We Must Speak

I wish I felt better when I speak, but I feel like I have just burdened my listener with more issues. I am doing this to myself, no one else is doing it. I never feel like anything good is coming from my speaking to anyone. In this case I believe I have a chance of helping someone else by commenting these things here, but otherwise it’s of no benefit.

I hope for others the experience is MUCH different.

Angie, please please please seek professional eating disorder counseling. You are in a battle that is nearly impossible to win by yourself. You must speak out and ask for the help. Most insurance programs cover these sessions. Most eating disorder counseling centers also have free group sessions. Please begin now. Google an eating disorder center. Contact them asap. Today. Now. There are many things in your comment that are sending up flares. You sound like a wonderful person who is trapped in a place that will beat you up and hold you down. You are worth rescue! You get to choose how you are treated and the professionals can show you the tools you already possess to take good care of yourself and make sure you are treated well as you so deserve!

I think it’s great that you encourage people to talk about their problems, but not only that, but to encourage themselves and to receive encouragement from others. Only through positivity will we ever truly overcome our obstacles in life, whether they be eating disorders, depression, low self-esteem, or anything like that. If we can encourage each other, then we can help each other convalesce much faster. Especially in eating disorders, we shouldn’t be insulting each other’s weight; we should try to encourage and compliment each other instead. It’s a much better thing to do, and I think it’s a great idea. Good job, Rachel, and may God bless you in all that you do!

This post reminded me of a friend of mine who had an eating disorder in high school. I noticed how much weight she had lost, but I wasn’t sure what to say or do. Luckily she sought help without me intervening. She sat down at our lunch table one day and said, “I have an eating disorder.” Although all of us had suspected as much, we were all incredibly proud of her. It was definitely a breakthrough moment for her when she finally decided to speak up and tell us about what was happening. She became very open about her eating disorder, and she answered any questions people had about her struggle. I think it was through being so open and talking about it that she was able to find recovery. When everyone knew what was going on, she was more comfortable talking about the moments when it was hard.

This is one of my favorite posts that you have made. It is so encouraging. It is a great message to hear to anyone who is struggling. Telling someone is a huge step in lifting an incredible burden. I completed related to this post and it is a great thing to read multiple times and continue to remember to keep speaking. It is also good to hear that everyone deserves to be listened to. Thank you for this wonderful post.

Rachel, I discovered your blog tonight, and I relate so much and was so moved by what you have shared. I am 24 and have been struggling with bulimia since I was 13. I also ran cross country and track in middle school and high school and started running half marathons and marathons in college and just finished my seventh marathon last Sunday at NYC. I did not tell anyone about my struggles at first, even though all of my friends could tell something was up, but that was just me, I was “weird about food.” Throughout high school, I repeatedly endured stress fractures from overtraining, and now, I learn, from having incredibly low bone density. Finally, my senior year, when I was 17, I was overheard purging at school repeatedly by several teachers, who told the school counselor, and my secrets were forced into the light. I tried to manage the issue outpatient but ended up going into residential treatment over the summer and then moving 800 miles away to college in the fall and relapsing in full force. I was suicidal, drove my roommate to move out after a month, and spoke to no one except my team of therapists and doctors and left my dorm only to binge and purge/ buy food, run, and go to class and appointments. My sophomore year, I was forced by the school to take medical leave and obtain doctor’s clearance before I came back, and I spent six months in a treatment center. They declared that I was addicted to running and must never run again, which left me heartbroken. I continued through cycles of relapse and inpatient treatment for several more years and lived in shame, with crippling social anxiety that prevented me from socializing at all, lest people discover what a horrible person I really was, even as I continued to run marathons and maintain my full academic scholarship to a top-20 college. Today, I have moved home, completely changed my career path, and am going for a more moderate approach. Now, very few people in my life know about my eating disorder, other than my family and friends from treatment. The people who were friends with me before, I avoid bringing it up and allow them to assume I am recovered. I am a nurse in the intensive care unit, which I love beyond words, but I have been so shaken by living in the eating disordered identity that I cringe with the thought of anyone at work knowing what I struggle with. I still fight with bulimia, and sometimes I have a good week and sometimes every single day I stand up only to fall down. I, too, sat in an inpatient treatment center many times telling myself and all of my therapists that I was not sick enough, not thin enough, not worthy enough, to be there, that I was wasting valuable time and resources that should have been spent on people who needed help, who were “really” sick, who were “really” suffering. I constantly struggled with the fear of coming off as attention-seeking, exaggerating what others might perceive as a minor issue so that I made it seem like it was a big deal, like I deserved help. It has taken me years to come to terms with the idea that I don’t need to be the sickest person on the planet to deserve to live differently, to fell joy, to tell my story without fearing that I am wasting time or asking for pity or sucking up care from people who are more deserving than me. I matter, and my story matters. I still cringe at the thought of people here finding out about my past because I feel so incredibly “different” from others my age that I am an impostor living my work life and then my train wreck of a home life. But increasingly, I reconcile these with each other. I share with people who really understand me, and I continue with therapy and express my fears, frustrations, and victories. I realize it is not my fault for having an eating disorder, and it doesn’t make me a bad person. But it is my responsibility to get up every freaking day and fight the demon. Some days I will fail, some days I will feel completely hopeless and lost, but there is a tomorrow after every today, and nothing NOTHING lasts forever. In rediscovering myself, I have been blessed beyond measure to find family and new friends who support me so much, to find a healthier balance with running, to find the courage to switch from engineering which I hated to a career as a nurse which I am madly in love with, a better sense of spirituality, and the knowledge that nothing is impossible and that what seems like the worst collapse ever can be, as a mentor of mine in recovery told me, “the breakdown before the breakthrough.” Thank you for sharing your story, and I apologize for my incredibly long train of thought, but you are an inspiration in dispelling the shame and secrecy that plagues those of us with eating disorders!