A Life-Changing Journey; My Memoir's Key Moments in 1500 Words

Writing in short form has never been something that comes to me easily (this is very evident in my lengthy blog posts). Unfortunately, we live in a world where quick snippets and cliff note versions are more powerful and most preferred by the masses. It takes skill to be able to summarize your thoughts and feelings and beliefs into a five to ten word social media post; my lack of presence and posts online is mostly due to my incompetence in the ability.

On November 15th, I submitted an application to the Charlotte Lit Author’s Lab. It’s considered a “mini-MFA (Master of Fine Arts) by the people who run it and it would give me the structure and the opportunity to finally sit down and write my story. The application required a writing sample, thoughtful answers to a plethora of questions, and a 750-1500 word summary of what would ultimately be the first draft of my memoir. Everything but the summary was ready to go two months ago; for over 30 days I tormented myself trying to encapsulate all of the important highlights and squeeze it into one page. I am aware that 1500 words is not exactly considered “short-form", but for some reason that limit had me completely paralyzed.

After taking a step back (and talking for an hour with my therapist) I realized that the insecurity brewed from the same place that my eating disorder did; I want everything to be perfect. It’s easier to be perfect when you have time and length and room to explain; but it leaves little space for vulnerability and raw honesty. I want to write my memoir from the latter place and continue to move away from chasing perfection; it’s just going to take a lot of practice.

Let me know how I did and I’ll let you know if they accept my application!

When you build a life on shaky foundation, the question is never if it’s going to crumble, but when. Cracks can be repaired, but if they are structural, filler is only a temporary solution.  The fractures that I spent my life patching finally succumbed to overload just before my 38th birthday. It happened after two decades spent dodging what was in my head and abusing my body as a way to suppress pain and store trauma. Pipes burst, walls collapsed, and everything was reduced to rubble. And as I lay buried underneath what remained, there was temptation to stay there, no longer burdened by the weight and the pressure of keeping it all together. 

An eating disorder was my drug of choice, my preferred unhealthy mechanism for coping with life’s difficulties.  Over twenty years, I mastered the ability to walk the incredibly thin line between “acceptable” dieting practices and truly dangerous, disordered behavior.  There were times when I came close to stepping over that line and making a full commitment to the disease but always managed to pull myself together before things got out of hand. I operated under the delusion that I controlled the eating disorder and not the other way around. It was a shock to me when it finally broke free of all restraints and there was nothing I could do to force it back into submission.

As suppressed memories and unprocessed emotion bubbled over, I found that I no longer cared about what might happen to me if I continued down this path of destruction. Sadness and despair steered my actions and a complete lack of self-worth kept me from asking for help. I silently prayed for someone to notice that I was drowning, but I was too good at hiding for anyone to see beyond what I wanted to show them.  When I finally let my husband in on the secret, it was too late; he could not get past the burgeoning eating disorder to reach me.  

After nine months, I was so ravaged that I couldn’t even keep up the façade for my children anymore. The desire to be a great mother got me through even the worst days; but, when my mental state was so poor that getting out of bed was a struggle, they were the ones who suffered.  It was the only thing that made me hate my disease more than I hated myself.  I didn’t care about the very real threats to my physical health, my marriage, or my future. The only thing that could influence me to take even the smallest step towards recovery was protecting their two little hearts. 

My plan was always to be the last generation to battle this affliction; the end of a long line of women who inadvertently passed on the behaviors and psychology associated with this illness.  Somehow, I thought I could achieve this goal in the midst of being completely indoctrinated in its ideology.  Unlike my mother and her mother, I did not project my eating disordered principles onto my children; quite the opposite.  They had no food restrictions and it made me so happy to see them explore the world of nutrition without judgement. 

But even at 7 and 9 years old, they saw when I skipped dinner; they heard me complaining about my body and saw me pushing myself to be in the gym every single day.  They noticed that I couldn’t play with them because all I wanted to do was sleep.  They witnessed me purging in the bathroom despite my best efforts to hide.  It would only take a few more years of maturing for them to begin to emulate my behavior, and that realization was what sobered me enough to admit myself into a program.      

Click here for Part 2. 

Authentically Yours,