Category: grief

Eating Disorder Awareness Week:What Recovery Actually Feels Like

I open my eyes from a mediocre night’s rest, roll over and grab my phone. I know I should go back to sleep or meditate or stretch or do something productive, but I’m a human being who sometimes checks her phone too much. I instantly start scrolling and am reminded right away when I see photos with long captions posted like NEDA week is a religious holiday.

It’s eating disorder awareness week. All of my friends that are also maintaining a recovery are posting happy pictures of themselves, before and after photos, and confident selfies. This is the week we talk about how difficult our struggle was, how sick we were, and how far we have come. This is the week we post pictures with our significant others and express gratitude for all those who supported us on this gruesome journey.

I debate whether or not I want to share a photo of myself, but my “before” photos are painful to look at and my after photos are far and few because I hate taking photographs of myself. I’m not a different person, I’m still me. I’ve maintained a healthy weight for a while now. But the truth is it’s just too hard to look at myself. My perception of beauty is distorted, my body dysmorphia leaves me feeling ashamed, and really my eating disorder just feeds on the wrong kind of attention. My life is the best it has been in a long time; I am the healthiest I’ve been in a long time. It is still and will always be hard. Eating is not as hard. Feeling okay in this body is hard. Accepting where I am in my life is hard. I sometimes feel cheated and like I lost time. I know I am making up for it, but I will never be 19 or 20 or 21 again. I will never be 14 or 15 or 16 or 17 or 18 again. Those are all years I lost to anorexia. And I feel intense anger and frustration that I am now playing catch-up on my life. Being in a healthy body is… invalidating. Because despite how invasive my thoughts are, I am perceived as generally doing well. “It’s not a big deal.” “I’m okay now.” I’m “staying strong”.

Don’t get me wrong, recovery really is all that it’s cracked out to be. I have a life, I have friends, I have goals, I can move my body, I’m generally happy and able to focus. But there is still a large part of me that is very sad. And when life is difficult and there is no anorexia to fall back into I’m forced to face life’s demons. I feel things deeply…. And I wish I didn’t. Because in those moments I miss the false safety starving myself gave me from reality. 2021 was a slew of deaths, grief, heartbreak, and more grief. And life will always throw curveballs. When you’re recovering from an eating disorder not only do you have to deal with what life is throwing at you but you have to deal with the intense urge to not fall back into your self destructive safety net. I didn’t want to post a picture of myself today. Partially because I don’t like to see myself in photographs and also because the reality is that this illness is glamorized and I’m not here to glamorize something that nearly killed me. This blog is at least real. It’s a little vulnerable but a photo of myself smiling and saying I’ve conquered my demons is, well… a massive lie. I’ve worked on myself. I’ve come far. And yes, I’m totally okay. But it’s not easy, and when you cross that big scary bridge in your life you then reach a point where you need to deal with the consequences of the YEARS of self destruction. The osteoporosis, the osteopenia, the infertility, the stomach issues and food sensitivities, the brain damage, the liver problems, the psychological trauma that you basically bestowed upon yourself, and then the guilt you carry for basically traumatizing your whole damn family. And all the unresolved “food feelings”, insecurities, and issues with your self concept that held you down for years. You have to deal with all that.

I always thought that sitting in that hospital bed and understanding that my destined fate of eating meals and gaining weight back to health was the scariest thing I could ever go through. I thought that eating a granola bar and not being able to walk it off right after was the most painful thing I would have to experience. News flash, IT’S NOT. It really felt like it though.

Eating is hard and to some extent you might always feel like it’s hard. But what’s really hard is maintaining your health while trying to piece your life back together while also trying to be a normal human while also engaging in relationships and being hurt by those relationships while also experiencing close friends dying while also trying to finish school while also juggling two jobs so you can make money. It is hard to hold yourself together when everything in your life is going wrong. But I know that I have to because eventually things will go right. Eventually I’ll feel like it was worth it. Today I don’t. Today I miss being sick. Today I envy the lives of everyone who seems like they have gotten it together since meeting in treatment while also maintaining a hot appearance on social media. It sounds vain, and it totally is. But I totally envy them and the confidence they’ve built in themselves and their lives, I envy how they can seemingly share it effortlessly with the world. It is hard to feel ashamed of your own. Especially when in retrospect, I know I have climbed mountains from where I came.

And that is honestly how it feels to be in recovery from an eating disorder. It’s overwhelming and sometimes I just want the safety of nothingness.

Debbie

I’ve always thought of my relationships as teachers. People come into our lives to show us things. Our relationships can transform us in the most beautiful ways; our friends are truly blessings.

My dear friend Debbie was more than just a blessing. She truly was a gift. I don’t know where or who I’d be if I had never met her.

It was Spring of 2019; I had come home from college mid relapse in my anorexia. I knew I couldn’t put my parents through a cycle through hell and back again; I was going to land myself in the hospital again if I didn’t take care of it. My world felt upside down, I was constantly consumed by thoughts surrounding food and weight, I was lonely and isolated, and truthfully deep down I was beginning to accept that maybe I would just suffer from this the rest of my life or until it eventually killed me. I didn’t feel strong enough to tackle my eating disorder myself and I couldn’t envision myself attempting treatment again. I felt like a lost cause, I felt hopeless.

One night before I went to sleep I asked the universe to help me figure all this out. I had no idea what I was doing and had completely lost my sense of self. I wasn’t prepared to face the reality of what real recovery looked like, nor did I even understand what it was or how it was going to work. Within a day or two, the woman across the street came by walking her dog. Her and my mother were friendly but I only knew her as Debbie, the lady with all the cats in her backyard.

My mother came inside while I was having a meltdown over my inability to decide what to cook for dinner. She expressed to me that Debbie was concerned about me because I didn’t look too well, and my mother assured her I was okay, just going through some things. Debbie looked at her and replied “I had an eating disorder too. Tell her she can come over for tea or something if she wants.” After my mother expressed this I was offended but knew that she just wanted to see me get better. I thought about Debbie’s offer for a few days and decided it wouldn’t be a bad idea to meet her. All I really wanted was someone to talk to who would understand how I felt.

It was a Thursday afternoon, around 4:00pm, I headed to Debbie’s house after my daily walk and knocked on the door. She was friendly and invited me inside, and instantly we formed a special bond that I can’t really explain. She just got it, and she was very easygoing. There was nothing pushy about our conversation which was unlike any other conversation I had had with others regarding my anorexia, as I always felt people wanted to tell me exactly what to do, how to do it, and then place an unreasonable amount of pressure or guilt on me. She was a breath of fresh air.

I had been all over to receive help for my eating disorder. I had been in and out of hospitals and treatment centers for years, with little progress. Sometimes I’d be okay for a bit, but eventually something would trigger me and I would fall apart. Because deep down I had never got to the root of my issues, I was always just band-aiding my issues with temporary meal plans. It wasn’t until I met Debbie that I truly began to heal. Through our friendship, I gradually began to let go of my anorexia.

Debbie quickly became one of my best friends and she was there for me through one of the darkest and most confusing periods of my life. I went to her house every day, sometimes several times a day. Sometimes I would come and we would eat a meal together, other times I would come after I had eaten and was panicking over it. Sometimes I would just come hang out because I needed a friend. She gave me space to freak out about my disordered thinking, she rationalized my thoughts and grounded me, and then she would change the subject to something completely different. Eventually I learned how to move on from my anxiety.

As I grew healthier I wanted more from my life and she not only helped me find those experiences but she was there for me and was my friend as I went through these new challenges. All I had known was my eating disorder for so long, moving outside of that was terrifying. She helped me apply for jobs and get ready to work after being on medical leaves, and I wound up with two. She would even visit me at work if the coffee shop was empty. She was there for me before and after the first date I had gone on in years, and she continued to be there for me as I developed new relationships with other people. My circle slowly started to build and I suddenly had a real life that had nothing to do with my anorexia. Debbie was there for all of it.

Throughout covid if I couldn’t see her, she would text and call me. She always told me she was praying for me that I’d see the end of my eating disorder. Sometimes it seemed slow, sometimes it seemed impossible. Sometimes I felt like I made no progress, but she was always there to remind me I was, always reminding me how far I had come.

July of 2020, I came home from working all day and my father asked me if Debbie was okay. I was unsure what he meant by all this, and he explained that an ambulance had come the day before for her. I had been so caught up with work, I had no idea. I reached out to her and within a few days she called me and told me she had brain cancer and that it was incurable. I was shocked, and I really didn’t know how to process this harsh reality. She told me she would most likely die from this. She told me her life expectancy is 9 to 12 months. How do you process your best friend telling you they are going to die within the year?

Truthfully, the reality of what was actually happening to her didn’t really sink in until I was able to see her more often. I was so frustrated that she had gotten sick during the pandemic, all I wanted was to see her and spend time with her.

I think my brain was dealing with the grief incrementally. I was mentally preparing myself for it so to speak. Seeing her suffer from cancer was so incredibly painful, and I felt guilty that she helped me get through my illness but there was nothing I could do to resolve her cancer. I was helpless and I just wanted to take it away from her. “I don’t know if I’m ready to die, I have a lot of life to live” is what she told me. My heart shattered.

On April 13th she told me she had come off chemo and gone onto home hospice care. Fighting was too difficult and she needed help. I was relieved she was no longer struggling through chemo, and proud of her for her brave decision, but so heartbroken knowing that she didn’t have much time to live. I tried to visit her as much as I had time for, it was very stressful for me being during finals. I wished that I could have seen her more.

It went by so quickly… hospice care is typically a life expectancy of six months or less and it is the agreement to end all forms of treatment and to just focus on making the most out of your life not to extend it. I know she had hoped to make it to October, and I hoped she would too. Every time I came to visit she seemed to grow weaker.

I came over one morning after class and sat with her at the kitchen table. She needed a lot of things to keep her propped up but she was still talkative. “How are you doing with your dietitian?” “I’m doing good…. I’m not worried about my weight anymore.” “That’s good, all that matters is that you are healthy.” I wanted to tell her how fulfilling and exciting my life is, how I rarely worry about calories, how I have so much more space in my brain to focus on other things… I regret being speechless 80% of the time I spent visiting her in her last few weeks. “I’m going on a date with someone new, I’ve never met him before.” She smiled and said “make sure you spend time with a man who treats you right…” and then she told me the most beautiful story of how she met her husband David, how it was love at first sight, and how happy she was that she married him. That was the last conversation I had with her. After that visit, she became very unresponsive. She would give me hand squeezes and I knew it was her way of saying “I love you”.

On May 3rd, I woke up with a bad feeling that I couldn’t really describe or understand. I had some free time after getting home from an appointment so I figured I would visit quickly. When I knocked on the door, her son came out and told me that she was going to die within a few hours, that the nurse suspected she would pass that morning and they were waiting. I went in and braced myself, and God, I wish I had said more than just I love you because that’s not enough to express all the love and appreciation I had for her. I held her hand and tried to keep myself collected. I cried hysterically as I walked home and my mother pulled me in for a hug as I walked in.

On May 5th, Debbie passed away. I felt like I was okay, it wasn’t news I wasn’t expecting, I had known this was coming for quite some time. May 8th, the day of all of her services was quite different. I completely lost it, I don’t recall crying like that since my grandma died when I was a small child. It’s really difficult to wrap your head around, when you remember someone as being so vibrant and healthy and the next you are praying over a casket. It was all so overwhelming, and the guilt washed over me like a hurricane. I had the blessing to sit next to her niece, who I had never met before, and after all the speeches were made she gave me the biggest hug.

I don’t really know where I’m going with this post anymore. It’s more of an open diary today. Grief is strange, sometimes you think you’re okay and then soon after you feel as if it can’t possibly get any worse. I just can’t believe she’s gone.

I struggled with anorexia for 8 years… today I don’t. Thank you Debbie for being my light at the end of the tunnel. Thank you for being my rock. Thank you for being one of my best friends. Sometimes I sit and think about how much my life has changed in the past two years, and I know I wouldn’t be the woman I am if I had never met you. I love you so much and I am eternally grateful for our friendship and the bond that we shared. Rest in sweetest peace angel♥️