Getting treatment when I thought I wasn't "skinny enough"

Did you know that a lot of people with ED's don't "look like" they have an ED. They are often average or even above average weight.

When I was in the depths of my eating disorder I desperately wanted help, I didn't know what to do to help myself.  I didn't think I was skinny enough to get help, I didn't think health care professionals would really think I was "that bad" and that they wouldn't take me seriously. I justified myself saying I am not skinny enough, I am not that bad. But looking at my life, I was that bad. 

When I went in for my assessment with CFC the therapist determined what I needed was in-patient treatment. I immediately said, but I'm not skinny enough. I will be the only one not skinny and people will think I am lying. She said, you don't know how many times we hear that. So many girls go to treatment fearing that they are not skinny enough to get help. I remember her telling me there are some girls that are really really skinny but their are also many girls who aren't, who are average size or even above. And she was right, there were all shapes and sizes in treatment. Anyone can be suffering from an ED, you can't tell by looking at them. Don't let your weight keep you from getting treatment. If you work with the right professionals they will have worked with enough ED patients to know that you can't tell the severity of your Ed by your weight. 

Eating Disorders are glamorized in the media, most people don't really understand what they are all about. This is so sad to me because they are such a huge problem. ED's aren't glamorous, they come from a place of self hatred and coping with a life that is unmanageable. Did you know a huge percentage of girls that struggle with ED's have been through some form of abuse. 

My point is it's not about weight and its not about food. At CFC we weren't even aloud to talk about food unless we were with our dieticians. Most of our groups were about LIFE. about relationships, communication, self-esteem, etc...things that helped us cope with life. Because as we were getting our ED coping mechanisms taken away from us we needed something to replace them. That is why simply having someone gain weight and not fixing the underlying problems of their ED won't last for long. 

With any addiction you have to create a life where you don't need that addiction anymore. If you simply take away their behavior they will either revert to another behavior or eventually give in to their old behaviors. 

Good news is Change is absolutely possible and there is LIFE after an Eating Disorder.

Be patient with yourself, be gentle with yourself, have love towards yourself and never give up.  You are worth fighting for.

I have been thinking a lot about my experience at CFC lately for some reason, I miss it, it was a great time in my life. I came back to life there and had a lot of laughs and tears. I met some of my best friends there and my life was filled with hope and happiness for the first time in years. I am so deeply grateful for this experience and to have got the help I needed. I don't know where I would be without it. If you helped me get there and supported me during this time know that I am so deeply grateful for you and you helped save my life. Not a day goes by where I don't think about this experience and how much it has bettered my life. To this day I try to model my life after the things I learned there. I am not perfect but I have come so so far. 

If you have an ED, do everything you can to get the help you need. It is your life. I didn't think I was good enough to go to CFC and I was really really scared but I was at rock bottom and it was my hope I was hanging on to. Just know that recovery is possible and its hard, the hardest thing i've ever done, but it is so worth it. Today, I am grateful for my life, for my recovery, and for CFC. Thank you all who have helped and supported and loved me. 

Dear Body

Dear body of mine,

I did not realize what a gift you are, I took you for granted. Once upon a time I was so excited to meet you and get to live in you. You would allow me to do everything I could not do without you. You would help me grow and learn and experience in ways that I couldn't without you. You would help me come alive! I'm sorry, I didn't realize how special, vital, & unique you are.

Please forgive me for all the times I hated you and wanted to get rid of you, and for all the times I mistreated you and abused you. I feel so horrible for all the times you were telling me I'm hungry and I ignored you thinking I was doing you a favor. And for all the times I put you through so much stress with my head in the toilet. I thought you did, but you didn't deserve that, no body does. I didn't know then, but I know now. We are doing so good, its been over two years since I treated you that badly! I promise I will treat you with the love and respect you merit.

I did not realize that you are MINE. That I did not have to listen to all those people telling me there was something wrong with you, that I needed to "fix" you, or that you were not good enough. I realize now that you don't want to be the center of attention that your purpose is to help me, who I am, quirks and all, shine through. I thought you wanted to be admired and give the illusion of perfection. I thought that's how I would be acceptable and worthy of love. I did not know you just wanted me to let go and be myself. That I already have something worthwhile and lovable about me and that I am worthy of being loved and my Love is worth having. I know now, and I promise that I will do my best to love and be loved without being perfect or expecting perfection from others. I promise that I will allow myself to be human. 

I wish I would have protected you from those who just wanted to harm you. And then I blamed you for it and continued treating you that way because I felt you deserved it. How unfair of me, but I didn't know better; Never again. I know now that you were on my side all along. I will forever be on your team. I will be your ally and advocate, not your enemy. I will not believe bad things others may say about you and I will certainly not let others treat you badly. I will stick up for you. 

I will accept you "flaws" and all, because you are mine. I will take care of you, you can count on me. I will choose to love you for what you are. I will treat you with respect. I will not deprive you of food when you ask for it and I will stop eating when you have had enough. I will be active and strong. Not helpless and weak. I will use you to let my deep beauty, qualities, talents, and attributes shine through instead of using you to hide them.

I refuse to believe the lies that you are merely something to be looked at, that you will function better at a smaller size, or that you are me. We are healthy, that is all that matters. I can't believe I have never realized that before. All this time I have believed I am not healthy because I don't measure up (or I guess down) to pictures I see on TV or even comparing myself to people around me. But I am so healthy, by the real definition of the word. There is nothing wrong with you. I will not compare you anymore, because you are mine and as long as I treat you with love and respect and properly take care of you I don't have to worry about my relationship with gravity. I will not let the amount of space you take up steal anymore of my time, talents or happiness. I will let myself be happy! 

Lastly I want to thank you for my beautiful daughter. She is absolutely perfect and beautiful. She is strong, healthy, vibrant and happy! I can see her little personality shining through already. I can't quite get over how much I love her. I love my little post pregnancy pooch it reminds me of the miracle that took place right inside of me. It reminds me that I am capable of miracles. Thank you for helping me create her, you truly are an amazing gift. I will spend the rest of my life treating you as the God given gift that you are!

Sincerely your friend,

Meg

ED's 101

So today I was flipping through an LDS Living magazine and guess what I came across...?... an article on Eating Disorders. I love it when that happens because it means the word is getting out against Eating Disorders. Its such a GIANT problem that gets little attention. People need to know that there are more people struggling with the exact same thing they are struggling with and that some of us have overcome it and found LIFE again and that there is HOPE for full and complete recovery! I remember before I went to treatment. I thought I was literally crazy, I didn't know what was wrong with me and I couldn't understand why I was thinking and doing certain things. In my book I was NUTS. Then when I got to treatment I met a bunch of girls that were thinking and doing the same things I was. It wasn't me! It was the disease! If all these girls who I had come to love were struggling with the same things I was, then I couldn't be all that bad of a person. My big secret that I was absolutely crazy wasn't even true! I wasn't all that evil and once that heavy burden had been lifted off my shoulders I was free to heal. A LOT of people are struggling in secrecy thinking they are that evil crazy person, but if they only knew its the nature of the disease and a lot of people are in the same boat maybe we could all join together and take our lives back. Because we all know a group of people is a LOT stronger than a solo person. Unfortunately Eating Disorders are fueled by Isolation and secrecy. As soon as you realize your ED is one big fat lie (no pun intended:) ED suddenly loses a lot of power. Which is why ED tries to keep you believing that you are crazy and evil and that there is no one like you. But truth is YOU ARE NOT ALONE! This is why we need to get the word out! So we can stop hurting and start healing.

So when I see articles on ED pop up out of no where, like today, it makes me smile and I hope it helps someone realize they are not their ED. ED is a disease; a manipulative, lying, master mind that cons people into believing that they are the one person who can't have happiness and that they need him. He deceives them into believing they are not good enough and that he will make them happy. LIES...so many lies!

Truth is ED's attack the most amazing of people. Did you know... People who develop ED's are usually people pleasing, care taking, perfectionists. The people who don't like to make waves, are peace makers, sensitive, and caring. People with ED's usually have these similar characteristic traits, isn't that interesting? My theory is that Satan refers to ED's as one of his most powerful attacks. Eating Disorders are said to be one of the most difficult addictions to overcome because unlike drugs and alcohol you can't just stay away from it. You have to eat, duh, or that'd be an eating disorder. Food has to be in your life, no matter how many times I wish I could have just forgot about it for a day and stayed away from food, I had to eat. I couldn't just stay abstinent from food, I had to implement it into my life in a whole new way. That makes it really challenging. Imagine if you gave a drug addict their drug of choice and said, you have to have enough but you can't have too much. I know its not completely the same but it feels THAT hard. This is not to say that drugs and other addictions are not absolutely terrible and I hate them just as bad as I hate Eating Disorders because they destroy lives. But generally people are more aware of the negative effects of drugs than they are about the seriousness of eating disorders.

Here's a glimpse of the article I read today entitled: "Eating Disorders: Not Just About the Food"

"When I couldn't handle everything I was given to deal with in life, I turned to anorexia as a support. Because the more out of control things got, the more I had to find something I could control. And that something was food, calories, exercise, my weight. When I was overcome with self-hatred, I turned to purging as a way to try to empty myself of all of myself that disgusted me." - I love that, it explains it so well.

"Eating Disorders are a physical manifestation of an intangible problem."- This is why its unhelpful to re-feed someone but not deal with the deeper issues. It would leave the person feeling worse and on the road to relapse. On the other hand if you deal with the deeper emotional problems food will often begin fixing itself.

"Satan is so jealous of our bodies that he wants us to hate our bodies and to mistreat them, and he uses eating disorders as a way for that to happen" -TRUTH!

"When you have an eating disorder it changes everything, It changes your hormone levels, the biochemistry of the brain, the level of neurotransmitters in the nervous system. It's not just a phase, let's get serious about this illness, they can and do kill people." - DR. B! co-founder of CFC. - thinking of friends from treatment that have since then lost their lives, it really does kill people, people who never thought it would kill them.

"It becomes everything to them" Says Dr. Berrett, "It is their life. In an attempt to improve one's life to a way of coping with life and then to a full-blown addiction."

"It chases the spirit away because it becomes an obsession and it takes up your whole thought processes, you can't have the spirit with you, you can't even let him in. For me, when I was struggling really bad with my Eating Disorder it was a lot easier for me to make other bad decisions" - recovered anorexic

"You can reach the point at which your eating disorder fades- eventually to something you think about but don't act upon, and eventually to something you don't think about at all- until it ceases to exist."



Meet Robyn...:)

Meet my friend Robyn. When I first met her in treatment she was so quiet and trapped in perfectionism and rigidity. I watched her struggle, work and fight to overcome ED. Today she is married, pregnant, happy and full of LIFE! As you see in the video she even took up acting again, a major passion that ED had taken from her. This video demonstrates my favorite part of recovery...not getting rid of ED but getting to know yourself again and coming back to life! There is no better feeling. I seriously remember the first time I really laughed at the Center and remembering how good it felt to laugh, because I hadn't for some time. ED takes so much away from you but there is SO much to gain and take back as you recover! Life has so much to offer and there is so much potential just waiting to bust out as you move further and further into recovery! Also I think this is a great video for exercise bulimia awareness, something that is becoming more and more common. For more on this topic you might want to check out my previous post "ED Free reasons to Exercise" and also the IE principle of this week: "Exercise, Feel the Difference!"