“It might not be tomorrow, next week, or three months from now, but it will be better.”
This was the last sentence of my first entry in what I now, in retrospect, call my recovery journal. I only halfheartedly believed that statement on May 20, 2013, as I wrote it about three weeks after I’d snapped under crippling anxiety and revealed to my mom how I had been suffering for the past seven months. I hardly even wanted to accept it myself at the time, but I knew that I was drowning in the hell that is Bulimia Nervosa and I knew I couldn’t go on existing the way that I was—existing, not living.
After a long two-and-a-half years, however, I can happily say that I hardly recognize that person. I’m a self-proclaimed foodie in my second year of college with too many credit hours and an infinite number of reasons to smile. You know that one girl who’s a little too comfortable with herself, who pokes her stomach rolls and giggles? That one girl who half-seriously threatens to eat you if you try to tell her she should go on a diet…yeah, that’s me.
So, as you might imagine, the first time I came across one of the National Eating Disorders Awareness Week flyers popping up all over campus—this particular instance taking place in my residence hall’s elevator—I couldn’t help but smile and mildly freak out. I then thought, what better to write about for my first Odyssey article than eating disorder recovery?
National Eating Disorders Awareness Week 2016 begins on Monday, February 21, and each year, awareness week is when I reflect the most on the time in my life in which I hit my all-time low and had to remold my entire identity. I say “remold” because that’s exactly what you’re forced to do in choosing to recover. Recovery is fighting for the soul inside you, the voice of your insecurity detached entirely from that. You’re actively fighting 24/7 against the anxiety that comes with challenging the self-destructive behaviors you’ve hidden so well for so long. You fall, and then you fall again, and you get back up, and then you fall again, three times as hard—but the fact that you stand back up is what matters. You’re facing everything that pulled you so low that you didn’t feel like living anymore on your worst days. You go to the countless doctor’s appointments and therapy sessions and you cry your eyes out because you ate 2,000 calories in an entire day for the first time in months (or years, maybe)—without compensating for it through exercise or purging or fasting for the following three days.
But slowly, progress is made, and you don’t even realize it until the strangest moments. You’re finally able to prove to your doctor that looking at the number on the scale again won’t send you into a panic attack. You and your therapist cry tears of joy when you tell her that you didn’t measure out your coffee creamer with your half-tablespoon for the first time in a year. You’re able to get rid of the clothes that fit you at your lowest weight and you one day realize you can peacefully coexist with (or even come to love) the belly and thighs you wished away for so long. And then, you eventually find yourself laughing at the thought of skipping meals—a thought that once was your everyday—your own normal.
So, to those who feel my words on a spiritual level, whether you’re currently struggling, you’ve already overcome, you’re on your way there, or you simply have a friend or family member who has or had an eating disorder, know that you’re not alone. Be thinking about those around us, throughout this next week especially, who have been touched by any form of an eating disorder. Be thinking about ways we can reach out to one another. And to those who feel you’ve lost yourself somewhere along the way, you can and will be you again one day, and all it takes is that initial spark of hope.
That spark will ignite a bravery that will grow beyond your own comprehension and life will be beautiful again.
If you or someone you know is struggling with an eating disorder or body image issues, visit http://www.nationaleatingdisorders.org/ to find help and support, or call the NEDA helpline at 1-800-931-2237.
