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Our minds and bodies are so amazing. They are beautiful machines that give us the opportunity to create, love, discover, and understand.

We have been created so intricately, and things are supposed to be the way they're intended. But life happens, and things go wrong. We get sick, hurt, and damaged. Our bodies and our minds can be subject to casualties.

I have had my fair share of illnesses and problems with my body. I've had 11 surgeries, have IBS, and have mental illness. I know what it feels like to feel as if I'm a stranger in my own body.

Being someone who has always strived for perfection, not having control of my body and what's happening to it is terrifying. It brings out some negative behaviors and emotions toward myself and my life. This was a driving factor in my ED and depression. I had expectations for my body: how it should feel, how it should look, how I will be perceived.

While recovering from my surgeries, I coped well because I was able to share my smile and be myself around the people I love. Yes, I was upset and frustrated because of the limitations I had, but while my body was failing me, my mind carried me through the struggle.

In the midst of my ED and depression, I had a mind and a body that failed me, and my coping mechanism was the same behaviors that put me where I was to begin with. I felt guilty, ashamed, embarrassed, and scared. I was scared of people realizing I wasn't okay and "normal". I was scared of someone questioning me about my body or if I was okay. I dreaded the questions that came daily: "Omg how'd you get so skinny?!", "I wish I had your body!", "Have you ever considered modeling? You have the perfect body for it.".

I knew people were asking these questions because they had no idea what the truth was, but I interpreted it as if they were antagonizing my ED. As if my ED fed off of the negative emotions I had from the ED itself.

I knew what I was hiding, but the guilt made me continue to hide it and bury it deeper into my antisocial, depressive life. I was exhausted: exhausted from hiding, exhausted from thinking through every minute of my day, exhausted from being a stranger in my own body.

When I try to pinpoint the last time I was truly myself and didn't feel controlled by my ED, I honestly cannot. However, I can describe the person I left behind. She was goofy, funny, weird, loving, smart, and energetic. She went missing for 4+ years.

During those years, my body was damaged, my mind was corrupted, and I was lost. It was not treated with the love and kindness it deserved. My mind was in a daily battle with itself of trying to look for the person that went missing and pushing her farther away.

My recovery found her. A year and a half later, she's back and is as happy, weird (really weird), and energized as ever!

This summer, I've recognized myself as the person I remember myself as 4+ years ago. It's been refreshing to finally feel as though I am me, and I'm not controlled by anything or anyone else.

"Not until we are lost do we begin to understand ourselves" – Henry David Thoreau

It feels so good to feel myself both mentally and physically. Instead of feeling like a person who continued to lose pieces of herself, I feel whole and complete. I'm not searching for a way to be more like the "perfect" person I once thought I needed to be. I'm truly myself again and I couldn't be more blessed to have found myself through my recovery.

XO

-Mal