Christmas Eve.

I keep thinking back to last year, after the candlelight service at church, I was sitting downstairs watching some Christmas special with my family, writing a post reflecting on all of the growth that had taken place in my life that year.  I wrote about being recovered, feeling valued and beautiful and loved and worthy.  I wrote about being more than my past, about never being alone, about hope and healing.  I wrote about my complete faith in an all-powerful, healing, restoring God.

Christmas 2012 I was in a very different place than I was Christmas 2011.

And Christmas 2013 is no different. 

Tonight, I sit alone in my room, thinking.

Thinking about how my life has changed in the past year and has put me in a position that I never once thought that I would be in.  I dropped out of my first semester of my second year at college because I had a major relapse with my eating disorder, depression, and anxiety.  I took medical withdrawals from all but one course, in which I’m taking an incomplete and hope to finish up soon.  I’m taking the entire spring semester off from school.  I’m spending at least four hours a day in different kinds of therapy groups, with different psychologists and psychiatrists and doctors and nutritionists, trying to learn how to completely accept and manage life with an eating disorder, with depression, and with anxiety, trying to learn how to manage my life with this illness.

I never once thought that my life would go back to this, not even all those days I spent in treatment in high school, when I was so excited to go to college so that I could fully engage in my disorder and no one would notice.  I never once thought that things could get this bad again. I never once thought I would be in very intensive treatment again.

I never once thought that my life would do a complete 180 on me. But it has and that’s something that I’m just going to have to accept because even though I think that I've convinced myself that I've accepted this situation, I reach a moment where I get really pissed off about having been given these genes with this temperament and these personality traits and having been dealt this environment.  And then I’m back at square one, trying to accept it all just one more time.

But it’s never just one more time.

Looking back on my post from last Christmas, I can’t help but be a bit judgmental about where I am now and thinking that I’m in a worse place now than I was then.

This Christmas Eve, I’m not thankful. I’m not filled with joy and hope and strength.  I’m not feeling encouraged or blessed.  This Christmas Eve, I am filled with anger and bitterness and resentment.  I’m filled with depression and loneliness and insecurity. I’m filled with anxiety and distress and worry.  I’m filled with shame and guilt and regret.  

I’m filled with questions like “Why me?” and “Will this ever be over?” and “Will I ever feel and live a ‘normal’ life?” I’m questioning what my next steps are, where I stand with my relationships with everyone in my life, and how my faith fits into this.  I’m filled with questions about what my life will look like next Christmas and the one after that.

And something that I've learned in the past five weeks of treatment is that all of this is okay. Having questions and doubts and emotions—it’s all okay. Even during Christmas, when the expectation is joy and peace and contentment. My emotions are real and I am allowed to feel them, even now. Even at Christmas.

I guess what I’m trying to get at is that things change. People change. Lives change. And things don’t always go how you expect them to go. You don’t always end up where you want to in life. Sometimes the unexpected is exactly what happens and sometimes you take a giant leap backwards.

All of that is okay.

It’s life. And life doesn't stop for anyone.

Not even at Christmas. 

"Well aren't you just a little failure..."

It is definitely a sign that you miss your roommate when you are hearing her voice in your head, saying the things that she always says, the way that she always says them.  

"Hello!" 
"Something to share with the class..?" 
"You just made my Southern come out!" 
"Why are the stairs so hard?!"
"Well aren't you just a little failure... Aren't I encouraging!?" 

Out of all the things that my roommate says, the only one that continually replays in my head is "Well aren't you just a little failure..."  And that is the track in my head, not because she ever meant it (really, she never did--it was always in a joking manner), but because that's exactly how I feel right now.  That's what my ED wants me to believe right now.

It's also how I am feeling right now.  I mean, look at me.  I am 19-years-old, living back in my parents house.  I can't even go to college on my own.  I can't even be successful at feeding myself.

I feel like a failure in comparison to everyone else.   

Now there are many things about that simple statement right there that need to be broken down, so bear with me. 

The first part of that phrase, "I feel like," says a lot.  Feelings are not always accurate.  Actually, most of the time, they are not, especially in cases of people who struggle with eating disorders, especially anorexia.  I mean, part of my eating disordered thinking right now involves unrealistically high standards--standards that I will NEVER reach, that no one could ever reach.  So I am always going to feel like I'm failing in that regard, even if I am not.  

And looking at the facts of my life, I am not, in fact, failing at anything.  If I would have chosen to not make my health a priority, I most likely would still be juggling academics, extra-curricular activities, work, friendships, and so much more in a very successful manner.  I can be a high-functioning anorexic, when my depression is not acting up and when I make that choice to not care for myself.  

Let me define failure according to the dictionary:
     1.   lack of success
     2.   omission of expected or required action; lack of deficiency of a desirable quality
     3.   action or state of not functioning

Point 1: I am a student at Gettysburg College, one of the top liberal arts schools in the US.  I have A's and B's.  I have a job.  I count all of that as success. 

Point 2: I am taking expected/required actions right now.  I am acting in the best interests of my health, something that is expected by everyone, no matter who they are.  I am taking action to attempt to finish this semester.  I am not inactive.  

Point 3: I am not in a state of not functioning.  I am still writing (obviously).  I am working to come up with a solid treatment plan.  I am working with the college to finish this semester.  I am functioning.  Maybe I am not a fully productive member of society, but I am still functioning.  

I think what I'm really getting hung up on is the "in comparison to everyone else," part of the sentence.  I mean, I look around and all of my friends are on the Dean's List or accepting job offers; doing senior recitals or writing plays; getting engaged or having babies; doing research or leading immersion trips. 

But other people are also not fighting a life-threatening battle with anorexia, so making that comparison is not able to be made.

And I am "failing" to complete a semester of college... Or at least feel like it, but again, using the definition and the explanation above, I am not truly failing.

So maybe this feeling is stemming from the fact that I think I am failing at recovery.  Maybe that is really what this is all about.  

Yesterday at the assessment, I was told that I was the third or fourth person she had assessed in the past week who went through Maudsley/FBT/Adolescent program in late high school, went on to college, and was now back getting treatment in the Adult Program.  So it's apparently pretty common.  

Also, my Wise Mind knows for a fact that the recovery process isn't perfect!  It's full of slip ups and mistakes and lapses and relapses.  
None of that means failure.  

Stop. 
Pause.  
Reframe. 

I am NOT a failure.  
The only way I can fail is if I stop trying to recover. 

Shame and Secrets.

It's been a long time since I've sat down to chronicle my journey of healing from my life-threatening battle with anorexia.  It's been a long time since I've really checked in on myself and looked at how I was doing and what I should be doing better.   It's been a long time since I've taken time for myself.

Brief catch up:
I'm midway through my first semester of sophomore year and enjoying [almost] every single minute of it.  I attended the NEDA Conference 2013 [more about that to come!] and I made the decision pre-sophomore year that I wasn't going to seek out professional help this year because, well, things weren't going to get bad enough to need that.

Well.  It's almost the end of October and five days ago, I sat down with one of my favorite professors of all time and told her that I was relapsing.  Not something that I wanted to do.  I mean, she's an amazing woman and I am such a fan of her and how she lives her life.  I'm trying to get a job as her research assistant [which I've decided just probably isn't going to happen and I'm okay with that] and I'm trying to manage her impressions of me.

I confessed to my greatest flaw.  And immediately regretted it.

That's the thing that sucks about eating disorders: the shame, the secrecy, the judgement.  And even though she has assured me that she doesn't judge or see me any differently than she did when she didn't know this information.  We talked about eating with people and she told me that other people really aren't paying attention to what you are eating or how you are eating or when or anything like that... But it's still so uncomfortable for me.

Regardless of how much she tries to tell me that seeking out help is strong, that it's okay, that it doesn't have any impact on her perception of me, I am not believing it.  It's so hard for me to look at her or talk to her and not think that she's judging me or that all she can see when she looks at me is an eating disorder or a failure at food or someone who is weak.

And as hard as it is to look at her and talk, it's what I need.  I immediately hated that I had told her this secret.  But I also know the nature of eating disorders--they live on secrecy.  They feed on it.  It's how they win.

So if I have to live through the awkwardness of feeling shame and judged and all of the negative emotions associated with being real in order to be free of the clutches of this [something that I'm not even sure is possible at this point], I guess it's what I have to do.  And I have to trust my professor when she says that she does not judge me for having an eating disorder and that she believes that I can do this.

Because I need someone to believe that I'll be okay, especially when I can't.
And I need someone to push me toward healing when I don't have the strength to do it for myself.
And more than that, I need someone to remind me that I am not alone.

My Imperfect Process

"Very slowly and carefully, you let go of the log and practice floating. When you start to sink, you grab back on. Then you let go of the log and practice treading water, and when you get tired, hold on once again. After awhile, you practice swimming around the log once, twice, ten times, twenty times, a hundred times, until you gain the strength and confidence you need to swim to shore. Only then do you completely let go of the log."

-From Eating in the Light of the Moon by Anita Johnson

Recovery is not a perfect process. It's nowhere near perfect. It's messy. It involves screw ups and steps backward and mistakes. With eating disorders, a person is never fully recovered, only more in control than out.

Today, I threw up for the first time in over a year. It had actually been a year and a half since the last time--when I was just entering treatment and refusing to give up my eating disorder, so I would go to Wendy's or McDonald's and buy ice cream and diet coke and then drive to the park and eat, only to throw it all back up again. I was at a place where holding on to my eating disorder was the only thing that mattered. 

After being in recovery for a year and a half, I was beginning to not understand how or why I had functioned with an eating disorder attached to me. And even when I was sitting with tears rolling down my cheeks in the bathroom, I had no idea why I had ever desired that path. 

Now that I've let a few hours pass between then and now, I realize that what I was longing for was a crutch. I wa longing for something to help me get through this--the judgement, the newness, the isolation, the emotions, everything.  And now that that moment has been put behind me, there's a lot of me that desires to keep ahold of this crutch. To get myself through by getting lost in my eating disorder again. 

But I am refusing to let it go any further. I am choosing to step out in faith, to let people know that I am struggling, and to come up with a plan to get myself back on the right path. 

This included learning to recognize what is leading up to trouble in this setting and how to turn it around. I know myself this well at school and in this place, when it felt safe for me. But it doesn't anymore. It has changed and so I must begin a new journey of discovering how to care for myself and how to recognize when I need to do a better job.

This begins by not ignoring the warning signs. And it includes speaking to someone about it and then making sure I do something that doesn't allow me to dwell on my eating disorder and putting myself with people I feel safe with--like kids. 

So I took a step backward--it happens on the way to recovery. There's no such thing as a perfect journey. Steps backwards happen. It's only when you forget to realize this and continue backwards that it becomes worrisome. 

This is progress. 

"Today I will do my best. If I have a good day, I will be proud of myself. If I have a bad day, I will not dwell on it, I will forgive myself, I will put it behind me and I will continue to move forward in my recovery."

Reflection of the Day.

Today I had one of those days where I just wanted to scream and cry and then go to sleep.  Or where I really just wanted to get hit by a bus... not die, but get hit by one and wake up in the hospital.

Yeah.  It was a long day.

I dealt with friend drama, with my eating disorder, with being angry at my mother, with life, with everything.  And after this kind of crappy day, I really just wanted to sleep.

But of course, I can't do that.  I go to college, remember?  I have homework.

So I decided to go work out.
And I did, after my night lecture.

Now let's pause here for one quick moment and think about the implications of me working out.  It's not something I do on a regular basis.  In fact, the only times that I have ever worked out in my life are when my eating disorder was the worst or I was super stressed.

So the fact that I worked out tonight implies lots of things.  First, that I'm currently in eating disordered mindset and not trying to be healthy.  Which means that I haven't really eaten today.  Or lately, really.  Which means that my vitals are crap right now.  Which means that I've been told that I'm not allowed to work out.

Second, this implies that my stress level was un-chartable.  That I was just feeling things and needed to get them out via some form of physical activity.

Luckily for me, I have a friend who was more than willing to go with me.  Not luckily for me, she also struggles with body image and had a sub-clinical eating disorder in high school.

Well.
I didn't run until I passed out.
I limited myself to half an hour of running because I had a friend with me.

But here's the thing: anorexia makes me not want to listen to the voice of reason inside of my head.  It makes me upset that it's even there and it makes me feel crazy because I can't think/function/act normally.  Anorexia takes the good and turns it into the bad.  It takes the counsel of wise women, like my nutritionist, and ignores it.  It takes the friends and turns them into enemies.

And I'm sick of it.
Literally just sick of it.

I wake up every day wanting to fight.
And I fall asleep wanting to give up.
This is not okay.

It's not okay because it's not who I am.  It's not who I was meant to be and it's not good for me.  That voice of reason, the good, the counsel of those wiser than me, the friends--those are all things that I need.  That anorexia has taken from me.

It's taken my life.

How much more of it will it consume before I cease to exist at all?

Giving up is not an option.
I can't change the world if I'm dead.

What Recovery Looks Like.

"Recovery itself is a very un-glamorous daily process of being willing to fall down again, to break again, to cry again, to get up and try yet again until 'success' manifests as ever-greater sustained healing." 

(Shannon Cutts)

You know, I read something a while ago about how in recovery, you will always come back to the same place again and again.  But that each time, you will know more about how to help yourself when you fall down again and eventually, you'll be able to catch yourself before you go as far down the path, until you are able to completely stop yourself before it happens. 

Well. 

I think I'm learning. 

That's the thing about eating disorders--I don't believe that they ever, truly leave us.  I mean, we recover.  Our weight becomes stable.  Our vitals are good.  We leave residential, day treatment, or weekly treatment to go on to other things like camp or college.  And we get there and things are fine for a while.  

But when you're at camp, you have checkpoints.  

You get your vitals checked. You go home. You have a support system right there with you.

But when you go to college, you're really on your own. 

Until second semester. 

When there is every opportunity to relapse. 

And no matter how much you tell yourself that you won't, you slip.  You don't mean to, of course, but you do.  It's something little, too, like the fact that you don't have classes in the mornings so you don't get up and eat breakfast and your entire meal schedule gets thrown off.  

Once that happens, the thoughts start to resurface: 

"You don't need to eat three meals a day to function."

"Losing a few pounds wouldn't hurt."

And you catch it.

You catch that you're slipping. 

So you make some choices--meal plan, accountability, no secrets, therapy.  

Recovery is something that takes time. 

It's a process. 

And it definitely isn't a straight shot. 

I can think back on all of the times when I've fallen down and struggled and failed at this.  But never have I been able to notice early enough to be proactive before my weight and vitals were dangerous.  I'm struggling. I'm fighting with my ED through all of this. 

But you know what? 

This isn't going to defeat me. 

I will beat this. 

I am stronger. 

Meal plan. Accountability. Therapist. 

All self-initiated. 

This is progress. 

This is what recovery looks like. 

Struggling.

Why is it that when we struggle, we are so ashamed to let other people know about it? 
Why is it that we have such a fear of failure?
Why is it that it is so easy to lie and to shut down when we struggle? 

Today, I was having dinner with a very wonderful sister.  And one of the first questions out of her mouth was:  "How are you?" 

I'm okay.

That was such a lie. 

She knew it.  I knew it.  God knew it. 

But here's the thing, even when she asked me about something very close to the thing I was struggling with, I couldn't bring myself to tell her the truth about what's been going on in my life. 

Because the truth is scary.

It's so much easier to hide from the pain.  To take a pill to make me numb and not have to work this all out.  To hide from people so that they won't notice that I'm not okay.  To comfort someone else, when it's you who needs the comforting. 

Let's be honest here: 

Life is hard.  And it hurts.  And gosh darn it, we need each other. 

But living authentically, saying what is in our hearts, what is paining us, what we are struggling with, it sucks. 

Because what if that means I'm failing? 

What if that means you won't love me? 

What if that means that I'm not who you want me to be? 

But here's the thing about eating disorders and depression: 

Your recovery grows in proportion to your level of honesty and communication with those around you who love you.

There are no secrets in recovery. 

And there should be no secrets between sisters.

Especially when you know that they will only continue to love you.

So here goes nothing. 

I'm struggling. 

I'm struggling with my depression and eating disorder. 

I'm struggling with being around people and being social. 

I'm struggling with asking for help. 

I'm struggling with admitting to myself that I may still need help.  

I'm struggling with the idea of Jesus. 

I'm struggling with shame. 

I'm struggling with my view of myself. 

I'm struggling with my view of others. 

And I'm hurting. 

So very much. 

There's this voice in my head that tells me that I need to have this together right now. That I either need to have all of this together or that I need to allow myself to completely relapse into the point of not functioning so that it would be more acceptable that I am struggling. 

What kind of twisted thinking is this? 

Friends, I'm struggling and I'm hurting. 

I need you to know that. 

And I need you to know that I'm struggling to reach out and tell you that.  

That I don't know how to say those words to you.  

That I don't know how to say that I need Jesus, that I don't know how to say that I'm failing, that I don't know how to be okay. 

And somehow, this all has to be okay with me. 

I have to make peace with the fact that I struggle and will continue to struggle. 

I have to learn how to not be ashamed of being that girl who is in a continual fight with herself and her demons. 

Will I stop feeling this way? 

Will I ever stop struggling? 

I don't have the answers. 

I just have to keep walking through this mess. 

To keep struggling. 

And maybe, just maybe, this will all one day be a distant memory. 

One can always hope.

It's 6am...

It's 6am. 

It's 6am and I have yet to go to sleep for the night. 
It's 6am and I am extremely dehydrated, I can't remember the last time I ate three meals in one day, and I have a migraine. 

All I've done for the past few days is watch Grey's Anatomy. Or go out with old high school friends. Or plan for my future. 

I don't know what this is. 
I don't know what it means. 

Is this a relapse? 
Is this a new form of depression? 
Is this just who I am? 
Does it matter? 

I am tired. 

I am tired of depression. 

I am tired of sleeplessness. 

I am tired of eating disorders. 

I am so freaking tired. 

I am tired of questioning and wondering and comparing and judging and hating everything about myself. 

I am tired of not being understood, of not having an acceptable illness to talk about, of thinking that I need to be the best at everything, of denying the reality that is facing me. I am tired of parents and college and growing up and the real world. I am tired of caring when I am not being cared for. I am tired of having to fix things that I can't fix, of looking for help in all the wrong places, of not knowing what to do. 

But mostly, I am just plain tired.

I need sleep. 

Recovery: It's Hell, But It's Worth It. (**Possibly Triggering)

60% of those diagnosed with eating disorders never fully recover. 

Recovery sucks. 

It's literally hell. 

There is nothing worse than recovery from an eating disorder. 

Nothing. 

“You never come back, not all the way. Always there is an odd distance between you and the people you love and the people you meet, a barrier thin as the glass of a mirror, you never come all the way out of the mirror; you stand, for the rest of your life, with one foot in this world and no one in another, where everything is upside down and backward and sad.” (Marya Hornbacher)

There comes a point when it's so difficult that you want to relapse. That you don't care how sick you get, how many relationships you damage, how much worse it is to relapse. 

You forget those late nights, kept awake by pains as your body ate away at its self. You forget the feeling of vomiting so hard that it comes out your nose and mouth simultaneously. You forget the loneliness of studying in the library while all of your friends eat. You forget the empty hunger, the famished feelings. You forget how it felt passing out in front of your friends. You forget the arguments with your parents, your brother, your friends. You forget everything in search for one thing that will kill you. 

“You begin to forget what it means to live. You forget things. You forget that you used to feel all right. You forget what it means to feel all right because you feel like shit all the time, and you can't remember what it was like before. People take the feeling of full for granted. They take for granted the feeling of steadiness, of hands that do not shake, heads that do not ache, throats not raw with bile and small rips of fingernails forced to haste to the gag spot. Stomachs that do not begin to wake up in the night, calves and thighs knotting in muscles that are beginning to eat away at themselves. they may or may not be awakened at night by their own inexplicable sobs.”  (Marya Hornbacher)

Control. 

Perfection. 

Numbness. 

It all comes with relapse. 

“I don't think people realize, when they're just getting started on an eating disorder or even when they're in the grip of one, that it is not something that you just "get over." For the vast majority of eating-disordered people, it is something that will haunt you for the rest of your life. You may change your behavior, change your beliefs about yourself and your body, give up that particular way of coping in the world. You may learn, as I have, that you would rather be a human than a human's thin shell. You may get well. But you never forget.” (Marya Hornbacher)

Grades slip. 

Parents worry. 

Doctors notice. 

And soon enough, you're home. You're no longer at your college, on your own, trusted. You're at home listening to parents blame one another, watching your dad drink himself away, hearing your community talk. 

“It is not a sudden leap from sick to well. It is a slow, strange meander from sick to mostly well. The misconception that eating disorders are a medical disease in the traditional sense is not helpful here. There is no 'cure'. A pill will not fix it, though it may help. Ditto therapy, ditto food, ditto endless support from family and friends. You fix it yourself. It is the hardest thing that I have ever done, and I found myself stronger for doing it. Much stronger.” (Marya Hornbacher)

You put food on your plate, on your fork, in your mouth. 

Bite. 

Chew.

Swallow. 

Because you want to stay 291 miles from the fighting, the drinking, the blaming, the smothering, the pain. Because you want to be responsible for your own life. Because you want to live. 

You want to live. 

“This is the very boring part of eating disorders, the aftermath. When you eat and hate that you eat. And yet of course you must eat. You don’t really entertain the notion of going back. You, with some startling new level of clarity, realize that going back would be far worse than simply being as you are. This is obvious to anyone without an eating disorder. This is not always obvious to you.”  (Marya Hornbacher)

So you fight. 

Even when it's hard. 

Especially when you don't feel like it. 

But even harder when the depression hits. 

You reach out. Then you push people away. But you don't quit. 

Because quitting means the end of freedom. 

The end of life. 

“This is the weird aftermath, when it is not exactly over, and yet you have given it up. You go back and forth in your head, often, about giving it up. It’s hard to understand, when you are sitting there in your chair, having breakfast or whatever, that giving it up is stronger than holding on, that “letting yourself go” could mean you have succeeded rather than failed. You eat your goddamn Cheerios and bicker with the bitch in your head that keeps telling you you’re fat and weak: Shut up, you say, I’m busy, leave me alone. When she leaves you alone, there’s a silence and a solitude that will take some getting used to. You will miss her sometimes...There is, in the end, the letting go.” (Marya Hornbacher)

Recovery. 

It's hard as hell. 

But it beats the alternative. 

So focus on what it gives you. 

For me: Gettysburg College. 

And that's all that matters right now and all that I think about.

Even when it's hard. 

Especially when I feel like quitting. 

But mostly, when the depression hits. 

Recovery. 

Nothing is more difficult. 

But it's worth it.

40% of those diagnosed with eating disorders will fully recover. 

 There is hope.