fix me

What you can’t understand about my anorexia is that it is my safe place. My shell of a body becomes a place of refuge. It is my solace. It allows me to escape trauma, heartache, and literally any other feeling.

Treatment has a similar feeling though it may not be as strong.

I dream of my disorder. I google image search my past treatment facilities and fantasize about what it would feel like to be trapped in those walls again. I hated being there. But I was also cared for there.

Like a drug, my disorder takes me into another world. I don’t feel, I don’t think, and I don’t care.

I’m dealing with so many feelings right now that all I can do is think about escaping them. I want to run so far away from them that I never have to feel anything ever again. I don’t think I was made to withstand the intense emotional pain that the world throws at me.

Dialectically, I’m strong as hell. I take on pain that isn’t mine to carry. I let pain come my way because I’d rather hurt than see anyone else suffer.

I’m weirdly optimistic too. I let myself suffer in hopes that what is forcing me to suffer will make me feel good one day. I see that in my disorder and in relationships. I see good in everyone. I don’t see the guy cheating on his girlfriend as a douchebag, I see his confusion and I sympathize with him. I don’t think the girl who tries to kill herself is selfish, I see her pain and I honor the hell out of her struggle.

I feel everything. Right now, I feel everything.

In my disorder I feel nothing and that is so much easier.

I often say that I’ve never been mad because I don’t know that I have the capacity to be mad at anyone else; I’m only ever mad at myself. I take everything as a flaw of my own instead of seeing at as a flaw in someone else. I’m carrying the weight of the world and as much of a flaw as that is in me, it’s a lot easier than feeling real, raw pain.

My heart breaks for myself but it also breaks for everyone else and that is a lot of pain for one soul.

new year…new me????

Resolutions are so 2020 this year we’re making promises. Pinky promises; the highest form of trust.

This year I’m promising myself a few things.

1. I will not apologize for things I didn’t do wrong. I’m not saying sorry for my feelings. If I care about someone or something, I’m letting them know. There’s no apology for feelings this year, there’s just feeling. I will honor my feelings and if you don’t like it, check back in 2022, I might change my mind.

2. I will not play the victim. This is my life. I manifest my own future. If I want something, I’m going all in to get it. My past, people in my way, anything.. they don’t matter; this is my world and I’m going for it.

3. My body is mine. I could be a million pounds or zero pounds but I’m going to love the hell out of it. I’m not promising recovery or anorexia, I’m promising self love and acceptance. I’m promising to honor where I am and I’m promising to respect the struggle no matter what it looks like.

4. I’m promising empathy.. to myself and others. There are days where I will eat what feels like 5,000 calories and there are days where I will judge the hell out of people. Both are okay. But they don’t define me or someone else. They are days, they are 1/365 of the life we live this year, they are valuable. One day doesn’t make me who I am and it doesn’t make you who you are. Live your life, make mistakes, be sad, be happy, just live. Live this year knowing it will be hard but worth it.

   Finally, I will not keep myself from being happy.

5. I will not allow myself to assume that I am worthless. I will not allow myself to think of positive memories as the only positive points of my life. There will be hundreds of good times and I will hold onto them so tightly with the knowledge that they will not be the first or last good times.

Side anorexia goal: I will make it through this whole year without meeting my insurance deductible. JusT TrEtmEnT tHiNGs.

Go for it this year. Live. Forget about your weight, forget anxiety. They’ll always be there but you’re worthy of more than a fearful life. LIVEEEEEE.

half slices of pizza

The highs and the lows. This is a topic I have been trying to write about for a while now.

Being someone who seldom experiences casual emotions, but instead experiences emotions with the most intensity, pretty much every event in my life comes with high highs and low lows.

I’ve had a lot recently. A fun cabin weekend with friends that was probably the best day of my semester followed by a mental breakdown once my hangover wore off. An incredible day trip to see a new romantic interest followed by a road trip home where I experienced every emotion under the sun.

What I’m realizing about myself is that the highs and lows will always happen. They’ll probably always be pretty intense but I can choose to cope ahead and handle them with more grace. From my new romantic interest man person, I’m learning a lot about myself. He pushes me to be better while also accepting that I am where I am and I am who I am. One thing he’s helped me see more clearly is that as soon as I’m happy, experiencing a high, I’m preparing for the low. I get so caught up in the low that I’ll hide my smile because it feels too vulnerable, knowing the smile could be gone soon. I have a really hard time being in the good moments because I know when I’m feeling really good, it’s going to be followed by big sad moments.

I’ve also noticed that I have trouble being in the moment because I’m scared the good moments will never happen again. With friends, I assume its the best night I’ll get. I assume I’ll never have as much fun again which certainly contributes to the intensity of my lows. With this new relationship (of sorts), I’m scared we won’t share those moments again. I get so caught up in the fact that there’s a lot keeping us apart and that maybe the amazing days we’ve had recently will be the last ones we have together.

Processing all of these things really leads me to two major things causing my lows: insecurity and trust. My insecurity is massive. Obviously, I’m insecure about my body but I’m also insecure about my personality. Whether it’s how much I talk, feeling like I always say the wrong thing, or even the intensity of my emotions, I feel like I’m too much. I tell myself I’m too “extra” (for lack of better word) to have friends or be loved. I think my personality deters people and in the past I’ve used my anorexia and increasingly small body to compensate for the extravagance of my personality.

Then add that I have major trust issues. I don’t trust that my friends actually like me. I don’t trust that I’m invited places because people enjoy me but instead that they feel sorry for me. When it comes to love, I don’t trust that someone’s feelings for me will stay constant. I hate the end of the day, saying goodnight, because I’m terrified that they’ll wake up the next morning and see all my flaws, realizing that I’m not worth it. This new man continually tells me no matter what happens with our future, he’ll always be there but my brain won’t accept that. I’m so damn convinced that I’m unlovable and unworthy that he couldn’t possibly want to stay.

But truth be told, I can’t be all bad. I can have flaws in my body or in my personality without being unworthy. My brain CAN be wrong. I can trust the guy I’m with even if things don’t go the way he says they will. I can choose to trust him, and trust my friends because that’s going to give me more peace than constantly waiting for a downfall. I have to live in the happy moments and enjoy spontaneous drives to see people or nights out downtown because they’re fun. It is only depriving myself of happiness to wait anxiously for sadness to strike.

I can hate it all I want but I am in charge of the way I feel. I decide if I have great experiences or really sad ones. I get to decide if my mind lives in the future or enjoys the present moment. I’m going to really work on choosing the good and putting trust into others. I’d rather have two good days than no good days.

take a picture.. it’ll last longer

possible trigger warning

Looking through old pictures doesn’t help. Looking through old pictures doesn’t help. Looking through old pictures doesn’t help.

One of the more dreadful parts of recovery is seeing old pictures of yourself and realizing how much you’ve changed. Personally, when I look at my sick pictures, I see a girl who’s glowing. Her body is stunning. Her smile is big. That girl looks like she’s got her whole life together. I even let myself buy into the flawless thoughts I have about the sick version of myself. I use the pictures to fuel my disorder.

I let it remind me of the dinner I just ate and it tells me that the girl in the picture would NEVER eat what I just “devoured.” My disorder is tricky. She’s smarter than I am. She uses powerful words. She says “devoured” instead of “ate” to emphasize that nourishing myself is bad. She says “emaciated” instead of “skinny” to remind myself how thin I was and how hard I worked. She doesn’t use the term “fat” because that’s too cliché. She says “massive” or “hefty” because when those terms were used to describe my weight in the past they hurt the most.

These nights are the worst. The ones that come after a day of fun and feeling great amounts of love. They’re the nights when my disorder feels the most afraid. Just like me, she’s terrified of being abandoned so she holds on to every damn thing to stay relevant. It started by looking for a picture of an old Christmas gift and ended with obsessing over pictures of my sick body.

The logical thing to do is delete the pictures but there is no real logic to my disorder. She’s still there even when I’m feeling great. I could be on top of the world and ready to delete every single sick picture but she would remind me that at some point I won’t feel so good and that I’ll want to be reminded of the body I once had and could still have, she would add. She would remind me that I’ll become desperate for motivation at some point and I’ll need those photos. She might even twist it to say they’ll remind me of “everything I don’t want to be again” knowing damn well I’m never going to look at those pictures and love my weight restored body more.

On a more (somewhat?) positive note, as much value as sick pictures hold to my sad and disordered self, I know the truth behind them. I wasn’t glowing, I was caking on makeup to make myself look alive. At one point my mom insisted I put on lipstick to look “less dead.” Maybe my body was stunning but my gosh did I think it was repulsive then too. I craved every lost pound. I googled how much a body weighs without any fat on it, what a body would weigh with just organs, tissues, skin, nails, hair, and bones because I was not going to stop until I was that weight. I was scared to use lotion, thinking it could add water weight or that there might be calories in it that my skin would absorb. My smile was big because my face was small and no matter how much I wished they did at the time, you can’t lose weight in your teeth. And don’t get me started on how far my life was from being put together. I was miserable. I could literally feel my body giving up a little bit more everyday. I could see my hair falling out in huge clumps. I could feel myself gasping for air after walking up three stairs and that is no exaggeration. I was cold under two heated blankets, a weighted blanket, and two large plush blankets. I was literally being swept around by the wind because there was nothing to hold me down.

So I don’t really have some super uplifting motivational conclusion right now. I’m sad. I’m sad my brain is so screwed up that I know and understand how miserably sick I was yet I still long to be that way again. I’m sad that I write these freaking blogs and they can be so powerful and positive but then the very next post can feel like I’m on the verge of a huge relapse.

And, that’s why I blog. To tell my truth. To process my thoughts. To know myself better and to connect to the people who live my same struggle everyday.

quick little note

Hi friends!!

I’ve spent a little while talking about all my successes in this crazy quarantine year and as exciting as they are I wanted to say that success is different to everyone. If you feel ashamed of the fact that you didn’t do anything crazy exciting or inspiring this year. One you’re wrong. And two, that’s okay. You made it through what is hopefully the craziest year you’ll ever experience and that in itself is a massive success.

You kept yourself safe during a very uncertain time. Whether or not you feel like you did, you adapted to a situation no one saw coming. You kept yourself alive, you soothed yourself in a world that made it easy to give up.

Special shoutout to my friends with eating disorders and mental health conditions. WE DID IT. We lived in the most isolated time. We hurt, we were scared, and we were lonely but that did not stop us from functioning. Functioning can be as basic as waking up each morning, putting on clothes, eating something, drinking something, taking a shower, literally anything. That is a huge win.

You had every excuse not to push through this year and you still did it. You are a warrior. You could do anything before this year but use this year as proof that you are unstoppable.

I’m proud of you. There’s so much more good to come.

warm wishes my dears :)))

for the hope of it all

Though yes, I absolutely pay $5.99 a month to watch every single Hallmark Christmas movie, Christmas isn’t my favorite. The holiday season always feels sad to me. In past years, like I’ve said, I’ve spent the holidays revving up to go to treatment, even spending a Christmas in residential treatment. Naturally, the end of the year causes me to think about all the progress I’ve made in the eleven months prior and that tends to be thoughts about how fast I’ve lost weight. This year is different in that my progress doesn’t have to do with lost weight. It has to do with gained weight and gained experience.

The weight gain is hard to accept, there is no pretty way to put it, it just sucks. But the experiences are rather exciting. When talking to my therapist, I was telling him about all I’ve accomplished this year. I talked about my car breaking down, going to the hospital alone, walking into random (school) clubs to make friends, and how every position I applied/ran for this year, I got. All very exciting stuff but I hesitated to say that I also learned that I’m capable of love. I was hesitant because I’ve always been ashamed to talk about my crushes or boyfriends, I’m insecure about those things for a lot of reasons but I want to dabble in them for a little bit.

In July of this year, I met a really amazing guy. I’ve mentioned him in a few of my blogs but he’s one of the more fun, intelligent, lovely people I know. We had a lot of fun together and he is genuinely the first person I’ve ever had the thought of loving.

Disclaimer: I don’t think I’ve ever been in love, so I don’t know if I loved him as I have nothing to compare the feeling to but long story short I realllllllllly like(d) him.

Our relationship was so pivotal to me because he was the first person I ever put before my disorder. When we were together I wasn’t thinking about the way I looked, granted I put a lot of time into my appearance before seeing him lol, I wasn’t focused on my body shape, or the size of my jeans all the time; I was focused on him and who he was. I loved being with him and having the mental freedom to care about someone else more than I cared about my physical traits.

Every time we found something new in common, spent more time together, sat and listened to sad country music, the closer I felt to being invested in him rather than invested in my disorder. The sense of belonging with someone else also pushed me to belong in friendships. I started going to different clubs and even met a best friend who I spent all of my time with too. I pushed myself to run for those positions and apply to things I wouldn’t have just six months earlier.

One of my bigger “self-discovery” moments came when our relationship transitioned from intimate to friendly. The let down was so hard. My heart, for the first time, felt genuinely broken. I cried a lot. I questioned myself a lot. My music reminded me of him, my apartment complex reminded me of him, the bars in my college town reminded me of him, THE ENTIRE BRAND NEW TAYLOR SWIFT folklore ALBUM REMINDED ME OF HIM and that is rough. I’ve never lost someone and had to continually be around the memories of them. My past relationships ended with me going to treatment so I got to run away but this time there it all was, in a sense, haunting me all of the time.

I had to learn to keep doing the things he pushed me to feel confident enough to do. I had to keep meeting people for coffee, going to new clubs, running for positions. I had to keep eating. Though I did some of those things to distract myself from the pain of our relationship being gone, it kept me going. I still have my friends, I still have my positions, and my clubs. I’ve even been able to be his friend too.

After explaining some of this to my therapist he asked me how I would feel if I saw this guy date someone else. Knowing me I was way too honest and I said that I would be devastated because he holds such a special place it my heart. I continued by saying that I try not to think about that right now because if I think too much about it I’ll drive myself crazy. Unfortunately, my insecurity and my anorexia often come across as nasty jealousy. It’s something that I’m working on a lot but it’s true. I think everyone knows how bad it hurts to see someone you really care about with someone else. But I also have hope that if things are meant to be they will be on their own time. I pray about that all the time. I pray for clarity and hope in a relationship that I hold so dearly. I pray for peace in him, that he gets everything he can dream of.

My year has been full of learning to be independent while also learning to be comfortable needing other people. I’ve learned to love, I’ve learned to cry over what hurts without being ashamed of my pain, I’ve even learned to eat too. The end of this year is sad because as time moves on I get further from the sweet memories I’ve made with so many people. My mind tells me that good things won’t continue to happen but I’m learning that they always do. The faith I have in God and the faith I have in my own strength are continually growing. I can choose to believe that this will be the only time I get to experience happiness, companionship, love, whatever it may be, or I can choose to trust that God’s got it and that Him and I can make those opportunities for me.

I’m choosing to have faith. I’ve had a hell of a year with and without my disorder; it doesn’t stop here.

adding my new fav evermore lyric:

there’ll be happiness after you

but there was happiness because of you

both of those things can be true

semester wrapped

My very perfectionistic, creature-of-habit, anxious self was not ready for this Covid semester. I was so worried that I’d spend all my time alone in my room, feel isolated, and thus return quickly to my disorder. I was fully prepared to walk back into a treatment center come winter break.

But let me tell you how it really went.

A lot of my time was spent alone, I won’t lie. There was a lot of precaution in the beginning of my semester and having all of my club meetings, classes, and other activities online didn’t lend itself to a lot of in-person socialization. My semester also started with a pretty big relationship let down and I wasn’t my happiest come the first day of school. For a few weeks I was pissed off that I should have been starting my senior year but instead I was starting another regular year that I can’t really put an academic label to.

Things changed quickly though. I met good friends through my job- I work with my wellness program to teach responsible drinking for college students. ((Ironic, I know.)) I had a random guy walk up to me one day on campus and he said if I took a survey he would give me a free sticker. I’m in college, we’re all hoes for free stuff, so I took the survey and the next week he set me up with a group and I was walking into a bible study of random people who are now some of my closest friends.

I went on a spontaneous trip to wineries in a nearby town. I went with my friend to meet some of my other friends who have already graduated and though it was the hottest mess of a weekend, it was a huge success for me and my social anxiety.

I interviewed for so many different positions this semester. I currently serve as a mentor for first-year students, I accepted a position within my sorority, and I was just voted into a position on the Panhellenic executive council. I will transition into most of those roles next semester, continuing to work, and be active in two other clubs.

My grades could have been better, but with two exams and one project left, I’m proud of how well I did given the circumstance.

I DIDN’T MISS A SINGLE APPOINTMENT WITH MY TREATMENT TEAM THIS SEMESTER!!! Typically, I stop meeting with my team mid-august so that I can get sick without the guilt of all the people trying to help me but other than the occasional technical difficulty, I didn’t voluntarily stop or miss appointments.

I had so much fun on the weekends. Every weekend I was with different people having the time of my life, not letting the calories of alcohol ruin my fun. I’m currently coming down from one of the most fun weekends I’ve maybe ever had. I think my parents are tired of hearing about all the crazy things I’ve done this year, a feeling they’ve never had to deal with before.

I also learned through so many different people that I can love. I didn’t know if I was capable or worthy of that before but I absolutely love my friends. I can have intimate relationships and really strong friendships. I guess I’m not the most worthless person ever the way I genuinely though I was.

I’m so happy with the way my semester went. There were a ton of tears, a lot of heartache, some just real, true, painful times. BUTTT there was undoubtedly more love, fun, laughter, and happiness in these last few months. So, I’m still weight restored, I have no plans to go to treatment anytime soon, and I can’t say that I spent my whole semester getting skinnier and skinnier. But I can say I have every plan to come back and resume my fun next semester, which, let’s be real: sounds a whole lot better, anyways.

this is me trying

I haven’t been writing much because I haven’t had a lot to say.

Things are okay. Some things are great and somethings really hurt.

I am hating my body, I think it is the most disgusting and repulsive thing ever. Recovery sucks; I hate it. AND I am loving the life I’m living. Having friends, being close and open with my family is fantastic. The dialectic is working right now and I really want to relapse.

I really do love the life I’m living and it’s not all that it’s cracked up to be. In treatment, providers tell you about how much more amazing life will be in recovery. They say you’ll have so many friends, you’ll be able to participate in so many more things, you won’t feel miserable all the time, you won’t be tired, you can have great relationships. While all that is true, they don’t mention that you’ll still sit at every meal and feel like a huge sense of betrayal against your disorder when you eat. There’s no mention of the fact that relationships will hurt you; people can really fucking suck. They casually leave out the fact that though you won’t feel miserable all of the time, you’ll still spend a great deal of time feeling like shit.

I get that treatment providers aren’t worried about what your life will actually look like and that they’re more worried about convincing you to stop slowly killing yourself but a little heads up would have been nice. With that being said, my incredibly sick mind would have used the negative aspects of recovery as a reason to stay sick had they been as generous to say that life is still life and recovery isn’t a daydream so I respect their decision.

These past six months have looked so different for me. Not to show off but kind of to show off, I’m involved in a crap ton of stuff at school. I hold leadership positions on my sorority council, Panhellenic council, and student government. I have a job through my school’s wellness program and I’m an active member of two clubs. I have a best friend and my weekends are spent partying positive ;) with a countless number of people. I’ve had an intimate relationship and have bounced back from the heartache of it’s ending. My parents and I have a relationship better than ever, as do my brother and I. Plus, I don’t actively hate anyone on my treatment team, I actually love them! I am so thankful for their never-ending faith in me.

And I don’t sleep much. My anxiety is paralyzing. It goes through cycles where I constantly think I am dying. I think I have a new terminal illness everyday to the point where I went to two different urgent cares in four days because I was so concerned about my health and couldn’t get in to see my doctor. If I’m not terrified for my health, I’m convinced that I’m being stalked and could be abducted at any moment. Being on guard, keeping my blinds closed, my cell phone location off, and not going anywhere without my parents isn’t typical or functional behavior for someone my age. If it’s not one of those two, or both of them, I’m more than convinced that the world is ending soon. It fells like I know it in my gut and I am stunted by fear of impending doom. All of my worries stem from the fear of dying and loss of control. My disorder gives me such a sense of control that when it’s not screaming in my brain at every second, my mind freaks out about everything that I can’t control.

There’s so much good and so much bad to recovery but the same can be said for a life with anorexia. In my disordered life I feel accomplished, I can see results of my hard work immediately and (think what you might of this) it gives me an impression of superiority. I have a sense of self-control that is rare. It makes me feel special, like I have a power than most people aren’t disciplined enough for. I feel love from others when I need their support to live. In my disorder I know exactly what makes me different when people ask me to talk about myself. It even makes me feel less lonely because there’s always a dialogue going on in my mind.

Then, we all know the downsides of disorders too. Health concerns. Lack of social interaction. The list goes on.

I know what my therapist would say: “You know what both are like so you have to pick whether the best parts of recovery are more important than the best parts of sickness and vice versa. You can always go back if you really hate living.”

He would always say something snarky about picking anorexia over life because he knows it’s the wrong choice and that I hate being wrong so I feel stupid for even considering being sick over living. Don’t worry, that’s something I really appreciate.

It’s not so easy of a choice though. I just had my first Thanksgiving without purging right after and what should have been a massive accomplishment felt like a huge failure. My eating disorder didn’t save me from the monstrosity of calories I consumed. It didn’t yell at me as I scooped yams onto my plate and then picked up a roll (the first roll I’ve had at Thanksgiving in five years) after having charcuterie earlier in the day. I guess it went on vacation for the day and forgot about me. Not to worry, she’s back but the weakening of my disorder is leaving me hurt and scared.

I very much so think of my disorder as a separate entity from myself and it felt like she was betraying me. She left me high and dry in my time of need. She only came back to ridicule me about the decisions I made while she was gone. When I say I was hurt, I legitimately felt betrayed.

It kills me that I can’t pick between life and my disorder. I've been told for years that every single day you have to make the decision to recover and I guess I’m doing okay with that but the internal guilt from my disorder is intense.

But I ate Thanksgiving dinner, I didn’t purge, I’m living life as best as I can no matter how fucking bad it hurts sometimes. I still restrict, I still count calories, I still listen to sad music and dream about the day I’m finally sick again. But, this is me trying.

i need to need help

What? I’m an adult now?

Being someone who heavily identifies as anorexic, my life centers around being helped. When I’m my sickest, everyone wants to coddle me. My parents are constantly on guard making sure I’m okay, my outpatient team meets with me multiple times a week to support me, and eventually I go to treatment becoming completely dependent on the professionals there. I have always craved that attention.

But now that I’m somewhat healthy…I’m… adulting?

I don’t need people as much. In fact, I’ve grown up more in the past two months than I have in twenty plus years.

In two months I have fallen for someone and had my heartbroken without compensating by starving. That’s probably the biggest deal but I’ve also planned trips with my friends (very very new to me), had my car break down, and been to the hospital ALONE.

Seemingly easy things for a girl in college away from home but they were some of my biggest fears.

I hate going to and from school alone because I’m always terrified that my car will breakdown and I’ll get stuck. Well, well, well if the world didn’t test me in the Target parking lot 10 miles away from my college home. My battery died. What the hell was I supposed to do? Normally I would freak out but I was surprisingly calm.. I think I got that from my dad who is decently calm in those situations. He has taught me that you can’t fix it, you just have to adapt and do the next best thing. So I called him, he told me to see if I could jump the car and if not, call a tow truck. WELL DADDDDD, you can’t jump a car by yourself. So, after two weeks of living with strangers, I had to call a roommate and she if she would help (another scary social anxiety nightmare.) But I did and our two dumb-blonde selves tried to figure it out. We couldn’t get it going but some creepy man walked up with a wrench, worked magic and my car was jumped. I then had to take it to a shop by myself and figure the rest out from there.

ASHLYN: 1 misfortune:0

Oh, but then this week, I started vomiting blood. I’m a hypochondriac so I always think I’m dying but I knew that was a pretty bad sign. I called my parents to see what to do and I went to the urgent care. Not sure why they even bothered to take my information but they took my vitals and sent in a doctor who didn’t ask questions but told me to go to the ER. There is literally nothing scarier for a person with health anxiety than being told to go to the ER alone. However, I hopped in the car with my only source of connection (my phone) at 7% and off I went. I signed myself in and proceeded to be poked my the hospital “vampire” as he called himself. I was lucky that nothing more than my pre-existing conditions was going on but still a very adult, scary situation for the girl who is convinced she can’t do anything for herself.

ASHLYN:2 misfortune:0

And then with the whole men situation. They suck. The same one keeps coming and going and very well may be the most complicated, confusing person ever but I’m dealing with it. I’m learning to accept people where they are and just be friends. Guy friends are fun too…dare I say, sometimes even better!

The thing I’m learning is, yes, I still need my parents, I call them an inappropriate amount of times but I can handle things on my own. I can calm myself in the Target parking lot when I think I’m going to have to ride in a tow truck with a strange man. I can handle the anxiety of sitting alone in an emergency room. I can handle this life.

Even more so, I’m learning how empowering it is to handle these things while having support. It’s incredible to have girls who will trash talk the boys that make me sad then support me when I claim he’s DifFEreNt the next day. It’s incredible to have friends offer to sit with me in the emergency room even when they have other commitments. It’s incredible to have people come to my rescue when I’m stranded with a malfunctioning car. The stress of planning trips is even better when I know it means I’ll have fun with the ones I love.

A life in recovery is terrifying. I’ve never been more anxious and scared but ironically I’ve never been more loved and supported. Everyday my friend group is growing. My support system is bigger I ever thought was possible. I even have a best friend now. My weekends are booked and my heart is full.

I need support but I don’t need or want coddling right now and that is new. That is growth.

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.

i’m sorry for what i said when i was hungry

Here’s what high school gym class didn’t teach you about anorexia..

Anorexia kills you before you’re dead. It takes away every single once of your personality leaving you in a constant numb and lifeless state. When you get to that place, of lifelessness, you get mean. The eating disorder makes you mean. It takes every aspect of life and turns it into a competition. Can I eat the least, be the skinniest, and make the best grades? Can I walk the two miles farther than I did yesterday on an empty stomach without passing out? Can I sleep every night without being scared that I won’t wake up?

It goes without saying that competition brings out the worst in people. To be blunt, anorexia turns you into a bitch. It makes you judge everything and everyone, but here’s where it gets confusing for healthy people. (I’ll only speak from my experience so I will speak in first person now.) In an anorexic mindset, the way I judge everyone is not typical. I don’t associate a person with what I’m judging. I don’t look at someone and say, “Oh, Ashlyn is fat” or “Ashlyn needs to wear a bigger sized dress.” I judge people in relation to myself, so by judging someone else, I’m more harshly judging myself. Instead, my thoughts are, “I’m way skinnier or fatter than Ashlyn” or “My anorexic body would look better or worse in that dress.”

Ironically, a lot of my observations about other people, when I do associate them with a person, are rather complimentary. I notice how happy people are and how healthy they are. A lot of times I notice people eating and think, “holy shit it must be nice to eat that without all these debilitating thoughts.”

Eating disorders also make you pretty manipulative. I literally cannot count the amount of therapists I’ve had in four years. I left most of them because my eating disorder was being challenged by them so I made so excuse and bam on to the next one. I have also told many lies to save my eating disorder. I can’t think of any specific lie, but an eating disorder doesn’t have the “fight or flight” response; it is exclusively a fighter. It will take down anything or anyone to meet it’s own needs and it doesn’t take a second look back to see it’s path of destruction.

Eating disorders aren’t for rich, privileged girls. They aren’t for sad, needy girls. They aren’t for skinny girls. Eating disorders live in women (AND MEN) with more passion and drive than can be contained in one person. You know how too much of a good thing is often bad? That’s how I think of people with eating disorders. We have so much strength, so much resilience, so much power, that sometimes it’s just too much and we turn it on ourselves, using our powers for evil.

Eating disorders are hard and they suck and they make life a literal living hell. But we are trying. We don’t want to be this way. Give us grace, give everyone grace and try to understand the struggles you might never have to face.

t

Anorexia has the highest mortality rate of any psychiatric disorder. Every 62 minutes a life is lost as a direct result of their eating disorder. This weekend, that life was one of a beautiful lady I shared time with in a treatment center.

Nothing prepares you for death, much less the death of an old friend. There are no words that bring her back. There is no love great enough to resurrect her. But there is so much love and so many words of regret left now that she is gone.

I don’t know how to process all of my feelings so I’ve decided to writer her a letter. For anonymity purposes, I will address her as T.

My Dear T,

You were incredible. I remember my first day on the unit with you. You immediately came and welcomed me. I was a wreck, inside and out, but you kept your wreck on the inside and showed your grace to everyone. You calmed the unit, making everyone feel safe in a room of competitive strangers.

Your grace was always there but I saw your demons too. I saw the disgusting disorder that consumed you. I saw the battle you were up against. I can only understand parts of it, as we battled together for a fraction of our lives, but T, I know the darkness was there. I know there were years of life that destroyed you, I know you tried, I saw you try. I also know that an eating disorder doesn’t just end when you leave a treatment center.

T, you were beautiful. You were beautiful in a way only the most divine spirit can create. You weren’t beautiful because you starved yourself; you were beautiful because your smile enchanted everyone. You were beautiful because you didn’t back down when life (or your treatment team) threw a curve-ball at you. Your beauty radiated so far out of your physical body that it seemed as though your body was just the vessel to hold your strength and undeniable poise.

I hate that you weren’t in love with that vessel. I wish I had pushed you harder to see your own beauty but this isn’t about me.

I will cherish our texts. The ones saying you wished we could program together, the ones calming me from my level of care step-up, the ones apologizing that my disorder was so yucky. You didn’t have to do that but T, I’m sorry your disorder was so yucky. I’m sorry you lived a life that was full of shame and hatred. No one deserves that.

I’ll miss your creativity, creativity that was sometimes cunning but only showed that you had insurmountable amounts of passion. I’ll miss seeing you in the maroon chair, in the corner of the day room, where we sat in front of the fake window. We joked so many times about how ugly that “window” was.

I hope, wherever you are now is a place of peace and comfort. I hope you can finally breathe. I hope you can think there. I hope you can smile there and laugh. Your laugh always caught me by surprised but it felt like a window into the healthy T, the one without your disorder.

l live everyday with your memory. I will live the better life that you deserved. I will do it for both of us.

I will pray for your peace, T. I know one day, in heaven, we will sneak another cup of coffee at breakfast. Until then, I’ll drink all the coffee and I’ll live a healthy life in honor of the one that was stolen from you.

With the most love and sadness,

Ashlyn

shut the (front) door

Closure is complicated.

We seek closure to move on from painful experiences. As some who has dealt with, and is still fearful of, emotional abandonment I always need closure.

As I’m currently trying to seek closure from a lost relationship, I started to think about what I’m really looking for. What does it really mean to have closure?

For me, exploring closure has brought to my attention what closure is not.

Closure is not knowing exactly why he didn’t want me. It isn’t continually asking what was wrong with me that made him want to move on. No matter how well I justify knowing what turned him off, that isn’t closure. Though the current person has claimed that there was nothing wrong with me, if he told me something was wrong, I would beat myself up about it. I would strive to be better in that area so that he would want me later. To be honest, that would be the exact opposite of closure. Knowing my imperfections and trying to change them, on my side, would leave the door open. I would still be working towards being with someone who did not want me to begin with.

Closure isn’t taking the blame. I was not the only reason the relationship did not work out. The relationship did not revolve around me, it was between me and someone else. It feels a lot easier to say “oh, it was all my fault, I’m the problem.” But that just isn’t true. I am not perfect and this guy wasn’t either. His heart could not be with me, he wanted different things, and that is not my fault. It is no reflection of me as a person, but instead a reflection of his needs. I wanted more from him, I wanted things he wasn’t giving me and again, that is not a reflection of him but instead a reflection of my desires. I can’t blame myself for not being all he wanted, he shouldn’t settle for less than what he wants and I shouldn’t either.

One more thing closure is not: it’s not having all the answers. In other situations where I have needed closure, I have begged for answers to questions that will not facilitate my ability to move on. Knowing why someone hurt me or what their inner thoughts were while hurting me is not going to make me feel better. It’s going to make me question everything, lose trust, and feel more abandoned. Though I tell myself that knowing why things happened will help me heal, it just leads to more self-doubt and shame.

It has become clear to me that closure is acceptance. It is honoring the good times while honoring the pain of losing something that made me feel incredible. There’s no blame in closure, there’s no fault. But instead, closure is recognizing that things went wrong. It is acknowledging your vulnerability and growing from your pain.

Rejection, lost, betrayal, abandonment.. they all suck. They are all worth a big, ugly cry but they are not the end of connection. Closure is about YOU. Closure is about your authentic self, looking at her, praising her, and telling her it is okay to be hurt. Closure is missing the past but knowing that the future is brighter because you’ve learned about yourself and you’ve grown to be more equip to trust harder, stand taller, and love more purely.

You are a queen. You are strong. You are perfectly imperfect and pain does not make you less attractive. Pain makes you authentic, needing closure makes you genuine, and there is nothing more beautiful than the vulnerability of sharing your true self.

Opps! I Did It Again!

I watched a sad movie. The OG sad movie about love and chronic illness: “The Fault in Our Stars.”

To be completely honest, this is the one and only movie that ever makes me cry. Without fail, when I need a good cry, I rent TFIOS on Amazon and cue the water works.

When I was watching it most recently, I sort of realized why it’s my go-to sad movie. It’s all about being sick and someone loving you despite your sickness. Hazel Grace, the main character, is also pretty obsessed with her illness. Now, I do not have cancer, thank god, I do not have any terminal illness. I do, however, have chronic illness, gastroparesis and anorexia. I would be lying if I said I was not a little obsessed with my illnesses.

In the film, Hazel’s friend Gus asks her to tell her story. He’s trying to get to know her and learn about her but Hazel’s immediate response is to tell her cancer story. What he goes on to clarify is that he doesn’t care about her cancer, he wants to know her interests, hobbies, the things that make up her personality outside of sickness. Hazel has trouble answering as she reads the same book and spends most of her time is centered around treatment and illness. Unfortunately, I relate.

Again, I am so thankful to not have an immediately life-threatening condition, yet I only identify myself by my illnesses. When I’m asked my story, and believe it or not, it has happened, my immediate thoughts go to: “when I was in kindergarten, I remember being the tallest and biggest girl in the class…” To be fair, my identity as a student at my university eventually comes into play, but it comes after a long, boring recount of my self-hatred and stents in hospitals due to anorexia.

I have no clue what my hobbies are. Most often, I reply saying “I don’t really know what my hobbies are, I’m still trying to figure that out.” I might even go on to explain that every time I am in treatment I learn to knit but let’s be real no normal girl in her twenties identifies herself as a hospital knitter. But no one pushes past there. I need to push myself past there because in my twenties, I am bound to have some type of life outside of the walls of every local (or distant) eating disorder unit. In fact, I do have a life outside of those places.

Without bringing my disorder or treatment history into the picture, I am going to try to describe myself.

I am a tall, funny, blonde girl. I haven’t always been blonde, one time I dyed my hair red in middle school to look like Ed Sheeran. Feel free to laugh and cringe at that because why the hell would anyone, let alone a fourteen-year-old girl, want to look like Ed Sheeran by choice.

That leads me into my love for music and concerts. I’m a Taylor Swift fan, everyone knows this, but she is my queen. I’ve seen her eleven times, on six different tours, in five different cities, across four states. I’ve also seen Ed Sheeran on a 9-hour trip with my dad after a September day in high school. Growing up I went to country concerts with my best friend and her family which will always serve as some of my most fond memories. Right now, I would love to see Taylor Swift again or Morgan Wallen, two artists on the top of my playlists.

I love sports. Hockey is my absolute favorite sport to watch. I’ve been going to NHL games since I was a little nugget and at age three I could name every player on my favorite team by their number and nickname (not necessarily their real nickname, just the one I game them. Shout out to Glen Washing Machine, some know him as Glen Wesley.) To this day, I can name every local NHL player by name though my interests (in men) have spread throughout the NHL.

I played soccer for the longest time. I was good- a lot better than I ever gave myself credit for. If I hadn’t been so scared, I probably could have played at a much higher level. Recently my dad apologized for “pushing me so hard” when I was younger to do well in sports, but the truth is, I wished he had pushed me harder. I enjoy a good challenge and looking back I would have loved to see myself play to my full potential. I was a goalie and unfortunately that ended during my freshman year of high school after I broke my hip.

After a longggg time of recovery (from my broken hip), which included figuring out how to walk on two feet after being on crutches for eight weeks, I decided to play lacrosse. Still timid, I showed up to my first practice and basically cried the whole time because I was terrified of being the worst. Silly me, we all sucked. I ended up making the varsity team that year and played for two seasons. Lacrosse was fun, again I put in the work and ended up being pretty good. Lacrosse girls can get mean so my natural end to lacrosse came at a good time.

Overall, as I’m writing this, I’m seeing some really cool things in myself. Obviously, this is not my whole self, just a few aspects of myself but overall, I’m pretty daring and determined. I’m a quick learner and when I want to do something I’ll stop at no costs until I’m great. I get in my own way but besides that, I am unstoppable. This has shown in my academic life as I’ve recently finished a perfect semester (4.0 BAYYYBEEEE) and I am thriving in my current classes.

This writing has also shown me that I’m a decent person. I shy away from being proud even though a little confidence wouldn’t hurt me. I also like people to be happy. Lacrosse didn’t make me the happiest because there was a lot of drama across my team. Soccer made me ecstatic because I worked hard for it with support from my friends. Hockey continues to make me happy as it is a way for my dad and I to bond. Concerts serve the same purpose as my family is always willing to travel with me to see my favorite artists.

Outside of being sick, I am Ashlyn: a cool, silly, sarcastic, ridiculously compassionate girl who happens to be somewhat decent at a lot of things. I’m coming into a love for writing and sharing who I am. I may try to focus more on my life outside of anorexia but that will be quite a challenge. I also recognize this is a blog about my recovery so continue to expect themes around my conditions.

I’m proud of myself for writing this. When I began, I planned for it to go into a darker side of why I love being sick but forcing myself to recount my life without my illness was very therapeutic. It’s something everyone could benefit from- think of yourself in only the positive ways: the things that make you happy, the things that make you grow. Though often darkness leads us to light, negative experiences are what make us who we are, they are not who we are.

lost hope and a flip-phone

HAPPY SENIOR YEAR TO ME! Just kidding, I’m never graduating.

Today was mentally a tough day. Today I should be starting my senior year in college but alas, I am not. I got to watch all of my friends post their “last first day” pictures while I have genuinely no clue what my academic standing is. In the midst of all my sadness and, to some extent, grief, I decided to post a little bit about my story.

—————————————————————————————————————————————————-

I missed so much.

I left for my first round of treatment the day my last semester of high school started. I didn’t get out of treatment until a week before my graduation.

I missed my senior lacrosse season. I missed the senior class picture. I missed the second half of my AP classes and therefore missed my AP exams. I missed prom. I missed the senior assembly. The only thing I didn’t miss was actual graduation and I probably would have had more fun if I had missed it.

It was interesting going to treatment. I had never been anywhere similar but all the sudden I was locked in a building with most girls ranging from the ages of eight to sixteen. Being seventeen at the time of my admission, I was placed on an adolescent unit. I was the oldest as I had my eighteenth birthday in a room of all glass windows so therapeutic assistants could see if I was harming myself or openly vomiting in a communal area (you’d be surprised how many people actually do that). I didn’t have my smartphone, there was no internet access unless it was for school work or to look up motivational quotes and wow, that sounds a lot cringier than I remember it being. All I had with me was lost hope and a flip phone.

At the start of my treatment, a lot of people asked my mom for my flip-phone number. Girls from my lacrosse team wanting to reach out, childhood friends, boys I kept up with, it all sounded like it wouldn’t be that bad. I assumed I would keep in touch with everyone and it would feel like I hadn’t missed a beat when I got home. I would say maybe three people ever contacted me other than my family and my mom’s friends (WHO I AM ENDLESSLY GRATEFUL FOR). But it was tough to feel like the world forgot about me.

I think that’s why treatment doesn’t scare me as much anymore. The world keeps going on whether I’m with everyone or not. At the time it sucked but looking back it is hard to realize what my life could have been without my disorder.

I loved lacrosse. My team sucked and a lot of us didn’t get along but it was one place where I could work hard and see a result. In a year, I went from looking cute on the bench to starting every game. I mainly played midfield so I was in okay shape physically. Before my eating disorder really came into play, I had a ton of friends through lacrosse. I spent weekends at sleepovers with girls from the team, even getting locked into one girl’s house during a snowstorm for three days. Being a lacrosse girl was my identity in high school. But my eating disorder was too competitive and had to be the center of attention so quickly the friendships faded, I wasn’t in as great of shape, and I had to quit to go to treatment.

I think, at the time, missing prom felt like the worst part. My junior year of high school I didn’t go to prom because two different guys asked me and I couldn’t decide who to go with. Missing my second prom (senior year) made me really sad. But what made me more sad was that no one even thought to see if I could go. My parents tried(?) to make it better by telling me that when I wasn’t around people were so focused on themselves that they weren’t thinking about me or how I was doing. Not sure how much that helped but I guess it’s true. I spent that prom day in a full downward spiral. I begged my parents to let me get my nails done so it would feel like I was getting prom ready. They drove me around to at least five different nail salons only for me to cry hysterically in the parking lot, refusing to go in, because I was so embarrassed that I wasn’t actually going to the dance.

I went from having a ton of friends to none in a matter of days. So naturally, in pure Ashlyn fashion, I took it out on everyone around me. On the Brightleaf unit of my dreadful treatment center, I started to raise hell. I would make bets with my fellow inmates to see who could go the longest without eating. If my therapist made me upset, I would walk out of her office and ended the session. I would refuse to participate in groups and I would go to the bathroom whenever the hell I wanted (that’s a big no-no in the treatment world).

Once I moved to partial hospitalization, where I spent my days in treatment and my nights at home, I continued my shenanigans. I would show up late, refuse to cooperate, and again, raise hell. Some therapists thought I was getting healthier and “finding my rebellious side” but really, I was so emotionally distraught that it was coming out full force in everything I did. At night, I would go home and cry all night. There were nights when my mom would set blankets up on my floor and stay the night in my room to make sure I didn’t make any irreversible choices.

Life hasn’t gotten easier since then. I’ve missed four more semesters of college and have five more stents in treatment. Missing college, sorority life, socializing, and men (lol) has easily been a lot worse than missing prom but I’m so fucking stubborn. To this day I tell myself: “You’ve missed so much already, there’s not much more to lose.”

As horrible of a thought as it is, with each day it gets more and more true. Though I tried, you don’t get your freshman year in college experiences back. You don’t get to meet everyone your age and live together in the same massive building with little to no responsibilities ever again in life. I won’t ever be able to rush again, though I am glad that my sorority accepted me a month before I left college…again. I don’t get to have the first semester of sorority life with my pledge class ever. I missed it. It’s long gone. I can’t go back to all the football games I missed and I can’t make the relationship I lost better because life moves on and smart people do too.

This pity party of a blog you just read, to a normal person, might inspire them to go out and live to the fullest, make up for lost time even. But not to me. It solidifies my identity as a hopeless anorexic, sorry mom. The way I said being a lacrosse girl was my identity, being the sick girl is my identity now. I’m becoming a career treatment gal, though I've promised to never go back but instead let myself die if that’s what it comes to.

Anorexia has eaten away every part of my life. Not only has it taken my body away but it’s removed me from my friends and a regular teenage/twenty(twenties)-year old life. Time doesn’t come back. I’ll never dance at my senior prom. I’ll never sneak out with some boy that will make me cry the next week. I’ll never be drunk at my first frat party again. But I am and probably always will be anorexic.

Ain’t it funny how it all works out?

With that being said, I don’t want anyone to feel lost or forgotten. I want to be a source of light and comfort to others. I make it my goal to befriend those who feel lonely and check-in on people. I want to extend myself, through his blog, to anyone who needs me. Feel free to message me through this blog or through my blog Instagram @shetriedtorecover . No one has to do life alone.

God’s Speed

I used to be super religious. I went to God camp for multiple summers through middle and high school, I went to Bible study during the school year, I was a leader in my church youth group, and I spent most of my time with my religious friends.

Things have changed.

Nothing really tears you from faith quite like living a life of hating yourself and starving to near death. I often find myself questioning why in the world God gave me this battle? Why would He make a creature that hates herself so much? Why would He give the pain and grief to someone who can barely handle it?

I don’t know the answer. I don’t try to know; it makes me mad when I think about it.

Nowhere did God say that life would be easy, but He didn’t say it would be this hard either. Christmas Eve of 2019 was pretty difficult for me. I’m not one hundred percent sure why but that day was full of a lot of tears. Some of them came from the yearly realization that my grandfather wouldn’t be joining us for Christmas. More came from visiting my grandfather’s grave, leaving him his favorite Lindor truffles, and apologizing to him that he has to watch me live this way.

And then, some came from the anger I have towards the God who promises prosperity for those who follow him. Like dude, I’ve been following you for years, I slept in the middle of the woods on a hiking trip -and this girl doesn’t like the outdoors- just for YOU. Also, side note, I do not mean that offensively to more conservative Christians, I have always talked in very modern language to God, often beginning my prayers with: “hey God.” But then again, maybe my friendly outlook on our relationship is the problem? I don’t know what more I’m supposed to do.

The boy I’ve been talking to doesn’t seem that interested, it is taking me forever to progress in my degree, and every single day I wake up dreading thinking about, seeing, and existing in my own body. Granted, school and men aren’t too important, but there are other things that just seem to suck; I’ll keep those between me and Him.

There are a lot of actions in my life, beyond my eating disorder, that I need to change. I’ve started praying more. It wouldn’t hurt me to pick up a Bible or call my campus ministry friends back. I know I’m not the perfect Christian. I know God has his own perfect plan for me; I just wish my perfect plan was His plan too. I’m sure I’ll look back in a few years and see how much better things are because God isn’t letting me convince him to change His will for me. Sometimes, I just wish He’d let me get my way. I’m pretty stubborn if you haven’t caught on to that yet.

But God made this body to do wondrous things and He’s not finished with me yet. So, for now, I’m moving at God’s speed and may His will be done in my life on His time.

***I want to add that I know my life could be so much worse. My life is a blessing and having loved ones around who support me is not something everyone can say. I am in no means trying to complain or have self-pity. These are my frustrations and my thoughts but I try to appreciate every second; I know they aren’t guaranteed.

good grief

Grieving is hard. It’s emotionally and sometimes physically draining. Though I’ve only lost one person in my life (thank goodness) I’ve spent a lot of time grieving.

Right now, at 10:00 p.m. on a Staurday night, I’m grieving my small, sick body. I’ve spent the last hour and a half looking at the hundreds of pictures of my life when I was at or below my original goal weight. I say original because with every lost pound, my goal weight gets lower and lower.

I miss the tiny girl who could fit into any size clothing she wanted. I miss that sweet anorexic smile. The smile that twinkles in a way that you can’t understand unless you’re starving yourself for pleasure. I miss the constant motivation I had to watch the pounds go down, right now I can’t even fathom getting on a scale and knowing what I weigh.

My heart hurts right now because I’m not that girl. I’m a self-described fat, worthless, powerless girl. I know my posts have gotten more and more disordered recently but truth be told, I think I was born to live a life with my eating disorder.

My disorder gives me love that no one else does, a love I don’t think I’ll find from anyone else. It’s with me at night and when I wake up and when I shower. I don’t feel alone when I’m deep in my disorder; it’s actually one of only times I don’t feel painfully lonely. It doesn’t reject me. It doesn’t make empty promises. It doesn’t get tired of me. It wants to spend every second with me.

I’ve recently met someone who makes me insanely happy. Normally, when I’m interested in a guy it’s because I love the feeling of someone wanting me, but it’s not that way this time. This new man, and yes he is a man with a big boy job and a college degree, makes me feel so good. We have the same quirkiness, we have the exact same taste in music (minus the whole Taylor Swift obsession, but I can look past that), we just seem to click. I literally pray that God’s will for me involves being in a relationship with him. But I have to play it cool.

My eating disorder doesn’t make me play it cool. It doesn’t make me wait. My eating disorder wants me all-in, all the time and that’s what I’m good at. Tip-toeing around, hoping I don’t mess up this great feeling is not how my eating disorder works. It’s so delicately seductive and beautifully inciting. It makes me prove my love to it and it gives me what I want when I do so. Humanly love is so different.

Balancing the love for my disorder and the potential of love with a real person feels impossible. When I start to really like someone, my eating disorder draws me in. It tells me he’ll want me more if I lose the weight and come closer to perfection. At the same time, it takes me away from people. How can I split my attention between this all-consuming disorder and someone else? I try to have both but it has cost me two really great guys.

To be completely transparent, I’ll probably try to do it again. I’ll try to get skinny and make this new guy want me more and more. All the while I’ll be dancing with the devil that is my eating disorder.

Who knew you can be so in love with something that you hate more than anything? It would be nice to be normal for a change. But my eating disorder isn’t dead, I’m not fixed, and I’m not ready to give it up. Love is toxic and it seems that every road leads back to my disorder.

In case it’s not obvious, recovery isn’t linear. I might be going down a slippery slope and I know when my parents read this they’ll freak out but to some extent, that’s how life with anorexia goes and I am genuinely so sorry.

folklore

In case you didn’t know, our American Queen, Miss Taylor Swift, released a surprise album on July 24th. Honestly, when I first heard about it (via my dad lol), I didn’t believe it was actually happening. Then it came out and I was shocked by how different and beautiful it was.

The album is more intimate and personal than some of her past albums and there are more, maybe “real-life themes” than past albums. It’s crazy how I feel like she is always writing about my life; it feels like we’re growing together.

I decided to point out some of my favorite lyrics that relate to me, my eating disorder, and my life. To be upfront, not all the meanings I have found in the lyrics relate to the full meaning of the song.

Feel free to read or skip this blog because it’s long a probably not interesting to anyone but me.

Side note: using only lowercase letters in her titles is the best thing that has ever happened. I AM HERE FOR IT.

So are you …ready for it?

the 1:

“I’m on some new shit, saying ‘yes’ instead of ‘no’ ” .. like yes queen, we should all being saying “yes” more. Saying “no” leads to regrets and missed opportunities. I follow by saying that if you feel uncomfortable or unsafe saying “no” is one hundred percent, forever and always, okay!

“and if you never bleed, you’re never going to grow” …again, YES QUEEN. We learn from our mistakes, you have to know the lows to know the highs. You have to get hurt to learn about yourself and the only way a wound heals is through new growth.

“never leaving well enough alone” ….wOw, call me out Taylor. This is a lyric from a past album (Lover) that made its second appearance but even in the Lover era it hit pretty hard. I have problems always wishing I could have more or better. I’ve lost a lot of things and people because I don’t want to miss out on something better. Perfection isn’t real; letting things be things and people be themselves is so important, and when you’ve got it good: ENJOY IT.

cardigan:

“you drew stars around my scars” …beautiful. I lost someone who really accepted my crappy mental health and I took that for granted. It feels amazing when someone looks past your flaws and sees you for you, make sure to recognize those people, they’re few and far between.

the last great american dynasty:

“she had a marvelous time ruining everything” …my eating disorder. Anorexia ruins everything: my body, my relationships, my fun but she [anorexia] sure does love it and boy, is it grand. Later the lyrics change to “I had a marvelous time ruining everything” which really embodies who I am when I am deep in my disorder. Everything is crumbling around me but the number on the scale keeps going down and somehow that feels like everything.

Alternatively, I think this lyric can be seen in the light of embracing your individuality and power. Some things aren’t made to last, so ruining things (like diet culture and fatphobia) while embracing your own strength can be both marvelous and empowering.

exile:

BON IVER IS ON THIS SONG AND IT IS SO BEAUTIFUL AND DELICATE AND PERFECT.

“we always walked a very thin line, you didn’t even hear me out” … fighting with my ex before we broke up for me to go to treatment was one of the worst things. I felt like we broke up because he couldn’t handle my disorder. It seemed for months that both of us were tiptoeing around the fact that I was dwindling away both mentally and physically. I felt like he didn’t try to see things from my perspective and that he didn’t try to help me. Ultimately, this ended up being so far from the truth, he’s super supportive and a great friend, but it doesn’t take the legitimacy of those feelings from those moments.

my tears ricochet:

“I didn’t have it in myself to go with grace” …I don’t tend to end things in a pretty way. In fact, it goes back to ruining everything. I’m scared of regret; regret sucks. I also let my ego get in the way. When I leave, it’s like a tornado came through demolished everything, I like to refer to myself as a little natural disaster. I ruin things before they can ruin me. Truth be told, it leaves everything and everyone hurt but I guess I haven’t found it in me to leave peacefully.

I also think these lyrics have power from the perspective of not letting someone step all over you but instead raising hell to defend yourself and your beliefs.

mirrorball:

I have to be completely honest, this is not my favorite song. However, a bad TSwift song still finds its way to the Billboard 100 charts.

“and when I break, its in a million pieces” …again, nothing I do is graceful. I build my emotions up until the only thing I can do is cry, paralyzed by the pain that makes my soul send shivers through my body, trying to escape from myself.

“I can change everything about me to fit in” …I literally kill myself to meet the ungodly standards of society.

“I’ve never been a natural, all I do is try, try, try” …I don’t feel like things come to me very easily. Socially, physical fitness, intellect, pretty much anything. I try so hard, maybe that’s part of the problem. All I do is try, try, try.

seven:

Honestly, it was a little overwhelming to hear this song written about such a specific year in life (seven). It was another one of those times where I swear Taylor was writing about my life.

“I hit my peak at seven” …sad, but I was eight when life started to get hard. Emotionally, my childhood past seven was hard. Not “oh, pity me” hard but I wasn’t carefree, making mistakes without embarrassment, or enjoying myself. I miss being young without knowing that the world can be pretty ugly. Which pretty much sums up the lyrics: “Are there still beautiful things?”

“And I’ve been meaning to tell you: I think your house is haunted, your dad is always mad and that must be why” …I don’t know that I have the words to explain this lyric openly, but it certainly makes me feel a lot of things.

august:

“you weren’t mine to lose”… I attach to people quickly. I’ve felt the loss of someone who was never mine and I find some validation in this lyric. Its hard to care for someone who doesn’t have the same feelings and then to lose them is a whole other pain.

this is me trying:

my song. my everything. Taylor really wrote a whole ass song solely about me. Again: A QUEEN. All the lyrics, they belong to me.

“They told me all of my cages were mental, so I got wasted like all my potential, and my words shoot to kill when I’m mad, I have a lot of regrets about that. I was so ahead of the curve, the curve became a sphere, fell behind all my classmates and ended up here, pouring my heart out to a stranger but I didn’t pour the whiskey. I just want you to know that this is me trying.”

illicit affairs:

“Don’t call me “kid” don’t call me “baby,” look at this godforsaken mess that you made me.” …affairs aren’t fair.

invisible string:

“and isn’t it just so pretty to think, that all along there was some invisible string typing you to me?” …so pretty, so romantic, so hopeful. I hope I feel this way when I look back on life with my husband. (assuming someone wants to marry me at some point lol.)

mad woman:

“every time you call me crazy, I get more crazy… when you say I seem angry, I get more angry.” …I think for some reason this happens to a lot of people, well maybe just me, but as soon as someone says something like “oh, you’re crazy” or “oh, you’re mad” I feel the need to prove them right. When I get the most offended, I feel like, if someone thinks that way about me it must be true, so I’ll show you real crazy or real mad if you want to see it. Ironically, if I’m called “fat,” the opposite reaction occurs and I WILL prove them wrong.

“What a shame she went mad, no one likes a mad woman” …voices saying “no one likes a fat girl” flood my mind when I read these lyrics. “Awh what a shame she’s fat, what a shame she has an eating disorder, what a shame she’s not perfect, no one likes a girl like that.” The voices in my head are brutal. But at the same time, the empathy of these lyrics are powerful. The mad woman didn’t start out mad, the lyrics go on to say “…you made her like that…you’ll poke that bear ‘til her claws come out…” We hate the way people respond to the stresses we put them through, “we” meaning the world, but really think about it. I’ll use my own life as an example. (disclaimer I blame no one for my disorder) When I was heavier, I was called fat, told to “go eat a carrot," told that no one could love me, the whole kit and caboodle. When I lost weight and met a more socially accepted weight, people felt sorry for me that I starved myself and told me to “eat a burger.” People didn’t like when I was skinny, people didn’t like when I was fat, it is a wonder we don’t all go mad but we make each other like that.

-I also have to say I feel completely elated and empowered when Taylor says, “fuck” in this song.

epiphany:

“only twenty minutes to sleep, but you dream of some epiphany, just one single glance of relief, to make some sense of what you’ve seen” …watching my grandpa slowly slip away from Parkinson’s disease was one of the hardest parts of my teenage years. This song makes me think of him; I was always hoping he would get better. On one of our last phone calls my Papa was at his home and he wasn’t feeling well but he was having a day where his dementia wasn’t bad. He knew who I was and what was going on, before hanging up I said: “I hope you feel better Papa.” He replied saying: “I don’t think that will ever happen.”

betty:

a jam.

“the worst thing that I ever did, was what I did to you” …this speaks to a lot of people in my life. Forcing my parents and the rest of my family, as well as my friends, to put up with me getting sick. Anorexia is hard on the anorexic but it doesn’t stop there. There is no way to slowly kill yourself without slowly killing the people around you.

-also another great song with the word “fuck”

peace:

“but the rain is always going to come if you’re standing with me” …having an eating disorder makes it hard to not feel like a burden to everyone around me. I am the biggest burden to my family. When it comes to relationships, nothing feels certain, I’m scared to be with someone because I know my disorder will always take top priority over any man. My disorder is the rain that comes and when it rains, it mother freaking pours. If you’re with me, you’re with my disorder and it really fucking sucks.

“the devil’s in the details, but you’ve always got a friend in me” …life with me isn’t easy but I do love the hell out of people. I love so hard it scares me but I’m loyal, even when my life is a mess. There might be some crazy stipulations with my eating disorder, but I’m always there to support the people I care about.

hoax:

“stood on the cliff-side screaming, “give me a reason” …I’d be lying if I said I’ve never been suicidal. I think about it a lot actually. Escaping my mind and my body feels like bliss. I’m scared to die and I would never end my own life but an escape would be nice sometimes.

Well, I went through the whole album. I have a huge appreciation for you if you’ve made it this far and cared enough to read about my relation to the new Taylor Swift album. I did this mostly so I could get all my feelings out instead of texting my therapist every time a different lyric spoke to me. But again, you’re the bomb.

sad today

I’ve come to the recent conclusion that I can be best described as a superficial woman of depth.

I’m a terrible feminist. I think everyone has a beautiful body and she should live unashamed of her body and woman-hood. Except me. Somewhere along the line of life, I have become the exception to such grace and freedom.

There’s a lot to me. I’m decently intellectual and I genuinely have a huge heart. I’m not scared to share my somewhat controversial opinions on topics I feel strongly about while also being open-minded. I notice people who don’t meet society’s “normal” standards, as my dream job is to work with autistic adults. I work hard in school and I push myself.

However, when it comes to my appearance, I’m as superficial as they come. I spend literal hours staring at myself each day picking my imperfections apart. From the second I’m awake until my eyes close at night, I’m convincing myself not to eat or shaming myself because I did eat.

My life and my identity revolve around my appearance because I choose those things to define me. My safety comes from being in a small body, one that could gain a little weight without even being considered fat. My happiness comes from going days without eating a full meal and feeling the sweet burn of my stomach acid begging for something to consume. My strength comes from spending months locked on hospital units forced to eat but I come back out and prove that no one can change me or my body. My pride comes from being cold in a warm room and hearing that maybe I should try eating a burger.

I’ve been in therapy for years and honestly it has helped me find aspects of myself away from starvation. Unfortunately, it hasn’t lead me away from my dear anorexia. It feels like as I find new interests they’re added to the list of what makes Ashlyn, rather than replacing my maladaptive behaviors. These new things help me take up space without it having to be physical space.

I find an extreme peace in knowing that at any point I can stop eating and lose weight, something most people are not strong enough to do. I also feel special knowing that I approve this life for myself but would never recommend it to others, like I can beat biology but no one else should try, the repercussions are very literally fatal.

My eating disorder meets so many needs. It covers up pain. It gives me safety. It gives me control. It makes me feel less lonely. It tells me that I’m working hard and the results show. It makes me feel empowered. It makes me feel beautiful.

The irony in this is that all of the things listed above are illusions. Eating disorders cause pain both physical and mental. They destroy the health of your body meaning you’re never truly safe. There’s no control in an eating disorder, you’re constantly a slave to your own mind. Eating disorders are isolating and diminish your sense of self. The beauty thing I can’t speak to objectively so I won’t try to, but I have been told that being underweight is unattractive.

Getting back to my main point: there is so much to me as a person yet the thing I love the most and spend the most time with is the superficial aspects of me. I am a superficial woman of depth and I don’t know yet if I love it or hate it.

A Poem

I can’t breathe. This world is suffocating me.

Trying to recover when my mind wants to relapse. Feeding myself when all I can see in my head is the number on the scale increasing. 

Longing for the body that was once mine. The body that was taken from me.

Why did I do it? Why did I give in?

I had it made. Made to the grave but sometimes that sounds a whole lot nicer than this suffering.

What if it never stops? What if the constant screaming in my mind never ends?

I can’t live with my stomach constantly pressing against the waistband in my stretch pants. With my body in extreme pain when I eat because all the sudden I forgot how to starve. 

I’m blocking the pain but all I feel is pain. 

A pain no one around me knows so here I am alone. Trying to feel something other than the disgust I experience from just being awake. 

If I starve myself I break my heart in the most literal sense but if I recover I’m heartbroken fantasizing about the love I felt from the jeans my tiny body couldn’t fill.