qWeSStIOOoNs
In case you can’t read it’s questions time!!!
I recently asked my Instagram followers (smash that follow button @shetriedtorecover) what questions they might have about therapy, life, eating disorders, etc. so that I could try my hardest to answer them and give my highly valued opinion (lol it’s a joke no one cares what I have to say). ANYWAYS, here we go!!
Q: Do you think that you need to fully want to change habits in order for therapy to be effective?
A: Absolutely not. Especially in eating disorder treatment. Most of the time negative behaviors stem from a deeper, more personal issue. Seldom do maladaptive behaviors just occur. I’m 8+ years into therapy and I have no genuine desire to change my behaviors but I still get a lot out of therapy. To be honest, in therapy I rarely talk about my behaviors. Instead, we talk about deeper rooted issues that cause behaviors.
I think someone needs to have an open mind for therapy to be effective. It’s one hundred percent a ‘you get out what you put in’ situation.
Q: How’s recovery going in general?
A: Anytime someone asks me “how’s it going” I automatically reply “it’s going.” So, recovery is going. I’m not sure where it’s going but it is.
Recovery is hard. Granted no one has ever said that it would be easy, it’s certainly no walk through the park. I’m living on my own again and honestly it hasn’t taken me too long to get right back into old habits. Having no one to constantly tell me to eat or give me a good ‘ole guilt trip for listening to my disorder makes it a lot easier to restrict without any emotions involved. It’s also been easier to tell myself that restriction is normal. I spend more time on my phone when I’m alone so I’m continually seeing skinny girls on my IG feed. The only way I know how to be skinny is to starve so I just tell myself that everyone else is too.
I’m still keeping up with my treatment team, though.
I’m alone until November as my school has requested that we not leave the area due to Covid, and I’d be lying if I said that I don’t feel pressure to lose as much weight as I can until then.
Q: What’s your earliest memory of your eating disorder?
A: This one is tricky. I remember acting on my first behavior in middle school but the thoughts started as early as kindergarten. I specifically remember being in my kindergarten classroom when we all lined up to walk to another room in the building. When we lined up, I vividly remember noticing that I was both the tallest and fattest girl in my class. I was six.
Another very clear, disordered thought I had at a young age was with my grandmother. Growing up, when my brother and I went to my grandparent’s house we ate out for lunch and dinner. Being in a family who’s older generations love and embrace the idea of gender roles, my grandmother and I went out to get Chick-fil-A for the family. I ate lunch like normal but sometime later, I’m not sure how long but I was still below the age of eight, I remember thinking: “I wonder if I would be skinnier if I never ate that Chick-Fil-A. I wonder if I would have been healthier if I hadn’t eaten it or if I never ate any of the meals my grandmother got me.” Those are some disorder thoughts from the mind of a not so innocent babe.
Q: Did you know you had an eating disorder before anyone else did?
A: HELL YES. I knew way before my family caught on and truthfully, that’s the trickiest thing to manage. I’m not one to keep secrets so it took a lot for me not to brag to my parents that I wasn’t eating and as a result I was losing weight.
One key memory that comes to mind was my junior year lacrosse season. We were all asked to go around the circle and talk about something in our life that we were really struggling with. Somehow that was bonding but all of us hated each other so much we just tried to one-up each other. I talked about my depression and anxiety and moved on.
One of my good friends mentioned how life sucked because she knew her sister was bulimic and she had to listen to her sister vomit in the shower every night. That was maybe the exact moment I knew I had an eating disorder. Granted, I was never fully bulimic but at that time I was purging. In that moment, I wanted to scream at all these girls that I was starving myself. That no, I didn’t injure myself in a game and have to go to the hospital but that my body was so dehydrated that I had to go to the hospital to get fluids as a direct result of my disorder. It happened twice.
Q: What advice would you give to someone going into college while trying to maintain recovery?
A: Okay, not going to lie, this question made me die laughing. Someone wanting my advice??? Wild. But I will try.
When you go into college with an eating disorder you have to make a pretty big choice. Are you going to stay disordered and spend your time on starving and school or are you going to try to socialize and really enjoy college? You can’t have both no matter how hard you try, and believe me, I’ve tried.
Something I didn’t think about before college is that most interactions, especially with new people, center around food. New club? Pizza party. Meeting new girl friends? Let’s get dinner. Random party? High calorie alcohol. There’s just no way to avoid it, so if you’re going to be social, you’re going to have to eat.
It’s hard. It’s so hard and it honestly doesn’t get easier the more you do it. With that being said, nourishment allows you to feel. It gives your body and mind what it needs to genuinely connect with others. You’ll still look at your friends and convince yourself that you’re 200 pounds heavier than them but you’ll also be able to enjoy them and feel a sense of community.
Your disorder is all consuming. It will isolate you and make you feel like the only thing you have is that damn voice in your head. There’s not room for friends and your disorder.
It’s a huge choice, to a non-disorder person it seems so easy, but I know it’s hard. I’ve made it time and time again and no matter what I do I always wish I had done the opposite. You’re not alone. AND you can do it.
