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NEDA week

  • julmmarshall
  • Feb 23, 2022
  • 8 min read

Looking back it’s hard to tell where my eating disorder even started because it is so blurry. It happened so quickly, sometimes I can barely wrap my own head around it. I think the pivotal moment for me was back in the fall/winter of 2010. I was a freshman and put on some weight. Weight that I truly didn’t notice and if I did, I don’t ever remembering thinking twice about it. Until I lost my school ID and had to take a new photo. That photo led me down a dangerous spiral that led to me literally hitting rock bottom. I couldn’t have gotten any lower unless I was lowered into the ground.

I remembering getting my school ID back and not thinking for one second that could have been me. I didn’t even recognize the girl in the photo. I went home and started going through pictures of myself from summer and the previous months. I couldn’t believe the transformation. I vowed that day that I would change my habits and I would get healthier. I started with my diet and what I was putting into my body. I was looking up healthy recipes and idea, things to cut out, being calorie conscious. Eventually that turned into me not eating anything too high in fat, no fast food, no condiments, no drinks with calories because drinking your calories could be a dangerous way to over consume. I started trying to find foods with little to no calories; green vegetables, limiting fruit because of the sugar and carbs, plain chicken breast, no sweets or snacks, lots of water and don’t forget the weight loss pills.

It came to a point where I was barely eating food. There are actually forums online that teach people how to eat the bare minimum and get by and I was a member. How messed up is that shit? I thought I was finding out secrets to health that people dreamed of but I was jumping down a rabbit hole of health issues.

A friend of mine had introduced me to these weight loss pills that would cut your appetite down to nothing, give you so much energy you never ever got tired and literally shred the weight off of your body. She had no idea that I was going to rely on them to get me through the day. She had no idea the path I was heading down, I barely understood it. I was barely eating, working out and taking the maximum weight loss pills I could daily and the weight was dropping off. I started around 140 pounds and within 3 months I was down to 100 pounds. I never thought I would see a number that low on the scale. My goal was 110 but I couldn’t get over how good I felt and how happy I was with the way I looked, I wondered what a few more pounds would do. I knew I would be so happy with my body so I decided to keep going. Just 5 more pounds. Could it really hurt?

My workouts started getting even longer. Instead of just walking miles and miles every day I was also doing cardio, an hour or more of the elliptical, running, abs, etc. At my peek I was doing 6 hours on the eliptical. I just couldn’t stop. When school rolled back around I was skipping class to stay at the gym. I would open with them, decide if school was more important that day and spend the minimum time I could there and then head back to the gym where I would stay until they closed. Then I got a job at the same gym I was all but living at and it just escalated. I was working out on my break. I was hopping on the treadmill while I was talking to the guests, pacing behind the desk. If I wasn’t moving, I was gaining weight. If I wasn’t working out, I was going to gain weight.

The most baffling thing about this phase in my life was all the compliments I received. COMPLIMENTS. The girl who never left the gym, who was failing her college classes, who could see every bone, she was getting more compliments than she had ever received in her entire life. People would stop me at the gym and ask me for my secrets, what I did for exercise and what I ate. The sad thing is that I would give them advice but it was the right advice, true healthy habits to take on. Things I learned in nutrition classes at school. All the advice I gave them was what the average person would do if they were looking to lose weight. But not me. I would never eat the foods I told the to eat or exercise for 30 minutes a day. Thats ridiculous I would think.

I think that a lot of the misconception in society stems from the fact that the thinner you are the healthier you are. I think that there’s an unhealthy body image expectation of people striving to be thin instead of striving to be healthy. I spent so much of my young adult life trying to be as small as possible and no matter how small I got I never became any happier. I would always tell myself just a few more pounds and I’ll be happy, just lose a little bit more weight and I’ll be happy. Yet the happiness that I was striving for never came. Instead I was filled with anxiety, I was depressed, I was malnourished and I barely slept. My body was so tired that I wouldn’t wake up in the mornings so I started to sleep sitting up with the TV on so that I wouldn’t fall too deep into sleep and I could be at the gym for 5 AM. In a few short months I had become a living zombie.

I was skipping out on holidays, family get togethers, school. I no longer had friends so I didn’t have to worry about what excuse I would give to cancel plans so I could workout. Don’t even talk to me about going out to eat. if my boyfriend at the time, now husband, even suggested it I would be in hysterics. Actual full blown tears at the thought f having to eat. I couldn’t trust a restaurant and what they out in their food. I needed to know the calories and I needed to go to the gym after. It just wasn’t possible. I had completely isolated myself because my lifestyle didn’t allow for me to live any other way. Nothing was more important than the gym. Nothing was more important that burning calories while consuming little to none. It was a daily competition with myself. With this voice in my head so cleverly named “Ana” that controlled my every move. That would dare me to go just one more day without eating even though I would lay in bed with a pounding headache and stomach pains. If I went one more day I would be so much stronger, yet it was torture. I was held a prisoner by my own mind.

At my lowest weight I was 85 lbs. I was so tiny I wore children’s clothes. I would have to sleep with pillows between my arms and legs because when my bones would touch, I would wake up with bruises. I stopped getting my period for almost 5 years. I took laxatives everyday to make sure I really wasn’t gaining any weight. I was always cold, always tired. Happy to see my bones yet dead inside. Unhappy to have to put in so much effort the next day to stay this thin.

When I would look in the mirror I would see bags around my eyes. Cheekbones that I had strived to see. A thigh gap that I thought was giving me self-worth. I was placing all of my happiness and basing my worth off of the way that my body looked. That’s a scary place to be because the longer that goes on, the extremes that you are putting your body through start to take a toll on your health. You are striving to take up less space but you’re so exhausted you just don’t know how you can keep going. You start to wonder, “Can I live like this forever?”.

What I started to slowly realize was that an eating disorder is a slow suicide. You aren’t talking or thinking about killing yourself but everything you do pushes you one step closer to your body failing on you. 5 years worth of slowly trying to disappear has turned into 6 years of living most days and just surviving some but that’s okay. Recovery isn’t linear. it isn’t just about food and exercise. It is mental, it is physical and emotional. A lot of people who have been in my shoes say its a life long journey and boy they aren’t kidding. Some days it seems like you’re only one misstep away from relapsing. I never thought to myself that one day I would be better and actually allow myself to live if I started my journey in recovery. All I was thinking at the time was what if I didn’t have to wake up literally dying to be thin then the recovery was worth it. If I could wake up one day and not think about my weight or foo, even for just one day then to me recovery was worth the pain I knew I would experience. Recovery is just as painful as the eating disorder itself because you have to unlearn everything you have sent years trying to create. You have to fight the voices, the internal battles every single day and that’s a lot fucking harder then giving in.

The thing about eating disorders is it allows you so much control over so many things that for someone like me, a type A personality with anxiety, it was true a dream come true Mohave so much control. My therapist would tell you that I felt very out of control when I was younger, like I had no voice. Controlling my food, exercise, weight, etc was a way for me to be in control of my own life. To not make a scene, to quietly slip away into the shadows, afraid of confrontation or disappointing anyone and instead focusing on pleasing myself.

Not every day is easy but every day is better than it was when I was in the thick of it. I don’t have a gym membership. I don’t own a scale. When I go to the doctor, they don’t tell me my weight and I don’t ask. I’m a creature of habit but I try to make sure that the habits are healthy. I strive to be fit because it feels good not because it looks good. I have no goal weight, no goal calories. I eat what I want, when I want to (in moderation). I never skip on time with my family. We go out to eat multiple times a week. I order what I’m feeling off the menu. Wednesdays are date nights. Takeout often happens on the weekends. Brunch is something I ill ever ever say “NO” to. I like a glass of red wine and Ben & Jerrys Tonight Dough is my jam. Oh and the occasional Reese’s gives me life. I do enjoy salads because my health is a priority and I eat one every night but I don’t live and die by the green vegetables made up mostly of water. I workout because it helps my anxiety. I have a time limit on my workouts and not a calorie burn goal. I just take it one day at a time. When a tough days rears its head I speak up. I make sure when I notice something becoming a habit that may not be good, I acknowledge it and I end it. If I can’t end it I ask for help. Recovery is never easy but it is always worth it.

You don’t have to live that way forever. You’re not alone.

 
 
 

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