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

In an ironic twist…half of the summary was left off of the last post. Please read on for the conclusion!

When I finally agreed to get help, I was a shell of myself; tired, detached and scared as hell. In a facility in Tennessee, hundreds of miles away from anyone I knew, I had the surreal experience of being stripped of all autonomy, tasked with following childlike rules, and submitting to the will of medical professionals. There were bedtimes, mealtimes, scheduled bathroom breaks, hours designated for napping, and every second in between was spent reprogramming the neural pathways embedded in my brain. 

The eating disorder was so ingrained that I was hard wired to be perfect, even in treatment. I wanted to do everything right, please the staff and graduate more rapidly than anyone in the history of the program.  Despite how I felt, I smiled and made jokes and got everyone to like me.  I couldn’t turn off the desire to prioritize everyone else’s needs over my own.  After a few weeks, the other patients told me that they thought I was undercover; someone placed there by the facility to spy on them.  They couldn’t believe that I could be that agreeable in a place like this, but I did it unintentionally. After so many years of acting on auto-pilot, I didn’t know how to turn it off.    

It finally hit me that I had to relearn everything. While this was a place where I could physically recover under medical supervision and discover how to nourish my body without guilt or shame, that was all cursory compared to the in-depth mental renovation required.  I only knew how to live one way; if I didn’t commit to examining what got me here, I would fall back into old patterns as soon as I returned home.  I faced the mountainous task of unlocking all the painful memories and immersing myself in them without the assistance of my go-to coping strategy.  I had to be vulnerable enough for confrontation or those experiences would continue to fuel the eating disorder and ultimately lead to my demise. 

Over forty days, I pushed through the grueling task of attacking my demons and giving myself permission to let go of this disordered version of myself.  I lived in a parallel universe where everyone was like me, battling the same insecurities and marked with similar scars.  Demographics didn’t matter when we could bond through our illness and chase the common goal of healing. Outside of the heartache from missing my children and needing my husband, I found comfort in being tucked away from reality with these people who understood me and knew what it was like to be in my head. 

But it wasn’t the real world; I eventually had to leave the nest, completely exposed and stripped of the armor I had on when I arrived.  Put back into my old reality; same family, same friends, same environment, but a different me.  I had to figure out how to fit into a life that was tailored for the person I was before, all the while struggling to stave off the temptation to reengage with familiar habits. Unlike an alcoholic, I could not remove the source of my addiction to stay sober; instead, I had to face my triggers every time I put food in my mouth.    

I naively thought that those six weeks of treatment would be the worst part of recovery, but the year that followed was by far the most difficult thing I’ve ever had to do. More than once, I questioned the purpose of it all and reminisced about when I didn’t have such high standards for my mental health.  I went through all of the stages of grief for my eating disorder and watched, horrified and helpless, as my body tried to find its way back to homeostasis.  Mundane things like going to the grocery store or picking my kids up from school had the power to send me into a full panic.  All that I wanted was to feel at home in my own skin, but it was a daily struggle to regulate my nervous system and connect my mind to my body. 

I’m still in the remodeling phase after four years in recovery. It is a project that will continue to have both progress and delays, because the eating disorder, albeit less powerful, continues to live inside my head.  And because the world we live in would like to see me fail. To jump on the bandwagon of women who take weight loss medication out of vanity and peer pressure; to listen when someone tells me that I need to punish myself in the gym to combat the weight gain associated with aging; and to believe that confidence can only be derived from my outward appearance.  Every day I must be a disruptor, and after a life spent people-pleasing, and I don’t know if that will ever feel normal. 

I want to tell my story for me, for my children and for everyone that could benefit from my experience.  I would not have the confidence to write it if it weren’t for this journey, and for that I am grateful.  Regardless of what happens with the finished product, I want to share it in order to close the chapter on who I was and embrace who I’ve become. 

Authentically Yours,