being punched in the chest repeatedly. Even comments that are positively valenced or complimentary in nature often result in me feeling like an object, rather than a person with a kind heart, a tough backbone, and a creative mind.

As we start reuniting with loved ones, I hope you will consider the ways that those of us navigating ED recovery have struggled over the last few months. I hope you will consider the unique challenges we are facing as we reenter the world. I hope you will remember the visceral pain of being objectified. I hope you will be conscious of the ways that you talk about bodies, food, eating, and dieting.

It is possible that someone with an eating disorder, or someone who may develop an eating disorder, is listening.

Today, though, I am choosing to reflect and think of how much I lost in the deepest valleys of my eating disorder and remind myself that healing can look like a million little things. It can look like eating a croissant on a picnic in front of the Eiffel Tower, or it can look like getting milk in your coffee. It can look like getting lost in thought and reading a book in solitude, or it can look like phoning a friend for support in a time of need. It can look like going out to a restaurant you once feared and challenging yourself as best you can, or it can look like sitting in the safeness of comfort for awhile, so long as the comfort is looking out for you. That’s the beautiful thing about healing— like so much else in this life, there’s no guidebook or manuscript telling us what to do. So we can do anything and everything.

Looking back, I lost so much more than the weight I so desperately wanted to lose so that I could *finally* be happy. Feel successful. Be in control.

I lost friendships. Relationships. The ability to develop meaningful connections and communicate effectively. To be honest and to not hide away for fear of being found out. The will to show up for those I love and to be the friend, sister, and daughter they all deserve.

I lost the capacity to think without a clouded mind. The ability to concentrate. The energy to tend to the thoughts and ideas I love contemplating. Mental clarity.

I lost any ounce of space I once had to allow my brain to think about anything outside of food and my body— everything but the obsessive thoughts that inhibited my everyday.

I lost memories and moments that should have been cherished. Experiences I wasn’t present for. Conversations I couldn’t participate in. I lost time.

I lost my peace. An understanding of myself and who I was, what I wanted for my life, and what my ambitions allowed me to dream up.

I lost my joy, the simple pleasures I once found, and my love for life. I lost my smile and any ability to see beyond the destructive and harmful cage I so carefully constructed for myself.

I lost the weight, but I lost so, so much more than that.

The most insidious thing about eating disorders is that they have a way of manipulating your brain into believing that you’re in control. That you can handle it. That you’re doing something good for you and your body, your esteem and your soul. That you’re behaving in such a way that will enhance your life and make you “better” in one way or another.

It’s far simpler in hindsight to understand how deeply I was entrenched in my illness and how everything I once thought to protect and serve me was only slowly killing me. Still, how much I missed out on is not lost on me.

Somewhere along the way, I believed that my disorder protected me. That it was what made me strong. I lost sight of what really did, and I’m working towards forgiving myself for that everyday.

Here’s your sign to forgive yourself, too.

I will reclaim my seat at the dinner table, and I will regain momentum in my recovery, no matter how difficult it feels or how long the years. We can do hard things. One step and one day at a time. 🤍

Why Strength Isn’t What We Think It Is

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I used to think that strength was defined a certain level of immutability— the ability to remain unchanging, whether it be regarding things I love, ideas I believed in, things I preferred or didn’t, or lives I wished I’d had. I embraced that a sense of authority, initiative, power, and confidence equated to strength, and things that I KNEW I never went back on. I withstood this ideology for many, many years, always wholeheartedly believing that my understanding of words as simple as “strength,” “love,” “goodness,” or even “compassion” were not only logical, but were unsusceptible to any form of doubt or questioning. With time, I’ve been lucky enough to experience things I never imagined, learn concepts that were once foreign, have met people who have lifted and held my heart, and have felt things I once deemed unfathomable. My life has been anything but ordinary and nothing like I expected. It has been both wholly fulfilling and quite empty, full of success and equally full of failure, drawn to the highest of mountaintops and the deepest of valleys, and has been tainted with equitable amounts of both light and darkness. Life on this earth has led me in directions I never expected, and I’ve changed with every strike of the ticking clock as I’ve seen myself through. But I’ve found that keeping myself open to new things and new people across time, embracing the unpredictable ebbs and flows this life brings, and even changing my perspective as I continue to learn and grow from those around me is what I truly desire. I don’t desire to be rigid in my beliefs, unwavering, or unmovable in any part of life, for true growth and meaning I believe to come from a certain evolution of the heart. I’ve been a witness to my own change and constantly-altering mindset my entire life, but I’ve only recently begun to view this characteristic of mine as a form of strength, as opposed to a problematic and shameful form of meekness and in inability to remain resolute. You can be strong and you can also be quiet. Strength and volume do not have to coexist, just as strength and reservedness/quietude are not mutually exclusive. You can be everything all at once —strong, quiet, vulnerable, emotional, courageous, loud, and empathetic— and that is a beautiful gift.

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I’ve had to do a lot of thinking about why I had embraced and engrained these understandings about myself and what I once deemed to be flaws in my character, and with time and intention, I’ve realized that my life thus far (like everyone’s) has led me to believe certain falsities about human nature, who I am, and what I’m meant to be in this world. I’ve allowed my deepest insecurity of being perceived as incompetent, incapable, weak, reliant, and codependent to have dominion over any kind of freedom I had in actually pursuing, choosing, and becoming who I wanted to be. In some strange way, the inexplicable fear I had surrounding these kinds of visions of me forced me to develop traits, feelings, and elements of character that succeeded in being the antitheses of what I’d abhorred, but failed in liberating me to become someone I admired and wanted to be. In other words, my fears bode well in steering me away from the dislikable character traits I saw in myself and others, but they did not grant me any liberty or vision to see what I may have found to be likable. In orienting my life in a such a way that mirrors Negative Politics (i.e. formulating your beliefs around what you don’t like/wish to avoid as opposed to what you do like and wish to pursue), I unknowingly embarked on a journey that led me to a complete lack of confidence and fulfillment. Having given no real consideration to the things and kind of person I did want to be, how I wanted to be embraced, and what I wanted to do to love others, I found myself living a life defined by oppositions.

For fear of being perceived as incompetent, I valued intellect and intelligence almost above all else. For fear of being weak and vulnerable, I adopted confidence (often a false one) to remind myself and others that I have authority. For fear of being reliant, I revered solitude and lonesomeness as a virtue, for it meant that I could survive, should everyone choose to abandon me. For fear of being meaningless of labeled Other, I tirelessly sought control and power over my own life and everything I engaged with. For fear of being incapable, I prided myself on an insatiable appetite to be perfect in as many ways as possible, leaving no room for people to stare or criticize.

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But, this isn’t living. Orienting my entire life and being around what I feared most surely didn’t lead me to the discovery of any true virtues, as I so thought it would. I expected that living my life in complete inversion to what I hated most about the world (and myself) would light my path and somehow lead me to joy and fulfillment. If I didn’t like A, then I could just figure out what the opposite of A was (ex: B) and pursue that in order to be happy…right? No. The problem, I’ve found, is that things like true happiness, virtue, fulfillment, or flourishing (“eudaimonia” in Greek philosophy) cannot be intellectualized⁠— they are to be experienced and felt. Just as one cannot see love, empathy, kindness, or even goodness, the greatest things human life has to offer us cannot be seen or perceived. What most makes us human is the emotionality, mutability and individualistic way in which we move through this world, and the corrigibility of our minds and hearts. And perhaps our inability to fully comprehend exactly what makes it meaningful is the most beautiful part of it all. In Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle defines a virtue as being “a mean between two vices.” That is to say, if cowardice and recklessness are both vices, Aristotle’s perceived virtue would be courage. The same conclusion can be made in reference to temperance serving as the virtue between overindulgence and insensitivity. Through finding the midpoint between what Aristotle deemed to be “two extremes” as mentioned, he claimed to have found the nature of virtuosity. Although I definitely don’t agree with Aristotelian Virtue as a whole, in hindsight, I do think he may have drawn some important conclusions that I find visible in the trajectory of my own life.

Considering what Aristotle has to say, it’s no secret to me that in my attempt to avoid one vice or trait that I did not desire for myself, I barreled forward and landed upon things that may also be considered vices. In my forceful, shame and fear-driven path I paved for myself, I completely failed to recognize that seeking the antithesis of what I understood to be a vice may not necessarily lead me to landing upon a virtue. In fact, moving so jadedly and blindly through life only led me to find and experience a field of oppositions that I now understand to only serve as that: oppositions. They didn’t fulfill me, give me meaning, or make my life any more worthy of joy than living in fear did, and that’s how I know it wasn’t right. So, maybe Aristotle was right. Maybe I was moving too fast all along and I flew right past the virtue I was seeking all along, because I had my sights set on something I knew would contradict every fear I had. But what kind of life is one lived only out of fear? I don’t want to know myself as someone who consistently flees from what I’m afraid of being, only to land upon other things I’m equally un-proud of. So, you reflect, you learn, and you keep going. After spending years and years studying politics, philosophy, and literature of all kinds, I think the real secret of life is that no one really knows what we’re doing. That’s the tragedy of the human condition, isn’t it? We spend our entire existence trying to decipher what is meaningful, who the people are we’re meant to spend time with, finding the things that “spark joy” (thanks Marie Condo), and racing the clock, only to find that the clock will always win. But, that doesn’t mean that this life isn’t worth it. Maybe, in an odd way, Aristotle was trying to teach us something about the essentiality of the journey, the “in-between.” The spaces between lines, the words left unspoken, and the feelings never shown or even understood— it all matters deeply. And perhaps it’s a conscious choice of our own to stop for a while and acknowledge the spaces, the everything that’s exist within and amongst the nothingness.

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I’m not sure where I am now, whether I’ve found anything of impact, or if I have come remotely close to reaching what I hope to be my purpose in this world. But I am sure of one thing: I’m learning to embrace the everyday, the mundane, the things I once despised about my character or the world around me, for there’s meaning in all of it. I’ve felt victim to the fleetingness of life and the weight of endings for as long as I can remember, so much so that I’ve forced myself to miss some beautiful things that ARE happening and ARE here. We only get one go-around on this earth, and what a remorseful thing it would be to only remember the fear, pain, agony, and emptiness at the end of it all. Nothing hurts more than a heart left to mourn the possibilities that weren’t given a life or weren’t worthy of embrace, and I don’t want to let go of the wonder this life brings.

There are a million moments waiting for me, and I don’t want to miss a thing. You shouldn’t either. (:

How Are You Doing?

kgooden15

A very dear friend of mine asked me the other day, “How are you doing, really? With everything?” Knowing her and knowing that she had been facing similar struggles to mine, I understood what she meant and truly wanted to know: Are you fully recovered? Was it worth it? Are you still sick? Do you still have an eating disorder? Trying to answer these kinds of questions is always difficult, because there really is no one answer. Things change, time passes, and life throws more and more challenges at you in the wake of your attempted healing process. I began by explaining to her that I take things day-by-day and that my life and mentality look a little bit different with the rise of the sun each morning. And while I admitted to still experiencing a lot of complications and struggles with food, eating, and finding a “healthy” balance of it all, I also told her this:

I remember being so cold everyday that I feared my bones would break or crumble if I moved too quickly. I remember being so uncomfortable in my own skin that I would experience panic attacks while out in public because I knew that people would likely glance my direction. I remember wanting to do nothing but hide, being scared of crossing the street because that required calling some sort of attention to myself, dreading hanging out with even my best friends because I knew that in one way or another, food would be involved. I remember often having to stop in the midst of exercising out of fear that my heart would simply stop beating. I remember my hair thinning and how easily I would bruise, somehow finding pleasure in my own self-destruction. I remember lying about having “already eaten,” hiding food and refusing to communicate about what I was going through, and all of the secrets I allowed myself to keep in order to protect the identity I believed was serving and protecting me. I remember not even looking at any form of carbs (let alone eating them) and going vegan, something I was able to use to my advantage in cutting out more and more food groups masked as an ethical endeavor. I remember those 6 almonds and half of an apple I allowed myself to eat everyday that I believed was enough to keep me alive. I remember all of the exercise, all of the “running off the calories” that left me with nothing inside, all of the laxatives I took to feed my obsession with feeling empty, and how much I harmed myself through it all. I needed to feel weightless, frail, weak, and small. Because disappearing and shrinking myself meant that I could learn to feel less. It meant that I could fade away and ignore my own existence and the pain of reality.

I remember waking up everyday hating myself and my body so much that I couldn’t even manage to stop the tears from streaming down my face, let alone successfully complete all that I needed to throughout the day. I remember the thousands of cancelled plans, lies told about why I couldn’t make it to dinner, relationships lost, and dissociation from myself that I experienced, all of which have caused immense pain and have forced me to reconcile with people and things I have pushed away and perhaps even hurt along the way– including myself. I remember becoming so depressed while away at school after isolating myself so much that I lost the ability to reach out and ask for help, all of the classes I skipped and excuses I made for not being able to make it places when I was really just ashamed of how I looked, fainting in classrooms, enjoying being ill, and how often I would make myself sick just from looking into a mirror. Anorexia took so much from me, and working to reclaim all that I have lost over the past 2 years has been the most challenging journey of my life. I did not die, and yet I had lost all of life’s breath.

As life goes on and time continues to pass, I find myself being asked by more and more people about where I’m at currently, especially when it comes to ED recovery. I always start by telling them that I am better, and I am so much happier. I feel freer than I have in a very long time, and I often tend to forget how far I’ve come, because I know there is so much more work to be done. Still, I know that I owe it to myself to recognize the growth I’ve incurred and how far I have been able to push myself since leaving treatment last summer. I can now wake up in the morning with a variety of thoughts in my head, the majority of which are not surrounding food and exercise. I can now decide that if my body is exhausted, I don’t have to run or exercise as hard as I would normally without hating myself for the rest of the day and needing to punish my body for its inability to do what I asked of it. I can now ingest more than just coffee in the morning, and if I need more later, I can allow myself to have another cup. I can now eat a cookie without having to “make up for it” in the coming days. I can now have something other than a smoothie for dinner, and I can even allow myself to eat after dinner if I want to. I can now survive without intermittent fasting and don’t even think twice about what time I can and can’t have food, because I’m learning to trust my hunger cues again. I can now find it in myself to want to be strong and healthy, not frail and faint. I can now (mostly) go out to dinner with my family or friends without having major anxiety about what I would eat or how I would get out of having to eat. I can now say “yes” to my friends when they ask me if I want to go get a snack in the middle of the day just because, and I can even manage to have frozen yogurt with them on a hot summer day. I can now be out tanning and swimming with my friends without thinking about if I looked thin enough, changing my outfit 27 times, or worrying about what they might think of me. I can now travel across the world and eat gelato with my best friend on the trip of a lifetime and not miss out on part of the experience abroad. I can now make it through the day without measuring my waist or my wrists, trying on clothes to make sure they still fit the same or were slightly looser than the day before, feeling every bone on my body just to make sure that I still could, and even stepping on the scale. I no longer seek my own demise, for I know I am worth more than that, and life is a gift to be lived and enjoyed. I still remember that girl, but I am no longer her.

These all appear to be the tiniest of successes and may even come off as insignificant to anybody who has never experienced the harrowing destruction an eating disorder causes, both physically and mentally. But for me, all of these things seemed more than impossible to me even a few months ago. I never thought I would again find myself in a position where I could manage to have thoughts in my head that didn’t revolve around food, compulsive exercising, restriction, etc., or that I could dedicate my time to people and things other than the size and appearance of my body. I truly thought I had reached the point of no return, but the acknowledgement of these small steps as progress towards a happier and healthier me help me realize that no place I find myself in in this life is permanent. A small step is still a step. I can always change, improve, better myself, and learn how to love and care for people, things, and myself each and everyday. And so is the case for everybody. In case nobody has told you lately, the small things you are doing in your life matter both to yourself and others. Your hard work and intentions don’t go unnoticed, and you deserve to be proud of yourself, your own story/journey, and how far you have managed to come.

I know that despite the progress I know I’ve made, I still have a long road to go. But, the road no longer scares me, and that’s the key. I’m no longer afraid to ask for support if I need it, I’m not terrified of returning to old habits if I have a bad day or even a bad week because I know I can get myself back on track, and I no longer feel trapped in my own body and in this life. That’s what keeps me going and allows me to continue expanding my horizons and pushing myself in spite of whatever setbacks may appear.

I knew that telling my friend all of this and having a conversation with her about my own experience as well as hers could have either tremendously helped her or not at all. Through it all, though, I reminded her that I was in no place to offer advice, nor do I think that my experience is equivalent to hers. I can only share what I have gone through and learned from, and hope for everyone to do the same with their own experiences. I often find it hard to talk about my own struggles with people or constructing posts like this one despite having lots of questions and suggestions to do so, because I know how difficult it can be to separate our own selves and experiences from those of others at times. However, I know that the messages I’ve received asking me to continue writing about it, answering questions, etc. are important and may have the potential to help someone, so I always try my best to articulate what I wish to tell. That being said, I remember our conversation ending with me offering a brief outline of the steps I took and even the logical reasoning and even apologetic behavior I had to practice in order to really begin healing myself.

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I told her that if hating myself could have made me happy, I would have gotten there already. So, I tried something different. I gave myself care when all I wanted was destruction, and that’s when my healing began. I convinced myself that I had spent enough time at war with myself, and that I had forced my body to engage in battles it never wanted to fight. I mentioned that I find it all to be unfair. The way I’ve treated myself, the way the world grooms us to believe that we’re never enough and projects this vision of idealism and perfection, the way capitalist corporations and a population of people profit from the insecurities of women (and men), and the way I see so many people struggling to be okay with themselves and find peace with existing in their own bodies. It’s all so wrong in so many ways, and I’m sorry that this is the world we live in. For me, recovery has never been about learning to love my body. Though that would be amazing, putting that kind of pressure on myself in aiming to be able to look at myself and know that my body is 100% beautiful all the time is just not something I’ve set as a goal/wanted for myself. Rather, I am learning how to give myself permission to fully exist in peace regardless of how my body looks. If that comes in the form of finding myself beautiful, then so be it. But, if it comes in the form of simply loving myself enough to not harm my body, work to change how it exists, and feeding it (no pun intended) only positivity and light that contribute to my overall well-being and the maintenance of my heart and soul, then that’s okay, too. I’ve taught myself to understand that “pretty” and “thin” is not the rent I must pay to exist in this world as a woman. I’ve had to apologize to my body and myself for all of the damage I caused and all of the falsities I enabled myself to believe, and for losing so much time. If I understand anything about the universe, it’s that it waits for no one. Life is short, and the inevitable passage of time only makes it harder for human beings to keep up. That’s the human condition. And as tragic as it is, it is equally as beautiful. Don’t waste time hating yourself. Or your body. You deserve better than that. Take a break. If it doesn’t make you happy, don’t do it. Eat the freaking cookie. And the ice cream. I promise you that you won’t look back in 10, 20, or 50 years and regret the fact that you allowed yourself to enjoy the food, people, and experiences life had given you. You owe yourself that and so much more.

You are not alive to pay bills and lose weight. Your body is not your masterpiece. Your life is. Remind yourself of this everyday.

 

The Roller Coaster of Recovery

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I am so not ready to write this. My anxiety level is completely through the roof, my palms are sweaty, and anything you can imagine an extraordinarily nervous human being to be doing is most definitely manifesting for me right now haha. I know I’ve written a bit about this before and I’ve been open about other difficult things in the past, but this one just strikes a very different chord with me. I’m not too sure why, but this has always been something I’ve been perhaps the most hesitant to discuss, partly because I find a lot of shame and embarrassment in it, and partly because I never knew if talking about it would be helpful to myself and others, or if it would prove more detrimental. And now, being where I am, I hesitate to talk about this for fear of being hypocritical or looking as if I am moving backwards. I have had very, very minimal moments of opening up about this in the past, but it’s something exceedingly difficult for me. It’s been a very long, often frustrating, difficult and ongoing journey, and although the primary reason for which I am so scared to write this post is because I’m not yet on the other side and can’t speak for overcoming this obstacle (at least in full), I also think it’s necessary and helpful to document steps as time goes by. Whether four steps forward or two back, a step is a step. And I think any movement or direction endured on a path is worth discussing, especially when it revolves around such a hard topic and road to be on. So today, because I’ve received a lot of comments on my single Facebook post about this and have gotten a lot of messages asking me to expand on my experience and how my life is going now in relation to this journey, I’ve decided to 1) take a HUGE breath and prepare for the overwhelming emotion that’s about to overwhelm me, 2) choose to open up my heart and pick my own brain so that I could grant myself the opportunity of helping or even inspiring others, and 3) go into depth about my journey with an eating disorder and the absolute roller coaster of recovery that I’ve been on.

Looking back, I think my relationship with food and exercise has always been a rocky one. As I’ve grown, I’ve come to understand this fact and the reasons for which I believe this to be true, but even still, overcoming such unhealthy patterns of thought and behavior has proven very difficult and seemingly insurmountable. It’s very difficult to look back and try to pinpoint what I think served as the main catalyst for my eating disorder(s), but the truth is, it is so endlessly multi-dimensional that doing so is nothing short of impossible. If I’ve learned anything over the past two years, it’s that eating disorders are complex. Complicated. Psychoanalytical and physical. Overwhelming. All-consuming. Mind-splitting. Powerful as all hell. And in my opinion, pure evil. Trying to constrain the manipulation and power that eating disorders have over both the mind and body is an unfulfilled feat, and speaking from my own experience, understanding so plainly the cause and effects they have had on me, the way I view myself, my relationships and my life is simply impossible.

I was officially diagnosed with both anorexia and orthorexia in June 2018, but I was well aware of the fact that I had an eating disorder far before then. The road I had been on prior to last summer had brought me to this conclusion very early on, and I knew that the mindset and behaviors that I had adopted were anything but healthy. And I knew that. For me, I think that’s the absolute WORST part of living with an eating disorder— being completely aware and conscious of the harm you’re causing yourself and the amount of pain you’re inducing in both your mind and body, yet finding yourself unable to stop and do otherwise. Or worse, not caring enough to stop, change, or do otherwise. I have found myself in this position time and time again, caught in the horribly toxic cycle of self-sabotage and harm and failing to find a way out of it. Even now, it continues to be a constant struggle for me, and it’s hard to realize that despite the amount of work and effort I’ve put into my own recovery from this, it continues to present many conflicts and both internal and external conflicts. It continues to be a roller coaster, something I didn’t expect.

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I began to look at food as an enemy. THE enemy. I began to experience episodes of anxiety upon thinking about or having to be in a setting surrounded by food. I could no longer go to a restaurant without panicking and often wanting to cry throughout the entire meal. I cut out carbs and fats completely, simply because I had grown so terrified of them. I would wake up at 6 am every morning to run at least ten miles, go straight to the gym to do more cardio, go for another 5-mile run, and ensure that I walked at the fastest pace possible at all times, so as to burn the highest number of calories. The calorie-counting I adopted was completely obsessive— I know for a fact that I still have memorized the nutrition facts of every single box of granola bars, crackers, cereal, fruit, vegetable, and every food item imaginable, something that still haunts me everyday. I would weigh myself at least 6 times a day, somehow expecting a large shift to occur within mere hours of the day. I would body check to no end, feeling the structure of my face and even measuring my wrists to ensure that I hadn’t gained any weight from the day before. I restricted myself so much that I would reach the point of faintness everyday, then be overcome with a sickening sense of pride, for I had convinced myself that I had “done well” or succeeded” that day. I began to base my entire self-worth off of my size, outward appearance, and what I looked like (despite the fact that what I continued to see in the mirror was complete dysmorphic). Each day, I chose a number of calories that I just COULD NOT surpass, and if I did, I remember feeling as if the entire world was crumbling on top of me and like I was the greatest failure that there had ever been. What I hated the most of all, though, were the ways in which the eating disorder was able to completely control me, dictate my mind, and manipulate the way I conducted myself and treated my own body and my relationships with others. I became so deceitful and dishonest with my friends and family, doing everything I could to protect this new identity I had acquired, for it was the most important thing to me. I suddenly became aware of how much I depended on the eating disorder to cope with whatever I was going through and to remind me of who I am, for I had lost all sense of myself along the way. I became nothing more than an empty shadow, desperately seeking to re-find myself while simultaneously fighting to the death to preserve what I thought I needed most. I lied countless times to everyone around me, especially those who tried most to help. Because the truth was, I didn’t want help. I wanted to be this way, and I wanted to hurt myself. I was unsure why, but I did. And so, I continued.

These behaviors I embodied and practiced did not come on suddenly, however. I remember turning to exercise shortly after my mom passed away, in the hopes of it serving as somewhat of a distraction from the unbearable fate that had become my reality. It began innocently, running just a few short miles a day to escape, the perfect form of therapy. I used the time when I was running to be in my own head and process her death, what it meant for my family and me, and how I could possibly move forward, and I remember feeling euphoric in doing so. Growing up a soccer player, I was also, by default, a natural runner. I had always looked at exercise as a necessity, for it allowed me to stay in shape, to thrive as an athlete, and it fed my internal perfectionism in the realm of athletics. After my mom passed, running was my natural instinct pointing me to a coping skill. Like a machine, I reflected back on my time training for soccer and the constant need to be strong, fit, and muscular. I began running to feel these things again, so as to remind myself of a time where I thought I was truly fulfilled and doing what I succeeded at. As time went on, though, I no longer wanted to be strong. There was a very clear and significant shift in my mind that led me to hate feeling muscular and strong. I didn’t want to be strong, I wanted to be thin. The feeling of euphoria and release I consistently felt in exercising so compulsively only brought me to rely more heavily on exercise for security and comfort, and the toxicity began as soon as I realized I was addicted to exercise. I remember starting to notice how enthralled I was by exercise and the way in which it impacted my life, seeing that I only felt fulfilled after running at least 15 miles a day (not even exaggerating, it was seriously 15), doing hard cardio for at least another hour, and fulfilling my “calorie burn goal” for the day. While I don’t find it at all necessary or helpful to mention numbers of calories or weight statistics because that is NEVER helpful for someone in recovery or anyone else involved in the process, I will say that the physical changes my body underwent and continues to struggle through are major and what ultimately led those in my life to become involved and try to step in.swirls clipart underlines #947I’ll never forget the intervention my roommate and the rest of my friends at school staged for me in the spring of last year. Despite my secrecy, lies, and promises that I was “getting better” and that there was nothing to worry about, they worried. They worried because they care and they love me, and although I may have been agitated then, I know that their love and companionship drove them to want to help me, and that is the most I could ask of any friends. To this day, I haven’t found the words to thank them enough for caring so relentlessly. After my friends had confronted me and asked me to begin attempting to help myself, the concern of my family members cascaded. I remember coming home one weekend to visit my dad and the rest of my family, dodging any comments anyone made about the weight I had lost, how “sick” I looked, and how concerned everyone was getting. One moment I’ll never forget happened right before I entered treatment over the summer, when I broke down in front of my dad and just cried, “I just want to be normal. Why can’t I be normal?”, to which my Dad replied, “Kamryn, what do you think normal is? You think this is normal?” That conversation still runs through my mind today, and the response my dad gave me is what I remind myself of every time I’m struggling or am feeling particularly low.

My journey in entering treatment and becoming a partial hospitalization patient at an Eating Disorder Treatment Center over the summer is something I never once anticipated or expected for myself, nor was it something I wanted. I went in so incredibly angry, for it wasn’t on my own accord, nor was it something I had properly planned for (which is basically my worst nightmare). My entrance into treatment was a result of my dad becoming aware of my reliance on laxatives, which for him was the straw that broke the camel’s back. So I went into treatment, unsure of what I was to do or what would come of it, and I was angry. Angry because I could no longer work to manipulate and so intensely control the one aspect of my life that I had worked so hard to convince myself was completely under my control— my diet and exercise. I went from exercising at least three times a day and skipping every meal, only snacking on a few things to keep myself going, to being forced to eat 2 meals in front of an entire table of people and being prevented from exercising. And though I hated it at the beginning, I will say that my journey in treatment was something I will never forget. Not only have I come to realize how needful it was, but it also allowed me to meet a variety of wonderful, admirable people, most of whom I now consider lifelong friends. Those 6 weeks were some of the longest and most difficult for me, for it forced me to tap into the emotionality I had so long suppressed and refused to acknowledge. But I regret no part of my journey there, and there is so much to say about my time, what I learned, how I adjusted, etc., that I will most likely make a whole separate post about that. But for now, reflecting on my time in treatment and realizing how worthwhile, valuable, and teachable it was is something that I cherish and try to remember every time I find myself turning to unhealthy or past habits of mine.

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Now, I have completed another semester of school and have only one left of college. It has been about 6 months since I left treatment, and boy, the road has been anything but smooth, easy and encouraging. I wish I could say that things are easy for me now and that I’m doing better and I no longer participate in any of the toxic outward behaviors or harmful patterns of thought I worked so long and hard to come out of. But the truth it, things are still hard. Maybe now more than ever. I still feel as if I’m at war with myself everyday, and my mind is constantly taking on two different personas— one that pushes me to care for myself, my goals, and who I truly am. and one that antagonistically pushes me to continue feeding the eating disorder and all of the behaviors that have destroyed me. Even so, I refuse to be destroyed. I will continue to keep fighting, no matter how difficult this journey continues to be. I’ve never been one to quit, and now is no the time for me to begin doing so. So, I will continue to push on, despite the fact that most days I still find myself sifting through hateful self-talk, exercising compulsively, and restricting my food as my greatest coping mechanism. I’m not here to say that I’m all better and that with the snap of my fingers all of my problems magically went away. Rather, I’m here to share the sometimes agonizing journey I have experienced and continue to be on, for I know that the strength, wisdom, and hope that I have inside of me will eventually lift me out of this darkness, as it has countless timed before. I forget how to love myself most days, but I am trying with every rise of the sun. And right now, that is enough. I’m trying, and that is all that I can ask of myself. Being such a perfectionist has forced me to be irrationally and unequivocally hard on myself my entire life, and though it is one of the hardest feats of my life trying to unlearn the pattern of setting unrealistic standards/expectations on myself and building my self-worth off of numbers, grades, trophies, and achievements of any sort, I am trying everyday to dissolve this wall I’ve built. Being gentle and kind to myself has never been easy, but I realize now that these things are absolutely necessary in order to live a life full of love and joy. And that is what I both want for myself and know is true of what I deserve on this earth. I forgive myself for all of the years I’ve lost to hating myself and my body, and pushing myself to unhealthy and unattainable limits in ALL aspects of my life. I am me and that is enough. I ask for nothing more. My pursuit of perfection has been nothing but toxic and detrimental for every part of me, so I now choose to strive for progress (more on this to come). I know that I am so much more than my body, than my weight, than the manipulative and destructive thoughts that constantly force me to doubt myself and question my worth, and more than any oppositional force that has worked so hard to use my very own strengths in a malicious way to bring me down. I am so much more, and I deserve so much more. I’m better than subtly succumbing to things that work to destroy me and granting these things the absolute power to control MY mind and presence on this earth. Right? So, I will continue on. And that alone is a victory, at least for today.

More on this roller coaster to come. Thank you all for the continued love & support. It means more that I can say.