Today's
prompt for the Hungry for Change Blogger Challenge is a very interesting one and definitely one that will allow you another glimpse into my personal life. Today's prompt invites me to tell my eating
disorder recovery experience from the eyes of someone who knows me, who's seen
me.
I thought
about writing from the point of view of my mother. I considered writing from
the point of view of my former therapist. But then I thought - who has seen me
at my very worst and also seen me at my very best?
And
I was left with one answer: my best friend, Libes.
There
are some things in life you think will never happen to you. That’s the way it
always is…until one day you look at yourself and say, “It DID happen to me. I’m
exactly like that.” That’s how it was for me in college at age 18, the day I
actually came to the realization that I had an eating disorder.
I
counted the calories in everything I ate. It didn’t seem dangerous at the time,
but soon I made limits for myself. It didn’t help that I was constantly
critical of the way I looked. I needed a tan, shinier hair, more muscle, more
height. I would tell myself that I had dry skin, dull hair, small breasts,
not-white-enough teeth, and any other criticism I felt was true. I even went as
far as to make the declaration that my eyelashes were too short. But of all
these, the criticism I told myself the most was that there was too much fat on
my body.
Thus,
the restrictive behavior began. I cut back on food and I kept lists of what I
ate, tallying every calorie like a never-ending math problem. During my second
semester of my freshman year of college, I was thoroughly aware of how easy it
would be to skip meals. There would be no parents keeping a watchful eye on me
and I had any number of excuses ready if asked to dinner in the dining hall by
one of my friends. I was hungry, but I just considered it a great
accomplishment that I could conquer my hunger.
The semester progressed and so did my eating disorder. I began to fast
completely for days at a time. Then, ravenous with hunger, I’d eat a normal
meal and feel horribly guilty. I knew I had a problem, so I went to the
counseling center at my university and told them about it. No one else knew—not
my parents, not my friends, not my then boyfriend—no one. My eating disordered
behavior worsened. My friends were worried about me. They watched me all the
time. It wasn’t long before the best friend I’d made at school confronted me.
Libes knocked on my door one day while I was crying in bed (a common occurrence
in those days) and asked me through the door to let her in. She wanted to know
what was going on, but I was afraid to tell her…afraid she wouldn't like me
anymore…afraid she wouldn't want to live with me next year. She didn’t judge me
at all and she didn’t think I was crazy. She sat there on my bed with me and
listened while I cried out everything I’d been keeping to myself. She hugged me
at the right moments and told me she would help me. She was relieved that I was
going to counseling.
I was surrounded by support and coping was easier, but my eating disorder was
still there. I slept often, and I didn’t do very well in my classes. With the
help of Libes, I tried to eat at least one substantial thing each day, which
was by no means healthy, but was nevertheless an improvement. I stopped
listing, but I was always mentally counting. I was irrational and emotional. I
took naps to save my energy. Everything was going downhill. Libes saw it all
and she never rescinded her friendship.
I was scared. So scared.
I
have so many sad little memories - like going to an amusement park one weekend
with Libes and getting colder and colder until I was shivering and my teeth
were chattering. I felt miserable but the worst part was that everyone I was
with was just fine. When we left the amusement park that night I saw that my
lips were blue and it took me at least half an hour to get warm inside Libes’s
heated car. When we got back to our dorm, I almost passed out, so I immediately
sat down on the floor and knelt with my head to my knees to make the feeling go
away. She got me water and demanded in her maternal yet firm way that I tell
her what was wrong. We talked for a long while and she said something I never
forgot. In fact, I wrote it down in my journal back in 2003 so I could be sure
I wasn't making it up. She said she’d never leave my side throughout college
and that she would help me in any way she could. It meant a lot to me to have
someone say that.
I also remember taking a shower and watching a lot of my hair come out. With
many long dark strands wrapped around my hands and my pink towel around me, I
called Libes to the bathroom and showed her. Meaningfully, she said, “This is
your worst nightmare, so you know what you have to do.” I nodded and
laughed nervously to cover my alarm that came from seeing my long hair
somewhere other than on my head.
These
memories make me sad because no best friend should ever have to see the things
she saw or worry about the things she worried about in regards to me. But as
days turned into months and months turned into years, I had more good days than
bad and recovery was a work in progress that was actually progressing. In the
fall of 2002, Libes became friends with a girl who was timid, struggling, and
ill. I came with baggage, but she saw through the bad stuff and loved all the
good in me. These days, she gets to see the real me. I'm thankful for that. My
best friend, my Maid of Honor in my wedding, my other half - she has seen it
all and then some. And while I'm sure I gave her a damn good education on what
to expect from someone with an eating disorder, it's nice to know that we can
just be best friends these days without my old eating disorder lurking around.
That time feels like another life. And that is a really cool thing to get to
say.
When
I think back on some of my college years, I'm not regretful of it all, because
I have so many good memories too. But I often think to myself - the ONLY way a
girl in my mental and physical state could have even HAD any fun and special
memories in college was if she had a best friend like Libes. So lucky for me, I
did.
So
it wasn't a total bust. In fact, in spite of all the horrid, aching pain that I
felt on a pretty regular basis, college was pretty damn great. And if Libes
wasn't part of the equation, I truly don't think I could say that. (Am I trying to say that I have the best friend in the world? Oh yes I am!)
Libes
and I have been friends for 10 years now. My heart says, "Is that
all?" because I feel like I've lived 10 LIFETIMES since the day I met
her.
As for the NOW, what you see is what you get. And if you see it, she sees it too. I've come a long way and who I am now doesn't need as much of an explanation as the past me. This entire blog is the window to my now, so there's really no need to toot my own horn as the saying goes. Suffice it to say: a recovered life is FAR, FAR better than an eating disordered one.
This blog has a point and a purpose.
Not only that, it has a message. I have a goal. It's here to give people hope.
My goal is to be an example—to cause people to say, "If that's what
recovery looks like, sign me up!"
That's how it started almost 5 years ago, plain and simple,
when that bad/sad part of my life was ending and I was in a place where I could
call my own body HOME. Since then, I've embarked upon a journey to become a
professional in my own rite.
In college, which to be perfectly honest,
was years after my eating disorder REALLY began, even though the official
diagnosis didn't come until age 18, I was always one of those people who put on
a happy face—who smiled even when I was hurting and joked around, making others
laugh, consistently concealing the emotions at battle inside me. In a way, it
sometimes helped not to talk about it. I liked trying to forget, to be able to
have a good time with friends, if only for a few fleeting hours.
It was sad, because something always
seemed to fall. I always seemed to fall. I wanted to enjoy myself, to be happy
with my friends, to let my mind free itself of numbers and perfection, but I
could never enjoy myself completely.
It was like I was at a party, having
a blast with a big smile on my face, but there was someone in the corner,
wearing dark clothes and looking at me with a scary expression. My eating
disorder, my inside pain and dissatisfaction, was that dark, scary someone in
the corner. I could still have a great time, could still make great memories,
but I was always being watched by something that wanted to take it all away.
When I think of times like this, I
am reminded particularly of a few nights out with my college friends. We'd
drink and have a good time dancing and laughing…and on the way home, when the
alcohol had loosened the strings around my turbulent emotions, I'd start to cry
relentlessly, usually on Libes's shoulder. It's kind of embarrassing even now,
but I was much more of a mess than I let myself or anyone else believe. Tears
typically accompany a mess.
Whether I cried walking home from a
bar—feeling as though I was completely ruining the carefree mood—or later in
the night back at my old apartment to my best friend, everything seemed to come
crashing down after having fun. It took me a while to learn that I'd never
really be able to be happy again unless I fixed myself first. Until I took care
of what was making me hurt, any fun or happiness was temporary. Temporary.
I knew I didn't want to live like
that. After all, who does?
Looking back, nights like that feel
like a turning point, or several of them. I knew my entire life was going to be
like that if I didn't change something. If I hadn't had the best friend I do, I
would have fallen into a sad little hole and lied there 'til something drastic
finally pulled me out…if anything pulled me out at all.
This realization came after years of
unhappiness and what can only be described as sh*t. This realization came after
a freshman year of college that makes me cringe to this day. After days and
nights of worrying my friends, of sleeping in the daytime for hours at a time,
of letting my past of a being a straight A student fall into the trash as I
used all my effort to even make it to—and through—classes. After tedious meals
in the dining hall, whole Biology classes spent incessantly tallying my food
intake, and one distinctly frightening night when I attempted to measure my
dwindling waist by fastening a belt around it—then trying to measure the belt
with a ruler—only to be stopped by my freshman roommate and my best friend
Libes, who both had to hold me down on my bed while I thrashed around and
essentially freaked out. After counseling and eating again only to make my
sophomore year a near repeat of my freshman year. After group therapy and fainting
spells. After screaming matches with my parents. After obsessive term papers on
eating disorders in an attempt to teach myself to stop what I was doing.
After all this came those fun
college nights that ended in tears. On Libes's shoulder.
And after that came the realization.
That. I. Didn't. Want. To. And. Couldn't. Do.
It. Anymore.
So I set out to learn myself and
discovered a lot. It has to start with you.
It has to start with YOU.
But most of all, it has to start.
