Healing and Hungry: Where the story begins

As I alluded to previously, it did in fact all come crumbling down.

I don’t want this to be a place where I share my suffering over the years but I do think some context will be important to understand my recovery journey. Everyone’s experience is different but this has been mine this far.

My eating disorder (ED) stemmed from a couple different places. Food restriction was my choice of coping mechanism. When I felt that aspects of my life could not be controlled I found that the one thing that I could control was how much or how little I ate.The other reasons are too personal for me to comfortably share to the world, but don’t worry I’m talking to my therapist about it. She’s very well aware.

I’ve had highs and lows over the last ten years. Some months would go by without me feeling the need to restrict. Others, when I was extremely anxious and things seemed like they were spiraling out of control, it was a nightmare.

Senior year of high school. Freshman year of college. January 2022.

I would say those were the periods that I struggled the most. Obviously there have been many other lows, but these made a large impact on my journey. So, that brings us to why I’m finally on the road towards recovery.

The answer: January 2022

I had never experienced so much crippling anxiety in my life. I was easily irritated, I had awful headaches from crying every day, I had constant heart palpitations, I couldn’t sleep and I couldn’t concentrate on anything. I never wanted a month to be over so fast.

Looking back now, it most definitely affected my eating. My ED told me I was fine and that all my behaviors were normal. When truthfully, nothing I was doing was healthy or normal.

After much thought, I decided that I never wanted to feel like I did that month of January ever again. I decided that I was exhausted from letting my mind bully my body. I made the scariest phone call ever and booked an appointment with a mental health specialist.

On the first week of February I had my first appointment. I left feeling good. She prescribed me some anxiety medication and referred me to a therapist that specializes with eating disorders.

Oh this is great. This is so easy. I’ll do a couple sessions and I’ll be good. It’s not like it’s that serious anyway, right?

Not exactly.

The last week of February rolls around and I go to an appointment with the therapist I was referred to. The session starts pretty standard. She gets my height and blind weight (when they cover the scale so you don't know your weight). We go over what brought me to seek treatment. And then there is a pause. An uncomfortably long pause. She explains that my weight/BMI are too low to continue out-patient care. That if I wasn’t hospitalized, there was the deadly possibility of re-feeding syndrome.

I was shocked. I was confused. I wanted to cry. I wanted to scream. I wanted to understand why I did this to myself. I was embarrassed.

I left that session feeling like a complete failure and extremely scared. I knew I needed to end this vicious cycle once and for all. I was tired of living like this. I wanted to put my health first. I jumped into treatment without looking back and on March 2nd 2022 I was hospitalized due to my eating disorder and started my journey towards recovery.

SONG FOR POST: Scars To Your Beautiful By Alessia Cara