Recovery is a choice, and it’s a very difficult choice to make.
Sophomore year of high school I developed an eating disorder. Even though my body was shrinking, even though I was eating a fraction of what I used to eat, even though everyone around me was concerned about me, I was in denial about having a problem. Eventually, I was hospitalized as my body was slowly shutting itself down. For weeks, I sat there refusing to speak to any doctors or nurses because I just wanted to get out, so I could start starving myself all over again. Still, I was in denial and I didn’t want help. Since I had weekly weight check-ins with my doctor, I was forced to eat, and eventually, I got used to eating again. With eating came gaining weight. Eventually, a few months later I saw a number on the scale that was triple digits instead of double digits, and it made me lose my sanity all over again.
Junior year. I would starve myself, I would binge, I would purge. It was so different this time around, last time I never even thought of sticking my finger down my throat, what am I doing now? My weight went up and down, up and down for a long time. During this time, I developed this incredible hate for myself which I’d never felt before. I started harming myself and truly thought that I deserved all of the damage I was doing for myself. I would pray that God would spare my life because I hated living so much.
Senior year came around and I went back to strictly starving myself. After all, prom was at the end of the year and I wanted to be the skinniest little thing there. My weight dropped to a new low, 50 pounds lighter than I was prior to any eating disorder. I was a walking little skeleton, and I was so proud of that. I was a ghost of myself. I didn't even know who I was anymore. I was empty in thoughts, in feelings, in emotions, yet somehow I thought that I deserved this fate.
Luckily, though, shortly after high school ended, I woke up one day and thought “What the hell am I doing with myself? This is NO way to live my life. I am wasting away my youth wishing I were dead.” And slowly but surely, I opened up to the idea of working to get better. It was HARD. Probably one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. When you spend three years as a prisoner of your mind, it becomes the normal. You’re used to that, and you’re comfortable with it. And it got so easy to sit in that place and dwell in my misery. However, now I had a baby sister and how much I loved her helped me decide that I never wanted her to grow up thinking about how depressed her sister was, or even worse how her sister was dead due to her own actions. Finally, I decided for myself that I had to get better.
Recovery was rough. I was constantly at a war with myself about whether or not I should eat something, if it was okay, if it was too much to eat, if it was fattening, etc. I had to tell that voice to shut up constantly. I had all these worries about gaining too much weight and relapsing again. It would even haunt me in my sleep; I had dreams about getting fat and I’d wake up with scratches all over my stomach from trying to claw it off in my sleep. Recovery was putting me through hell.
To anyone who's going through it right now, take it slowly. You are so strong to have even decided to get better. Take it at your own pace. Eat more when you are comfortable to do so, you don’t want to push yourself too far and end up binging because that just sets you back. So increase slowly and when YOU AND ONLY YOU are ready. Don’t feel guilty for not eating what anyone else says you should, because it is you who is fighting this battle. Forgive yourself. Keep fighting. You are never alone.
Although it has been 3 years since I’ve began recovery, I am still continuing to recover day by day. A year ago if you would have asked me, I would have told you that I was as recovered as I could be at that point in time. Today, I will say it again: I am recovered as I can be at this point in time. I can’t imagine myself any better, but I am sure I will surprise myself again in the future. I no longer have fears about the foods I am putting into my body and I know that proper nourishment is needed to do the things I want to accomplish in this lifetime. I now know myself better than I ever did before and I am as happy as I have ever been. I feel as though I have this second chance at life and I am so incredibly thankful for that.
