Day #18: Changing Places

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.

Day #14: Crimes Against Clients

Today's prompt invites me to share my experiences about a professional or professionals (doctor, therapist, nurse, etc.) who had a negative impact on my recovery, to ponder how they made me feel, to explain  how I spoke to them about it and their response. But with the exception of a gynecologist who told me to drink milkshakes and eat cheeseburgers to fatten up and some pretty incompetent university health center nurses who had to look up "fainting" in a reference book when I arrived with complications of my anorexia, I have been lucky enough to have had some very positive experiences with professionals.

Every professional who was part of my "team," several years ago, was great: therapist in Pennsylvania (L.C.S.W.), university therapist in Delaware (psychologist), registered dietitian in Pennsylvania, registered dietitian in Delaware, group therapy leaders (PhD students & psychologists), etc.

I met the demand for work and I felt respected. When I didn't feel completely understood, the message that they were TRYING to understand was always there.

So today, instead of recounting a negative experience with a professional, I have a slightly different story to tell you. There was a time about 7 years ago when I was faced with the opportunity to share my perspective and educate someone or sit silently and let the negativity continue. I chose to use my voice and this is the tale:

When I was a senior in college, I was taking a class called Sociology of Sex and Gender. It was a good class, and in it, we spoke often of eating disorders and body image, because those are major things women deal with in today's world. Eating disorders and body image issues are also feminist issues. That said, class discussions often turned to personal experiences and/or stories.

There was a girl in my class named Holli who had a roommate with what sounded like (from Holli's description) a serious eating disorder, namely anorexia. During a week when we were discussing, as a class, eating disorders and their various manifestations, effects, and victims, Holli brought up her roommate. She declared that her roommate was "anorexic" and "crazy." I didn't like the adjective "crazy" she used to label her roommate because of her restrictive, paranoid, and obsessive behaviors, but I also took it personally because I had anorexia (though was making significant progress in recovery) myself.

Holli went on to say that her roommate's hair had begun thinning and falling out and she was "crazy" because she still said she'd rather be thin with ugly hair. Now, granted, this is irrational thought, but I related to the poor roommate from past experience when I was just as ill, and it seemed to me (by the manner in which Holli was speaking) that Holli had next to no compassion for this troubled girl. The more Holli spoke, the more I felt irked and sad inside. I did not dislike this girl, Holli. In fact, she had always seemed rather nice and friendly. But I distinctly did not like the way in which she talked about her roommate. Holli sounded selfish, as though we as a class should have pitied her for having to live with such a freak. She also sounded coarse, as though she didn't want to try to help her roommate. But this was all, as far as I could tell, because Holli didn't understand. And more than that--she made no effort to TRY to understand what her roommate was going through.

It hurt me that Holli would pass this girl off as "crazy" for having a problem and a disease. So I decided I couldn't stay silent. I decided it was my duty to let Holli know how it feels to live with anorexia and to show her what she could do to be supportive and/or understanding.

I did not speak up in class. What I had to say would not have been appropriate, nor did I want to let everyone in the room know I had an eating disorder. I would have gotten emotional. I would not have been able to be as articulate as I wished to be. I wanted to be anonymous, because Holli sat at my work station in the room and knew who I was. I wanted to speak to Holli anonymously, but how was I to do this?

After class, I followed our professor (a wonderful woman named Dr. A) to her office. She invited me in and I told her I wanted to talk to her about something. I was beside myself. At that point in my life, I was young, still recovering, and very shy. And I was very nervous. I know I was blotchy as I tried to formulate my thoughts. I used the direct approach; this professor seemed like one to whom I could talk. I told her I suffered from anorexia, was on my way down a healthy track, and felt disturbed by the day's class discussion. She looked ready to listen. I explained how Holli's story made me feel. Dr. A seemed to agree with me. I told her how I wished I could tell Holli how it was from my perspective and how it was for me when a friend DID want to help me, DID try to listen and understand. Dr. A was nodding vigorously and was all for my idea. I think the professor had noticed the "rolling her eyes" way in which Holli had talked about her roommate and I think Dr. A found it as upsetting as I did. Dr. A suggested I write a letter to Holli anonymously, then Dr. A would give it to Holli for me.

It seemed a fine plan to me, so I went to my apartment that day and composed the following letter:

Dear Holli,

I am someone in your Sociology of Sex and Gender class and after hearing you talk about your roommate, I wanted to write to you. I have struggled with an eating disorder for years now and when I was a freshman here at UD, I was confronted by the best friend I had made at college, a girl who lived across the hall named Sarah. I was going through a really hard time in my life, and was in the throes of anorexia; I was sick, tired, and preoccupied with food all the time. I could really relate to a lot of what you said about your roommate and her eating habits. In the worst times of my disorder, I often didn’t eat for days at a time and was a very low weight. My friends were very worried about me because what I was doing was so noticeable, and my hair had even begun to fall out like your roommate’s.

I know it was extremely hard for my friend Sarah to do what she did because she probably worried that I would get mad, fight with her, or blow her off completely. But somehow, she found the right words to say, and that is what I wanted to share with you. I know how hard it must be to watch someone you live with do self-destructive things to herself, and I know it is a very difficult subject to broach, but sometimes it is getting your thoughts across in the right manner that really makes all the difference.

I realize your roommate may be completely resistant to getting help or even to listening to what you have to say, and for all I know, you have probably tried many things over time to help her. I just wanted to share my experience with you, from the point-of-view of the sufferer, with the hope that it can help you approach your roommate in the future and result in something beneficial. I know what the person suffering wants to hear and wants to feel (generally speaking), and while your roommate may not be willing to fully listen to you yet, if you say the right things she may think about them later, ponder them, and eventually get the help she needs. In any case, it’s worth a try.

When I was a freshman, Sarah 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. (I think the timing of when you talk to someone about this is key; if your roommate seems upset one day, maybe that is a good time to bring it up, instead of when you two are watching TV or something.) Sarah wanted to know what was going on (and what HAD been going on with me), 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. I thought she would think I was weird…and more than that: I worried that she would think I was crazy because she wouldn’t understand. The first thing that was important was that she didn’t judge me at all. She spoke to me carefully and assured me that she didn’t think less of me, didn’t think I was a freak, and didn’t think I was crazy even though she didn’t understand what I was going through. (Even if you feel all these things, I think it is vital to actually express them, because these things can never be said enough when a situation is so delicate.) Sarah sat there on my bed with me and listened while I cried out everything I’d been keeping to myself. She just told me she was there to listen and she let me say the things I wanted to. She didn’t come there to give me a list of reasons why she was worried or to give me a list of suggestions for what I should do. She just hugged me at the right moments and told me she would help me.

I know that this kind of incidence involves an exchange of some kind, therefore if your roommate isn’t as open as I was willing to be, the situation would not pan out the exact same way…but I honestly think, no matter how little or how much she wants to tell you about her problem, that you can never say “I’m here for you” too much. Eventually, she will start to believe it and maybe realize you don’t want to judge her. Instead of asking me why I did the things I did, or why I felt the way I did, Sarah simply asked me what was wrong. We talked for a long while and she said something I always remind myself of when I’m feeling particularly lost—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. Sometimes support is the greatest thing—an offer to do nothing but be there.

Something I would advise you to avoid would be naming her problem. For instance, I have always recoiled from calling myself “anorexic” because it labels me in a way I don’t want to be labeled. Nor would I want to continually say “I have an eating disorder,” or have anyone say to me, “I think you have an eating disorder.” There are ways to say exactly that without using those words. The words “anorexic,” “anorexia,” or “eating disorder” seem powerful and scary. I don’t like to say I’m anorexic—I am me and anorexia is what had me in its clutches. So, if you do want to try again with your roommate, talk to her about her, about what she needs, and about how she feels—not just about her problem.

I know you are very concerned about her by the way you spoke about her in class, and it breaks my heart to know someone is struggling with same issue I struggle with, because I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. Even though her habits might be strange and it might seem crazy that she would rather lose her hair than change her eating patterns (as you mentioned in class), just try to remember that anorexia or any eating disorder is truly an illness like anything else, and irrational thought is part of it. I know how it feels to think in that way and sometimes compassion is the number one thing I want if I am feeling adamant in my desire to keep doing what I am doing…not agreement that I am doing the right thing, but compassion for the way I feel and how difficult it is to feel in such a strange way.

I hope you will take this letter to heart and consider approaching your roommate again, and I hope you don’t mind that I wrote this to you. You seem very nice and genuinely troubled by what is going on with your roommate, so please don’t think I am claiming that you handle the problem in an inappropriate way—it is hard to know how to handle a problem like this—I just really want to show you the other side and try to give you new ways of helping her, if that is at all possible, because I had a good experience with intervention and I wish that for everyone. I wish you the best of luck with it, and thanks for listening.

I'll never know the effect that letter had on Holli (or her roommate, for that matter), but I can only hope the fact that someone would take the time to anonymously write such a detailed letter to Holli would have been enough to make her think and feel and grasp even a thread of understanding.


It would have been easy for me to sit there and feel hurt or sad by the "eating disorder" discussion that occurred in my college class. It would have been easy to feel offended by the fact that several people shared the opinion that people who struggle with anorexia are "crazy." It would have been easy for me to do nothing. But something made me use my voice, and who knows, maybe Holli listened. I like to think that she did.