A guest post from a dear soul.

Sometimes the only way out is through.
My journey through the dark forest of disordered eating.

how do I put it all into words
I’m not quite sure

Everyone’s journey with an eating disorder will be as unique and as tailored as they are in the specifics.

I had to learn to love myself exactly for who I am, and come to understand God made me that way for a reason. I had to learn that I had worth…just as much worth as any other being…knit together in the womb and loved before I took a breath.

My self esteem was so low for so much of my life. I didn’t think I could be good at anything. I knew the hurt of being the loner, the outsider, the outcast…So scared to ever speak, out of fear of rejection because I felt like the truth was that I was boring, stupid, awkward, minuscule. So, I did all I could to embrace and love the downtrodden. I felt that was my meaning in life. I was to show all the love, to lift up all the broken. I felt like it gave me some value. It took a lot of therapy to see that I was just as worthy of that same love I tried to give everyone else.

Deep cuts in my heart and mind were the comments I heard growing up about women and their bodes, their thinness, their beauty. As a girl without any self esteem to begin with, I felt like I had to be pretty and thin to make my awful existence more bearable to those around me. Maybe if I’m pretty on the outside it will hide that I’m really no one on the inside.

I worked A LOT in college. I spent a lot of time on my feet. I probably had great metabolism too. After graduating, I gained some weight. I was still at a healthy weight and thin by the standards of most. Then, someone made the comment that they noticed I’d gained some.
This wasn’t going to work for me. I had to be as perfect as I could be to measure up. I had to make my body, my personality, my opinions small to please everybody else. The extra space wasn’t mine to fill, I was already taking up too much room with my existence.

I would only eat fruit and vegetables all day. Fruit for breakfast, spinach salad for lunch, and one or the other for dinner. My hair started to fall out, my heart rate was tachycardic. I would go these long stretches like this. Then, quite naturally, I would binge and eat a bunch of food…because hello! My body was trying to save me from starvation. I didn’t see it that way at the time though. I saw it as tremendous, guilt inducing failure.

Food consumed my thoughts all day. I couldn’t eat anything without carefully calculating the calories or points in some app first. Any unplanned outing or meal with friends or family caused me so much anxiety. How would I figure out how many calories were in this home cooked meal without knowing the measurements of the ingredients used? What if I couldn’t control myself and eat a small portion?

I’d feel my stomach growl in between my small portion of breakfast and lunch fruit. I’d tell myself, “that’s the feeling of fat leaving my body”. I’d be obsessed with the next time I’d get to eat. Spending the time in between “meals” googling how healthy each type of fruit or veggies I ate would be for me.

If I knew I was going out with friends for drinks, I’d eat next to nothing during the day. That way, I could bare to consume the calories in the alcohol without fear of gaining weight.

The cycle of starving myself and then occasionally having binges where I’d just mindlessly eat anything and everything regardless of how obscure (like 10 plain tortillas or something) became more and more reinforced. I would just not eat anything the next day to make up for it. It became something completely beyond my control. I was at it’s mercy. It made me feel guilty, dirty, worthless.

When I got pregnant, I gave myself freedom to eat what I wanted. This turned into excessive overeating on a daily basis. I’m talking eat a large sized fast food meal at one place, then go to another drive through and eat another meal. My body was consuming like it was coming out of a famine and planning for the next one. And can you blame her? However, I didn’t see it that way at the time. I was a failure! I was a sinner. I saw it as being so painfully out of control. The eating would bring me the only comfort that I could find some days. As soon as it was done, the crushing guilt came.

I gained 90 pounds while pregnant. I was horrified of my body after pregnancy. So, I slaved to lose 100 pounds. I did it! I looked great. The world praised me. My doctors praised me. They mistook my thinness for wellness. What they couldn’t see was that I hated myself into losing that weight. Every pound lost was a battle fought against myself. I’d feel suicidal if I made the slightest misstep in my perfectionist eating and exercising routine. The girl that loved walks and nature became a girl obsessed with getting the exact amount of miles in, not even noticing the beauty of nature around her anymore. The colors has drained from my world, and it was grey. My value for the day was determined by the equation of this many calories consumed minus this many calories burned. Some days I was worthy. Some days I was worthless.

So, yes I lost my 100 pounds. At the end of it all, at the bottom of everything there was nothing. It didn’t make me happy, it didn’t fill me up. It didn’t give me the worth I longed for. It wasn’t the answer.

I originally went to therapy for depression and anxiety. I asked her about a group for eating disorders that met once a week that was advertised on a flier. I didn’t end up attending this, but my therapist referred me to one on one sessions with the eating disorder specialist. When I was diagnosed with my ED, I wept with joy. That day, the ED specialist had looked me dead in the eyes and said, “this is not your fault”. The binging was not my fault. It wasn’t my failure to eat healthy, and my lack of self control. It was my body fighting for my survival. Her words felt like a tremendous weight was lifted from my life. The dirty secret was exposed. The dark brought to light. The heaviness of my burden shared with a willing back to help carry that burden. The lies of my eating disorder were forced to reckon with the truth. This is where the healing began.
What did (does) this healing process look like for me? Lots of therapy, lots of self reflection, lots of unfollowing weight and nutrition accounts on IG, and instead following eating disorder therapists accounts. Throwing away my scale, deleting my food tracking apps. LOTS OF LETTING GO of what I can’t control. I never really had control anyway. Lots of contemplating and praying of the serenity prayer. Lots of faking positive thoughts about myself and my body until I slowly began to believe them. Kissing dieting goodbye for life and letting go of perfectionism. Seeing society’s obsession with beauty and thinness for what it was and choosing to reject it (continually because it is so present in our every day lives as women). Letting go the need to be beautiful by society’s standards.

I had to rebuild the way I think from the ground up. I had to unlearn how many calories where in all the foods. Just let it go. Realizing that I had the right to take up space with my body, my personality, my thoughts, my opinions…because I belong in this world just as much as anyone else. I had (have) to release the need to control the size of my body. I came to embrace all the wonderful things my body does for me.

More recently, I had to relearn how to eat healthy and exercise without a weight loss goal in mind. I was so scared I would fall back into old patterns if I even tried to eat healthy or exercise. I also didn’t even know how to have a healthy relationship with food and exercise. What that looked like outside or weight loss was completely lost on me. I had to have the help of a therapist to learn how to love walking for the sake of enjoyment and not numbers. I had to have the help of a therapist to choose healthy foods that made me feel good. My mantra for the past year or so has been, “I release the need to control the size of my body. I embrace the good that exercise and healthy eating can do for my mind, body, and soul.”

My eating disorder journey isn’t over, and it probably never will be.

I’ve had to learn that while, yes…I would like to have a smaller body… that is not my goal. And it’s ok if I still have that thought. It’s just not the thought that I choose to stay in. I make my choices to eat and move based on my values. Those are living a long & healthy life for myself and my family.

Some days and seasons it will be easier and my mindset will be dead on. Some days I’ll muddle through it. Sometimes I will make mistakes. And with those mistakes, I will keep learning that I’m not on a timeline. I’m on a journey that I’d like to enjoy along the way. Shame is not invited. I am damn proud of myself.