That Eating Disorder Thing

        So you may have noticed a little detail about me that stuck out in the About Me section. Yeah, that eating disorder thing. For awhile, it was a really big thing. I’ve been active in some way shape or  form since I was 8 years old when I started playing soccer. We usually practiced 2 days a week and then had 2 games during the weekend. When I started high school soccer, my workouts increased in frequency and intensity. I also stopped drinking regular soda and swapped it for diet soda or more water. I lost a few pounds and people noticed. I began to think that if a few pounds had this effect, obviously I would fit in more and be more attractive if I continued to lose a few more pounds. That transition into high school is not easy for a lot of people. Bodies change and we tend to be more critical about each other and the way we look. We (especially young women) are bombarded with images of models and celebrities that society has deemed as having "perfect" bodies. Unattainable images set unrealistic expectations on those who are most impressionable. When soccer season was over, I began working out and running more compulsively. I lost more and more weight. Some days, I would work out as many as four hours. I would do a workout video and if I felt I had not done enough exercise for the day, I would rewind it and do it all over again.  As the pounds continued to drop, I also became more and more obsessed with how much I was eating. I began significantly restricting how much I was eating. I developed (and was later diagnosed officially) full blown anorexia nervosa. My days revolved around my meals and how much I was or was not consuming. If I went to bed with my stomach growling, it was a successful day. I did my best to avoid social situations in which eating was the primary activity. I denied to others that I had any problems. There were a few concerned teachers (along with my parents) who asked if I was okay, but I tried to shrug off their concerns. I could pick out every single flaw on my body. Why couldn't they see all the fat on my body like I could? The way I saw myself was not the way others saw me. I started developing some of the beautiful side effects that come along with disordered eating, especially anorexia. I was developing a downy hair covering over my face, called lanugo (really only present otherwise on fetuses before they are fully developed). My body fat had dropped so low, the lanugo was my body's attempt to insulate me. My heart rate dropped to the low 40's. This is the heart rate of an elite athlete, and despite my time spent exercising, I was no elite athlete. This was a defense mechanism - my body was fighting back since I wasn't providing it with the energy it needed to get through the day. I also did not menstruate for over a year. Because of this, I underwent blood testing and it was found that I had Hashimoto's hypothyroidism. Sometimes with Hashimoto's, I guess the thyroid can get a little overactive before it settles into the underactive state. People can lose weight initially. This gave me a way to disguise the problems that were really happening underneath. Perhaps the worst side effects, though, were those of the psychological nature. Mentally and physically, I was shutting down.

        Eventually, I could not keep up with the high amount of activity and lower food intake. I remember vividly one day having to skip soccer practice because all I was physically capable of doing was laying in my bed. I was exhausted. I spent so much energy and time just thinking about food and how to avoid it. Occasionally, I would be so hungry that I began compulsively binge eating. I would try to keep it secret. I would eat bowls and bowls of ice cream, multiple bowls of cereal, packets of poptarts. I was so embarrassed and began feeling out of control. Control was what I thrived on at that time. If I kept this up, I was going to gain weight. What could have been worse at that time than seeing the number rise on the scale? I had to find a way to get rid of all of the foods I had excessively consumed. Eventually, I figured out a way to purge myself of the large quantities of food I was consuming. I won't go into details, but this was an extremely dangerous time in my eating disorder. In general, I still was not eating enough on most days with occasional binge days. I starting purging every day (multiple times ...every day) despite how much I did or did not eat. So not only was I not getting enough nutrients and caloric energy on most days, I was finding ways to get rid of it. I tried really hard to keep my binge episodes secret from the people I loved. I started eating more and more and purging more and more. Anorexia nervosa was developing quickly into bulimia nervosa. I thought I was hiding it well, but then my mom confronted me after a particularly binge heavy day. That confrontation saved me. I guess I just was waiting for someone to tell me I had a problem and offer me a concrete solution. It had gone on for long enough, that I was getting exhausted by my starve-binge-purge cycle. My guard was down, and I knew it was time. I know it was hard for my parents to see this happening to me and hard for my mom to bring this to light. I couldn't be more thankful for that moment now.

        My mom found a nearby outpatient center that specialized in the care of persons with eating disorders. This place was called the Charis Center. As far as I know, it is the only partial hospital program for eating disorders in Indiana (meaning there are more intensive outpatient and inpatient options available). It is hard to find centers like this with specialization in eating disorders. It is hard to find centers like this that will be covered by insurance. It is hard to find centers like this that are close by. I have no idea how much my parents'  insurance helped with this or not. I am forever grateful that it was found and that it wasn't too far away. So many aren't as fortunate as I was. I met with a nutritionist for a short period of time, but most of my time was spent with a psychologist (Dr. Carrie Proffitt) who truly made a difference for me. Dr. Mary Rouse helped establish this facility to address an often overlooked and severely misunderstood psychological group of conditions. We had to hide/get rid of scales in our home and each time I was weighed at the facility, I had to step on the scale backwards. I had no idea how much I weighed for an extended period of time. I was not allowed to run and my mom hid my workout videos (I could still do soccer activities, but nothing outside of that). I had to write down what I was eating each day and when I purged. I tried so hard to be good, but on the days I purged, I would just draw frustrated squiggly lines through the day's entry. I wrote in a journal about how food made me feel and how ashamed I was of my body. I hated my body. I hated my brain. I hated how I felt. I was so in control that I was out of control. A project that Dr. Proffitt had me work on one particularly difficult week is something that has stuck with me for a long time. We had a bunch of magazines out in front of us and she had me cut out pictures of women who were not the stick thin picture of perfection. Women who were strong, proud, and confident in their bodies and even in their imperfections. Women like Serena Williams, Christina Aguilera (who was being criticized around that time for putting a few pounds on her tiny frame), Mia Hamm. I took the project home and added more pictures and inspiring phrases. It hung on my wall for years. Because of this project, I always try to remember the great things that my body can do rather than pick apart the cosmetic appearance of it. For example, I always thought my calves were too muscular. They were something I fixated on. Now I can look at those calves and any time I think about their size, I remind myself that these calf muscles have carried me through marathons, thousands of miles, have hiked in the Grand Canyon, etc. It changed the way I see other women's bodies and helped me realize that comparing myself to them shouldn't make me feel better or worse. We are so critical of ourselves that we forget the amazing and beautiful things that our bodies can do.

I started gaining weight back and getting back into healthier habits, but the most difficult challenge was overcoming the depression and anxiety that had taken over. I had associated my happiness with the number on the scale and with thinness for so long. I really struggled. I was prescribed an anti-depressant when I started treatment at the Charis Center. I was a  16 year old on Prozac. Say what you will, it helped me. It gave me a little more energy to fight. There were days where the will to fight my eating disorder significantly waned. Wouldn't it just be easier to end it all? It felt dark and scary to think those things. I didn't want that. I wanted to be who I was before I started caring too much about what others thought of me, or what I thought I had to be in order to be a more perfect person. Perfectionism is a hard habit to break. I graduated from the Charis Center about a year after I started treatment. I remember stepping on the scale backwards for the last time. Life has brought its share of difficulties and challenges since then. When I was younger (and not long after my significant recovery period), I would try to control my food intake for a bit because part of me still hadn't fully recovered despite my physical recovery. If someone didn't like me or hurt my feelings (silly high school heartbreaks), I would be reminded of some of those old feelings of inadequacy. I felt like maybe if I could lose just a few pounds again, maybe, just maybe, a certain guy would find me more attractive or care about me more. That's how deeply I associated my weight with my self worth and ability to be loved. As I have gotten older, I have learned to be kinder to my body in these hard moments (I still care about what people think of me more than I would like, but I care much less than I used to!). There are times where grief and sadness make food your last priority, but I remind myself that it will give me the energy I need to emotionally recover. That is not to say there are still not days where I am not horribly critical of myself for no good reason. I look in the mirror and I hate the way a shirt fits on my hips or that I will always struggle to get my jeans on or off over my muscular calves. I fixate on my mistakes and sometimes I just can't shake the notion of how I could go back in time and change the stupid things I did. I also still struggle with those occasional feelings of sadness, but have developed better coping mechanisms. I've lost people I loved and have sought out counseling when I have felt like the world was too big and hard to understand. I can't begin to describe how beneficial this was for me.

Aside from the love from my family, meeting my husband was a big game changer in the way I treat myself.  He was the first guy to make me feel beautiful - not just admiring physical beauty, but he appreciated my sense of humor, my intelligence, and my interests (maybe my pop culture knowledge was more impressive ;) ). His unconditional love and support has lifted me up in the hardest parts of life. I am forever thankful. 

Running has also been a huge factor in the mental recovery from my eating disorder. I know it sounds counter-intuitive based on how all of my body image issues began. I was over-exercising, using running and activity as a tool to make myself shrink.  When I was getting back on track with healthier habits, I joined the high school track team. Because I was a soccer player, I had natural longer distance endurance. Instead of running to lose weight, I saw that I could use running in a new way. I found out that in order to run well, I needed to more adequately fuel myself. And running well helped lead to running faster. And isn't that the purpose of track? Getting faster? I guess it was trading one addiction for another, but it was a more meaningful and healthier addiction. When high school sports were done for me, running became a primary means of staying in shape. I loved the way I felt after a good run. If running was the only thing I did that day, then it was still a good day. It helped me focus, helped me solve problems and think things out. It was (and definitely still is) my quiet time. I notice the little details of the world around me and appreciate the beauty of the outdoors. I've run in rain, snow, through sunrises and sunsets. Gradually, the distances I could run got longer. I ran my first half marathon in 2009 and was hooked. There was no turning back on running after that. In the spring of 2015, I ran my first marathon. Crossing that finish line was probably the most amazing thing my body has done to this point in my life. I was so thankful for my health, for my physical and mental strength. There is no way I would ever have been able to do this at the peak of my eating disorder. In that case, thinness did not equate to health or endurance or strength. I was 40 pounds heavier crossing that marathon finish line than I had been at my lowest weight. It was one of the moments in my life where I felt like I was at my most beautiful. I was achy, sweaty, stinky, but oh so beautiful! Running has shown me the beautiful things my body is physically capable of doing at a healthy weight. Running has made me more beautiful in my own way. 

I have wanted to share this story for awhile, but have always been afraid of how people would react to me afterwards. There are a lot of stigmas surrounding eating disorders. How often have we heard someone tell a slender person to "go eat a cheeseburger," or criticized someone for putting on weight? Eating disorders aren't cured by "just eating." They are complex, requiring treatment for the body and mind. Maybe, just maybe, my story may help someone who is struggling ... or maybe it can give someone an idea of how to help someone who is struggling. I knew I had to try to put my story into words after seeing the story below. I was again reminded how fortunate I was to have the treatment I needed nearby and how fortunate I was to have the support of my family. The story below broke my heart and brought back some hard feelings. Eating disorders have one of the highest, if not the highest, mortality rate of all mental illnesses. Around ten percent of people who develop an eating disorder die from complications of the disorder or from committing suicide. If I had not been surrounded by so much love and support and a treatment facility, I could very well have been part of that statistic. I was heading down that path. Eating disorders are not a joke, an eating disorder is a mental disorder. There are serious health consequences. 
http://www.womenshealthmag.com/health/eating-disorder-suicide-link

Below is a link to the National Eating Disorders Association website. Here you can find more details and statistics about eating disorders and their prevalence. There is also information on how to find support for you or someone you love should they be struggling with any of these conditions. 
https://www.nationaleatingdisorders.org/

Thank you all for reading this long, but important, post about me. Do not hesitate to ask me any questions about my path to recovery. It is part of my story and has lead me to where I am today. My body is not perfect, and I accept that, but is capable of so much more than I ever could have imagined when I was fifteen. It is flawed, but it is strong and it has carried me through the worst and best days.