How did I get out of my head? When did I decide that getting help was more important than being obscenely skinny?
It was last March when I prayed to Heavenly Father. I told him I was sick of thinking about my body all the time. I was sick of thinking of food all the time, living in fear. I was sick of hating myself when I was bloated or just whenever. I had kinda reached a point where my weight had plateaued. In fact, I had lost 10 pounds the month before, but gained it all back in March. I was pretty frustrated with my body. It was frustrated with my mind, I had pushed my body too far.
A week or so later it was General Conference weekend. I was listening to the Lord’s prophet on the earth and His apostles, waiting for the Holy Ghost to guide me and help me free myself from my mind. Moved upon by the Spirit I’m sure, a sister from my mission posted a beautiful and simple testimony on Facebook about her love for Jesus Christ and how He helped her recover from an eating disorder.
I thought, “Man, if she can share that to the whole world, maybe I can.” Previously, I had vowed silently to myself that this would always be my secret, but her post opened up the possibility to me that I could share it with someone.
That same day I went on a walk with my mom and sister. I had eaten a “big” breakfast and felt bloated. Fun fact: when you are anorexic, your body will randomly get bloated because it is undernourished. Kind of the worst when you hate feeling fat. So anyway, I was feeling “fat.” I tried to hide it but my sister looked at me and asked if I was okay. Aaaaand I just broke down and bawled to the point that it was hard to talk. My sister and mom just hugged me while I bawled with no explanation. I told them that I thought I had the mindset of an eating disorder without having the behaviors of an eating disorder. Ha. I was still in denial. But it was a step. We walked home and I bawled some more in my room and prayed. I felt so guilty.
Sometimes I still feel awful that I was so preoccupied about dodging food on my mission. These people were so kind to me. But I was so messed up and worried about gaining weight. I wish I would’ve known how our body really works back then. I created all this fear in my head because of what I learned in the media about how many calories I was supposed to eat a day and that carbs and sugar are bad for you. SINCE WHEN. WHERE DID ALL THOSE MOVIES GET THEIR INFORMATION??! I know, the devil. That’s who.
I felt a lot of shame that my biggest fear was gaining weight. I was so afraid. And then I was mad at myself that something so worldly and unimportant was my world and so important to me. That’s one reason why it was hard for me to open up about it. I felt so stupid. I felt so much shame. That was a hurdle I had to get over in recovery. I was not a bad person for doing this to myself. Now I realize I had real and true feelings. They were still valid. Jesus Christ suffered for those feelings in the Garden of Gethsemane. They are REAL. And He wanted me to get help and He sure helped me find it.
Anyway. I started going to a therapist and a nutritionist at BYU. My therapist? She reeeeally tried her best. But her approach was not what I needed. Every time I had to fill out a form quantifying my behaviors and how often I did them. It was like I was stabbing myself and twisting the knife. I cried every time. I felt terrible and I felt like I wasn’t making much progress even though I stopped counting calories (a BIG step, it honestly took a lot of courage to do that.) Therapy was draining and I dreaded it.
My nutritionist was bomb and helped me learn the truth about how our body reacts to food. She taught me that because I had gotten used to eating so little, my body had suppressed it’s hormones that make your stomach growl when you’re hungry and satisfied when you’re full. That’s nice if you are stranded on a raft in the middle of the ocean like in the Life of Pi. Not nice when you have a life with school and a job and you need to function. So we had to work back up to eating normal amounts of food.
Honestly, there were some times where I really resented my nutritionist. She sent me a list of a normal amount of food to eat every day and I cried thinking about how that would feel in my stomach. But she was understanding that it would take time. I sent in food logs to her every night for months. I hated it when she told me ways to improve even though I had tried REALLY HARD to eat more. She was just trying to help.
She taught me the Intuitive Eating method. It’s the freaking best book to read if you have ever dieted even. It teaches you tactics on how to listen to your hunger and fullness cues because your body knows what it needs. It teaches you to not limit yourself. If you give yourself unconditional permission to eat what you want, you ain’t gonna go ham on all the cookies and brownies at every wedding you go to. It’s brilliant. I don’t eat myself sick as much as I used to--almost never. AND I don’t eat as much sweets. It’s brilliant.
It took awhile for me to get up to intuitive eating because I didn’t have hunger and fullness cues. But I remember feeling elated when I felt hungry again! I used to hate that feeling. Now it meant that my metabolism was working.
Refeeding was a really difficult time for me. I generally had a breakdown once per week as I tried on clothes and realized they didn’t fit me anymore, or when I was so mad at myself and felt consumed with the thoughts in my head. I hated gaining weight. The only way to recover was to live my worst fear. This went on for a few months. So how did I do that?
Tune in next time, folks, because this story is so long it needs TWO posts. In the meantime, face your fears.
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