Morgen
11-12-2003, 01:57 AM
I called this one more time because I feel as though I have written so much about my experience. i wrote this for a class as an alternative assignment b/c I didn't want to watch a movie on ed's. some of this overlaps with my old post "My view on Ed's"
I sit here tired, dizzy, and angry at myself for surrendering to this demon, this enemy who distorts my mind, making me believe he is my friend, my only road to happiness and success. I wonder why and how I have managed to let myself be tricked into my old beliefs. Have I not realized that this thing brings exactly the opposite of what I want? I say I want happiness, and this thing brings depression. I say I want success, and this thing brings failure. I say I want to be unique and to be heard, and this thing makes me invisible more and more each day. It makes me believe that my thoughts and opinions are not worth being heard. This thing was my sole identity, the essence of my existence, for nine years. This thing that I once believed I had control over became my worst nightmare, my reason for living, and finally my motivation to become something better. This thing has dramatically changed my life and made me who I am today. This thing is an eating disorder and I still continue to fight to rid myself of its filthy remainders.
I actively try not to label myself or anyone else who has experienced life with an eating disorder as anorexic, bulimic, or a binge eater. I believe that each of us is more than just a diagnosis. There are many who have struggled with these issues that have gone across the spectrum and back many times. Some never classify as any of these disorders, while their suffering is no less than that of those who do fit into a category. I also believe that if a person with an eating disorder identifies themselves as one of these labels, it becomes much more difficult to let go. This being said, I refer to eating disorders in a general sense or to the behaviors of the person with the eating disorder.
Sometimes I wish I could have fast forwarded my life to where I am now or where I was a year and a half ago. Just to see what the pathetic goal of thinness would bring. It was not until a year and a half ago that I began to see eating disorders for what they are, one of the worst types of self-destruction a person can engage in. This realization did not come suddenly or easily. It was an accumulation of events and the thought that I might lose my life to this disorder that made me see the truth I had been blind to for so long. My attempts to gain acceptance, approval, happiness, and control through losing weight allowed me to be treated horribly by men. The frustration of hiding my emotions led me into trying to release them through self-mutilation. I sank so low that I sat down one night and took a bottle of the very pills that were supposed to be helping me, in an attempt to rid myself of myself. I woke up the next morning to hear my innocent three-year-old cousin telling me to wake up because it was a beautiful day. I watched my friend, who also had an eating disorder, break down in my bathroom, bang her head repetitively against the wall and ask me for a blade so she could slash the flesh she felt constrained by. I went into therapy where I continued to lie to myself and my therapist. I eventually broke down and admitted all of my internal emotions, all my fears, all my pain. I could finally see that waking up at four in the morning to work out before I went to school was just completely insane. I realized that I could not life off of dry cereal, fat-free bagels, coffee, or tea. I found that I could have a job that I loved, do well in school without obsessing over my grades, run for thirty minutes instead of an hour and a half, and sleep at night instead of doing stomach crunches. I discovered that there were more important things in life than the feeling of false power and control. I found other joys in life, things that were not going to harm myself.
My story is not much different from anyone else’s. I have searched for the reasons for why I developed an eating disorder for many years, and believe that I have discovered most of them. My eating disorder might have stemmed from the fact that my grandmother, aunt, and mother have all had eating disorders. My mother and aunt are still active in their eating disorder behaviors. My experience with competitive gymnastics also contributed to my eating disorder. My coaches put my team on a diet at age nine. I was taught by them that my best was never good enough, there was always room for improvement, and that a person’s body size and shape are the most important factors of an individual’s identity. When I quit gymnastics, I felt extreme guilt and a sense of lost. I believe that I used my control over food intake as a way to place demands on myself as my coaches once had. I also believe that being self-critical, perfectionistic, and competitive played a role in my issues involving food and weight. To some extent, the ideal image of a woman that society has created may have also played a part. There were also many experiences along the way which I believed helped maintain my disorder such as choosing the wrong types of friends, putting up with a selfish and controlling boyfriend for too long, and trying to erase the pain of the eating disorder through alcohol and drugs. By discovering the factors that contributed to my eating disorder, I have been able to identify triggers, find friends who have the same values as I do, and ultimately change many of my behaviors. I no longer use alcohol to numb my feelings and I have not touched any sort of drug in an extremely long time. That desire is no longer exists.
I believe in many ways, I am lucky. I acted on my eating disorder for nine years. I restricted my food intake to almost nothing, over-exercised, abused laxatives, purged, and used diet pills on occasion. I have not had too many physical problems from the eating disorder. My teeth and bones are healthy and I am alive. I have only suffered from migraines, electrolyte imbalance, and hypoglycemia. It could be a lot worse. I was never in inpatient treatment, though attempted many times only to back out at the last minute by convincing everyone I was o.k. I think this was one of my biggest mistakes. I believe that if I had accepted inpatient treatment, I would have had a much smoother recovery process. However, I do not believe that my choice to resist the help is uncommon. I have often described an eating disorder as cancer. Imagine that you have cancer and you know you are going to die, but then suddenly you discover that there is some cure. You would take it right? A person with an eating disorder often does not take the cure, but continues to suffer because they do not believe that they merit the help. They have come to see themselves as worthless pieces of trash. I went through many therapists. I did not have a great experience with most of them. One blamed my parents, one was an intern who had never worked with an eating disorder patient ( we can be overwhelming and very stubborn! :) ), one left the state without contacting her patients, and one told me that my parents hated children because they only had two of them, and this was why I had an eating disorder. I never gave up. I read countless books, did research, and talked to people who had suffered, and those who had recovered. I came to the conclusion by myself to get well. And I believe that I have made a tremendous amount of progress. However, there are times like the past few weeks, where I wonder how much more progress I need to make.
I can speak about recovery, explain in great detail the pain, frustration, and isolation that comes from these disorders. I can put my words out there and make it appear as if it is all over for me. I can pretend that I am not afraid that I might succumb to the negative thoughts once again. But if I do this, I am lying. I am not “recovered.” I could not attend an entire week of lectures in my gender studies class because the topic was the female body and eating disorders. I could not attend out of fear of being triggered into a relapse, and yet I felt on the verge of a relapse the whole week anyway. I am terrified of the day I leave to go to graduate school, because I have not gotten over the fear of grocery shopping. I am scared that if I am away from home I will simply not buy food. When I go to the doctor I have to either stand backward on the scale and deal with the confused look on the nurse’s face, or if I gain enough courage, I ask to not be weighed.
I do not know what “recovered” means for me yet. I used to believe that full recovery was living a life where I could eat without worry, never have to fight the urges and thoughts, a life where I would not remember what it was like to live with an eating disorder. But I do not remember what life was like before the eating disorder. I do not remember a time when I ate without a worry. I cannot remember what it was like before I was consumed with negative thoughts and obsessions. This idea of recovery only caused relapse after relapse because I believed that if I worked hard enough, that the eating disorder would be gone. I think about what “recovered” means to me every day. I will continue to try to define it. I will continue to fight. I have a long way to go, and I might fight my whole life to overcome this thing, but I would take living while fighting any day, over having to live in the empty body I used to exist in. I do not want to “recover” and forget. I want to use my experience and create something good out of it. I want to take those wasted years, recycle them, and help others with their battles. I have made the conscious decision to speak out about my experience and answer any questions about it that come my way. I believe that speaking out has been the most beneficial for me and hope that it will be what keeps me going on my journey toward recovery.
I sit here tired, dizzy, and angry at myself for surrendering to this demon, this enemy who distorts my mind, making me believe he is my friend, my only road to happiness and success. I wonder why and how I have managed to let myself be tricked into my old beliefs. Have I not realized that this thing brings exactly the opposite of what I want? I say I want happiness, and this thing brings depression. I say I want success, and this thing brings failure. I say I want to be unique and to be heard, and this thing makes me invisible more and more each day. It makes me believe that my thoughts and opinions are not worth being heard. This thing was my sole identity, the essence of my existence, for nine years. This thing that I once believed I had control over became my worst nightmare, my reason for living, and finally my motivation to become something better. This thing has dramatically changed my life and made me who I am today. This thing is an eating disorder and I still continue to fight to rid myself of its filthy remainders.
I actively try not to label myself or anyone else who has experienced life with an eating disorder as anorexic, bulimic, or a binge eater. I believe that each of us is more than just a diagnosis. There are many who have struggled with these issues that have gone across the spectrum and back many times. Some never classify as any of these disorders, while their suffering is no less than that of those who do fit into a category. I also believe that if a person with an eating disorder identifies themselves as one of these labels, it becomes much more difficult to let go. This being said, I refer to eating disorders in a general sense or to the behaviors of the person with the eating disorder.
Sometimes I wish I could have fast forwarded my life to where I am now or where I was a year and a half ago. Just to see what the pathetic goal of thinness would bring. It was not until a year and a half ago that I began to see eating disorders for what they are, one of the worst types of self-destruction a person can engage in. This realization did not come suddenly or easily. It was an accumulation of events and the thought that I might lose my life to this disorder that made me see the truth I had been blind to for so long. My attempts to gain acceptance, approval, happiness, and control through losing weight allowed me to be treated horribly by men. The frustration of hiding my emotions led me into trying to release them through self-mutilation. I sank so low that I sat down one night and took a bottle of the very pills that were supposed to be helping me, in an attempt to rid myself of myself. I woke up the next morning to hear my innocent three-year-old cousin telling me to wake up because it was a beautiful day. I watched my friend, who also had an eating disorder, break down in my bathroom, bang her head repetitively against the wall and ask me for a blade so she could slash the flesh she felt constrained by. I went into therapy where I continued to lie to myself and my therapist. I eventually broke down and admitted all of my internal emotions, all my fears, all my pain. I could finally see that waking up at four in the morning to work out before I went to school was just completely insane. I realized that I could not life off of dry cereal, fat-free bagels, coffee, or tea. I found that I could have a job that I loved, do well in school without obsessing over my grades, run for thirty minutes instead of an hour and a half, and sleep at night instead of doing stomach crunches. I discovered that there were more important things in life than the feeling of false power and control. I found other joys in life, things that were not going to harm myself.
My story is not much different from anyone else’s. I have searched for the reasons for why I developed an eating disorder for many years, and believe that I have discovered most of them. My eating disorder might have stemmed from the fact that my grandmother, aunt, and mother have all had eating disorders. My mother and aunt are still active in their eating disorder behaviors. My experience with competitive gymnastics also contributed to my eating disorder. My coaches put my team on a diet at age nine. I was taught by them that my best was never good enough, there was always room for improvement, and that a person’s body size and shape are the most important factors of an individual’s identity. When I quit gymnastics, I felt extreme guilt and a sense of lost. I believe that I used my control over food intake as a way to place demands on myself as my coaches once had. I also believe that being self-critical, perfectionistic, and competitive played a role in my issues involving food and weight. To some extent, the ideal image of a woman that society has created may have also played a part. There were also many experiences along the way which I believed helped maintain my disorder such as choosing the wrong types of friends, putting up with a selfish and controlling boyfriend for too long, and trying to erase the pain of the eating disorder through alcohol and drugs. By discovering the factors that contributed to my eating disorder, I have been able to identify triggers, find friends who have the same values as I do, and ultimately change many of my behaviors. I no longer use alcohol to numb my feelings and I have not touched any sort of drug in an extremely long time. That desire is no longer exists.
I believe in many ways, I am lucky. I acted on my eating disorder for nine years. I restricted my food intake to almost nothing, over-exercised, abused laxatives, purged, and used diet pills on occasion. I have not had too many physical problems from the eating disorder. My teeth and bones are healthy and I am alive. I have only suffered from migraines, electrolyte imbalance, and hypoglycemia. It could be a lot worse. I was never in inpatient treatment, though attempted many times only to back out at the last minute by convincing everyone I was o.k. I think this was one of my biggest mistakes. I believe that if I had accepted inpatient treatment, I would have had a much smoother recovery process. However, I do not believe that my choice to resist the help is uncommon. I have often described an eating disorder as cancer. Imagine that you have cancer and you know you are going to die, but then suddenly you discover that there is some cure. You would take it right? A person with an eating disorder often does not take the cure, but continues to suffer because they do not believe that they merit the help. They have come to see themselves as worthless pieces of trash. I went through many therapists. I did not have a great experience with most of them. One blamed my parents, one was an intern who had never worked with an eating disorder patient ( we can be overwhelming and very stubborn! :) ), one left the state without contacting her patients, and one told me that my parents hated children because they only had two of them, and this was why I had an eating disorder. I never gave up. I read countless books, did research, and talked to people who had suffered, and those who had recovered. I came to the conclusion by myself to get well. And I believe that I have made a tremendous amount of progress. However, there are times like the past few weeks, where I wonder how much more progress I need to make.
I can speak about recovery, explain in great detail the pain, frustration, and isolation that comes from these disorders. I can put my words out there and make it appear as if it is all over for me. I can pretend that I am not afraid that I might succumb to the negative thoughts once again. But if I do this, I am lying. I am not “recovered.” I could not attend an entire week of lectures in my gender studies class because the topic was the female body and eating disorders. I could not attend out of fear of being triggered into a relapse, and yet I felt on the verge of a relapse the whole week anyway. I am terrified of the day I leave to go to graduate school, because I have not gotten over the fear of grocery shopping. I am scared that if I am away from home I will simply not buy food. When I go to the doctor I have to either stand backward on the scale and deal with the confused look on the nurse’s face, or if I gain enough courage, I ask to not be weighed.
I do not know what “recovered” means for me yet. I used to believe that full recovery was living a life where I could eat without worry, never have to fight the urges and thoughts, a life where I would not remember what it was like to live with an eating disorder. But I do not remember what life was like before the eating disorder. I do not remember a time when I ate without a worry. I cannot remember what it was like before I was consumed with negative thoughts and obsessions. This idea of recovery only caused relapse after relapse because I believed that if I worked hard enough, that the eating disorder would be gone. I think about what “recovered” means to me every day. I will continue to try to define it. I will continue to fight. I have a long way to go, and I might fight my whole life to overcome this thing, but I would take living while fighting any day, over having to live in the empty body I used to exist in. I do not want to “recover” and forget. I want to use my experience and create something good out of it. I want to take those wasted years, recycle them, and help others with their battles. I have made the conscious decision to speak out about my experience and answer any questions about it that come my way. I believe that speaking out has been the most beneficial for me and hope that it will be what keeps me going on my journey toward recovery.