Why Eating Food is Important

1. Food = fuel. 

2. Starvation decreases brain volume along with grey and white matter responsible for multiple cognitive functions. 

3. I like being warm. 

4. Not eating makes my depression worse. 

6. I want to be a good role model for my cousins, younger friends, and camp girls.

7. Cellular respiration. 

8. To be able to do fun winter things like ice skate and ski with friends.

9. So that I can have kids one day. 

10. So my digestive system will be happy with me always. 

11. To decrease anxiety. 

12.  So I can enjoy cooking yummy things. 

13. Breakfast/lunch/dinner dates with friends. 

14. Having energy! 

15. Being social. 

16. People will worry less about me. 

17. My immune system will function better. 

18. I'll know what actually being sick feels like--not just what being ED sick feels like. 

19. Julie will continue to love me and work with me. 

20. I will get my life back. 

21. To go back to Gettysburg. 

22. So I can make a difference in the world. 

23. Because I want to learn all the psychology. 

24. I need a fully functional brain to learn. 

25. So I can give blood and save lives. 

26. So I get get my blood drawn for a simple TB test. 

27. TRAVELING. 

28. Exploring the food of different cultures. 

29. Have energy to play with kids. 

30. I will be less tired. 

31. Just overall feeling better. 

32. Food is medicine. 

33. For health. 

34. So I can function. 

35. To not be sick anymore. 

36. Decreased mood swings. 

37. Food is delicious. 

38. I want to live a long life. 

39. Because my heart likes food. 

40. I like it when my organs are all functioning properly. 

41. So my muscles will stop aching because my body is eating them. 

42. To keep my metabolism stable. 

43. I like being alive. 

44. Road trips will be more enjoyable. 

45. My body needs nutrients. 

46. To be nice to myself. 

47. To be able to treat EDs one day and not feel like a hypocrite. 

48. Movie theater popcorn! 

49. Everyone needs to eat. 

50. Because the only way out is through.

51. I am stronger than this. 

52. To get my PhD.

53. Because my body won't run on X calories just because I decided it would. 

54. There's more to life than food. 

55. Because fuck diet culture.

56. The definition of beautiful does not involve the word skinny. 

57. Perfection isn't attainable. 

58. Sometimes you have to do what you don't like in order to get to where you want to be. 

59. So I can rewire my brain. 

60. Because my future daughter(s) will have a healthy relationship with food. 

61. Life is too short to be at war with myself. 

62. So I can go to grad school somewhere warm and not close to home. 

63. To reach my potential. 

64. Because there's more to life than scales and calories. 

65. I deserve it. 

66. So I can fill my life with busyness again. 

67. Because I want recovery. 

68. Scales only give a numerical representation of my relationship with gravity, not my worth. 

69. People don't actually care what you look like or what/how you eat. 

70. Tomorrow is a fresh start. 

71. I like remembering things. 

72. So I can date a boy and maybe marry him one day. 

73. Because not eating is exhausting and sucks. 

74. Birthday cake! 

75. So I can go out for my 21st birthday and drink without worrying about the calories in alcohol. 

76. I hate doing behavior chains.

77. Fewer mental breakdowns. 

78. So I can be comfortable in my own skin. 

79. Tacos. 

80. I'll actually look forward to seeing Dr. G and Julie because they're amazing people. 

81. Long hikes in the woods. 

82. So that taking most of this year off will not have been for nothing. 

83. Because I want to be one of 30-40% that fully recover. 

84. To not feel guilt or shame over what, when, and how much I am eating. 

85. Chocolate. 

86. There is no good excuse for not eating. 

87. I don't want to end up in the hospital. 

88. Long bike rides. 

89. To be happy. 

90. Because people have faith in me. 

91. So I can go running for enjoyment, not in order to burn calories or lose weight.

92. To heal relationships ruined by my eating disorder.  

93. Thanksgiving and other holidays. 

94. Food is nothing to be afraid of. 

95. So that I can win this war. 

96. To be a better therapist. 

97. I want to get better. 

98. My body needs nutrients to function. 

99. So I can be fully present in every situation. 

100. Because I am not my eating disorder.

Reasons to Recover

I haven't written for a while, and frankly, I've just been so completely exhausted at the end of the day to even process what happened and very emotionally disregulated.  Things have changed rapidly for me in the past few days--my insurance company decided that since I have behaviorally stabilized (meaning, since I followed my meal plan for an entire week) and that since I'm mostly medically stable, that I needed to be stepped down to IOP (intensive outpatient), which is essentially the same thing as DTP, except it is only three and a half hours and not six. But initially, I was overcome with a lot of fear and anxiety that this is making me rush treatment, which will just put me back at CCED in another year or so. The other thing that this drop did was to completely invalidate how I felt about recovering from my eating disorder. Insurance companies are really good at doing that. They see a person simply as money, especially when it comes to mental health problems (but seriously, if I had cancer, this would not be how they would be treating me), and don't go by the guidelines for real healing. They just want to have to pay for as little treatment as possible and if the results are just barely in their checklist, then you are magically better and they will not pay for treatment any more.

Luckily for me, instead of dropping me completely, they allowed me to just step down into IOP, but even still, I don't feel okay with it. I feel fake because my actions and medical charts are improving, but my mental state is actually getting worse. Which is normal in eating disorder recovery world. But it makes me feel crazy because to normal people, I am getting better externally while internally I am feeling worse. It's a very frustrating process.


On the bright side, dropping to IOP, it means no more rush hour traffic, no more waking up at 6am, no more driving in the dark. It means no more exposure to one girl's defiance and protest to being in programming and no more exposure to another's hopelessness and desire to be the most pitied girl in the room. So I'm just trying to breathe through it and see how I feel at the end of the week.

One thing that has been the most helpful in getting me to this point where externally things are looking better is to remind myself continually why I am recovering. Why I want to get better. Why I need to get better. And at the beginning, I could not discern any of it for myself. So my favorite professor gave me a little help with why I need to get better, which got me following my meal plan all the time. And now in this time of change when I feel like my illness is being trivialized by my insurance company and I feel invalidated and like I need to get sicker to "prove" that I need the help, reminding myself of my reasons to recover helps me turn my mind from the distorted eating disorder thoughts to wise mind thoughts that allow me to continue following my meal plan. Here are the original 20 reasons to recover that my professor sent to me, which I keep coming back to as my base:

Reasons why you need to get better (which  means following your meal plan): so you can...

1. be HAPPY!

2. live normal again (whatever normal is) =)

3. come back to school and attend awesome classes

4. hang out with your Gettysburg friends

5. chat during my office hours

6. let your body recover

7. finish school and get a great job

8. get that job to help others

9. NOT let the disorder win

10. be that awesome success story that motivates others to get better

11. play with Eric and other little ones (because that is fun)

12. have your own kiddos someday (if that is of interest to you)

13. enjoy meeting up with friends

14. eat out in social situations and actually enjoy delicious food

15. go to church without anxiety

16. truly enjoy family gatherings

17. take back control of your emotional state

18. continue to help all of those friends that need you

19. use all of the potential that is waiting inside of you

20. simply live!

And as treatment has progressed, I've been able to add some more reasons to this list. I need to recover so I can... 

21. enjoy the holidays and not fear or dread them

22. travel and visit new places and far away friends 

23. have an identity outside of my disorder

24. go grocery shopping on my own 

25. fully experience everything around me

26. not have my life ruled by food, calories, and weight

27. stop hurting myself 

28. care for myself in ways that are not self-destructive

29. live freely and be able to have spontaneously with food

30. tell others that recovery from an eating disorder IS possible and actually mean it

Last night, I was asked, "What are the things you DO want? The healthy things? To come back to school, right?" And I responded with, 

"Yes. And to play with kids and smile and laugh and not be self conscious while I'm doing it. I want to be fully alive and able to experience EVERYTHING--to travel. To not be afraid of the unknown. I want to have kids and a rewarding career where I get to help others. I want to love and be loved. I want to live."

Progress.