I have chosen to recall an evening that I wrote in my journal, almost one year ago, as today is the one-year mark that my life has truly been altered forever. I like to think that everyone has their own story, this one, just happens to be mine:

As I am writing this, it is December 30, 2015 at 9:55pm. This day is a little different from the 16 December 30^th’s I have had before. On this December 30, I am laying across my small bed, in a tiny, single room, watching and listening to others as they walk through the hallway. Today, well tonight, marks my sixteenth day as an inpatient at the Sheppard Pratt Center for Eating Disorders. Tonight is the last night I will spend on the B1 sleeping quarters, listening to the nurses and mental health workers open my door every 15 minutes for rounds. Tomorrow morning will be the last that I am woken up between 5:30am and 6:30am by vital signs, followed by walking down the hall and turning into the bathroom, where I will change into a blue, paper hospital gown prior to having someone else flush my toilet for me. I will walk down the hallway and turn left, get weighed (back to scale of course), and take my towels to shower. The showers I have taken the last fifteen days were under an 8-minute restriction, and if lucky, I had the shower on the right side of the Nurses’ Station.

The days I’ve spent as an inpatient were filled with three meals, one snack, and five groups, in addition to visiting hours. The food started slow, and steadily picked up. The groups were insightful, yet staring at my extremely distorted perception of myself in Body Image Art left me in tears just wondering how and why the therapist traced me to appear so minuscule compared to what I believed I looked like.

Certain meals and days were hard, so I was blessed with the coveted supplement, the Ensure drinks that maybe you drank as a kid. I claimed butter pecan as my flavor of choice, and if I’m allowed to say this, I took it like a champ. I learned how to play the Walmart game, which often took a turn for the weird; but what can really be expected from a group of girls who changed the “XOXO, Gossip Girl” tagline to “XOXO, Crazy Girl”? I also learned fairly quickly that the only game worth playing is Bananagrams, translating to “Nanners or Nothing”, and that the toy the OT gives you really is worth all of the hype.

Occasionally, a code would be called – Green for a harm to oneself or others, Red for fire, Blue for medical, Silver for weapons, and Black for weapons of mass destruction. Let’s just get out that coming back from your DXA scan to a patient on your unit prompting a code green isn’t really as exciting as it sounds.

As I am transferring to the Partial Hospital Program tomorrow, I am reflecting on the last two weeks I have spent in the “loony bin”. In my time here, I have seen my disease at work in other bodies and souls, and met individuals who relate exactly to how I feel. I have observed all ends of the spectrum, from those who share my sense of motivation, to those who are on SO, or were experiencing heart failure prior to coming to the unit, to those who don’t recognize a problem or have a desire to be here.

I have learned that you can love and care for others, but taking care of yourself must be a priority. One of the other patients always reminded me that at the end of the day, the only one you really have and have to sit with is yourself. I’ve learned that comparing my struggle and my appearance and my recovery to that of others on my unit is one of the worst things I could do to myself, and only makes the disease louder.

Although this piece of my journey to recovery is closing, the hard work to obtain hard work to obtain health, happiness, and peace with myself does not end here. I have struggled to figure out just how I feel since I was admitted, and although it is still what seems to be smoke and mirrors at this point, I am finding that for once I think I have acquired a sense of hope. I can’t remember the last time I had the energy to fight my disease, or even sort out the swarm of emotions that swelled within me prior to my admission. As difficult as it is to hear that I have gained weight, I am realizing that I have also gained nutrition and the possibility of a future. The physical pain of the refeeding process is miserable, but not as much as the thought that my bones are more susceptible to fracture and that refusing to “get my shit together” could mean that I wouldn’t be alive at all.

I am accepting that I have been through Hell; and sometimes, I think I still live there. But now, I am stronger – it is not a matter of just being told, “You look more alive”, it is feeling it, too.