Someday Melissa. What an amazing impact her story has had in the eating disorder community. I am constantly inspired by what Melissa’s mother has done to honor the memory of her daughter, as well as bring awareness to the tragic reality of eating disorders. Our society seems to simply define this terrible disorder as weekly blurps of celebrity frailty in US Weekly. The severity of eating disorders is often unknown to most unless you or someone you love is…
It’s been quite some time since I’ve visited my own blog, much less posted anything. However, I think of it often and have a list of things and topics I want to write about, but none of them lived up to my notion of the ‘perfect post’. Therefore, I have avoided blogging like the plague…because surely whatever I posted would be trivial and meaningless. Like most things in my life, I had placed this little blog on some crazy pedestal…
It’s been quite some time since my last post. As usual, life got in the way and time just rushed by. However, in the past that has not been the norm for me. Life constantly revolved around my eating disorder and when I looked back my months were strung together with moments of isolation and unhealthy behaviors…and I often could not remember most of my days. Today, I look back and realize my life has been filled simply with..well…life. My…
Now this blog is as opposite as you can get from pro eating disorder, but after going through my own battle and hearing of so many others, I am beginning to wonder if insurance companies aren’t pro eating disorder. As if having an eating disorder isn’t bad enough, insurance companies often add to the hardship of the recovery fight. I know this first hand because I am in a vicious battle with my insurance company over my residential stay last…
I am 22 weeks pregnant. Unlike my other mommy-to-be friends I have this little thing called an Eating Disorder to contend with, but I have been strong in recovery for almost a year and symptom free for over eight months. My husband and I planned on waiting a few more months before trying for a baby, but I guess God had other plans. And we certainly welcomed this joyous news. Having a child is something that I have wanted for…
I used to hate Sundays…I mean despise them. Sundays were tortured, lonely days…just me and my eating disorder. Because my weeks were spent in severe restriction and my weekends were spent eating and drinking like a ‘regular’ person, my Sundays were filled with overwhelming guilt and a gut wrenching sickness. They were my day to hole up from the world and eat away at all of the forbidden foods ED never let me have. Symptoms repeated themselves until I was…
This letter was written approximately one year after the first letter I wrote to my eating disorder (Letter to Ed). It is interesting to go back and note the difference between the two. The first was written only six months into my outpatient treatment and the second was written a year later while I was in a residential treatment center. Unlike the first, the second letter was not prompted by any therapist or assignment, rather it was something I felt…
This past January I received the odd Therapy Homework of writing my eating disorder’s obituary. I definitely thought my therapist was off her rocker when she asked if I would be willing to write one, but oddly enough it turned out to be very healing. I feel anything that helps us further separate ourselves from ED can only strengthen our footing in our road to recovery. I ran across it today and thought I would share: ED passed away on…
I’ve been digging through some old journals and emails lately and came across the very first letter I wrote to ED back in February 2010. Now you have to remember, my struggles stretch back over fifteen plus years, but I did not seek treatment until July 2009, therefore, my first letter only came two years ago. This therapeutic assignment opened my eyes to how writing can set you free. For the first time ever I could be brutally honest and…
Life in recovery is anything but easy. Sure, my life is 10,000 times better than what it once was, but to be perfectly honest part of me just feels like I have to say that…life is so much better now…yadda, yadda, yadda. There is much honesty and truth in that statement, but I also think that sometimes I just want to be brutally honest with people and just say this sucks. It sucks to have an eating disorder and it…