My Story – Part One

A few months ago I started writing this in response to World Eating Disorder Awareness Day (WEDAD)’s 2020 theme; “share your story”. Whilst sharing my story is exactly what I, in so many ways, do on this blog, I realised I have not actually told you my story as a narrative- that is, going through the events of when the eating disorder began, my diagnosis, journey and recovery. So when I heard the theme of WEDAD in May, I decided it might be time to do just that. But as I began to write, I realised there was so much to say, and although I have condensed and told my story many times verbally, somehow writing it out presented new and different problems. Therefore, because I am literally terrible at keeping things short (have you noticed how much I tend to waffle?!) I have decided to present this in a couple of parts, because at this stage I am not sure how to make it shorter without cutting out things I consider to be very important. Today, you are reading part one, yay!

Many people around the world are living with an eating disorder, and some of them have been brave enough to share their story already. It is a privilege and a moving experience to read of their journeys, vulnerability and openness. What you will read here is just one story and it will not represent everyone else’s. So go and read or listen to other people’s experiences as well. The phrase “walk a mile in another person’s shoes” is commonly used, however I do not want you to have to literally walk in our shoes because I would never wish an eating disorder on anyone. But by hearing from those of us who have had or do have one, you can grow in your understanding and take a walk beside us as we journey through it. So start here today. Start with me. Not because my story is more significant. Not because my voice is any more worthy to be heard. But because I want to share it with you, and because you’ve clicked the link and found yourself here. So please, sit yourself down, grab a cup of tea and your favourite blanket if you like, and walk with me as I take you through my story.

I grew up in a relatively small part of Australia, with a loving mum and dad, and a sister. As a child, I was stubborn, carefree, a bit of a know-it-all, adventurous and outgoing. I loved throwing myself into any activity, sport or community group I could, and enjoyed letting my imagination run wild as I played with friends or created stories in my own head. Whilst I have now identified years in my childhood where I experienced what was probably anxiety (including school refusal, heightened emotions and fears, and social distancing from friends), I was generally a happy child. In high school I made a strong group of friends who I adored and loved to hang out with whenever I could. As a teenager, there were of course more pressures put on me but I would say I generally remained carefree in my attitude towards my life and my looks.

At the beginning of 2015, I arrived back home in Australia from a three month overseas exchange program, excited and energised for the year ahead. I was entering Year 11 at a school I enjoyed, with friends I loved and trusted. I had a supportive family around me. My faith in God was strong. There were many opportunities before me. I was naïve to the sufferings of the world. My year was looking pretty good.

In around March of that year I began training for a fun run I wanted to participate in. Running is something I had always enjoyed, and I loved the challenge I had set myself to enter this run. As I began to run more, and was generally being more active, my eating habits changed in a healthy way in response. I was in tune with my body’s needs and was eating more to make up for the extra energy I was burning. I chose foods that I enjoyed, but also knew were nutritious. When I look back on this time, I see I had perfected “intuitive eating”. I knew nothing about obsession with weight loss or food. I could not have told you how many calories were in a banana, nor a piece of cake. I was exercising because I loved it, and I knew it was good for me. I do remember thinking to myself shortly after I had completed the fun run and was still running regularly; “I have been doing so much exercise, and have been more active than normal, yet I have not lost any weight. That seems kind of odd to me.” (FYI this is NOT odd!! I did not need to lose weight, and was in fact still growing, so if anything I probably gained some weight during this time which was healthy for me). But this realisation did not initially cause me concern. The thought hung around in my head for a few days and then left.

As winter rolled around, the running decreased. I lived in a pretty cold part of Australia and going out for a daily run in the icy weather was something (I think understandably) I struggled to do. School and other commitments had also become busier, which left me less time to go for runs or do workouts. Whilst I was still exercising in other ways, I noticed the lack of this major form of exercise.

The next bit is a bit fuzzy in my memory. I don’t really know how it happened, but over the next couple of months my dissatisfaction in my body went from almost nothing to something so overwhelming that I could not escape from it. In my mind, I was eating so much food, binging on high-sugar foods a lot, not exercising and putting on excessive weight. As  said, my memory of this time is not clear, however from what I can remember now, I was not actually binging, nor was I lazy or putting on weight excessively. But regardless of whether these things actually happened, I do know they were very real in my mind. I remember crying to my sister around this time, telling her I had really low self-esteem that stemmed from my view of my body. I had begun to hate the way that I looked. I also started to think a lot of negative thoughts about myself. I could not explain what I was thinking and feeling, and my mention of low self-esteem was as close as I came to saying what was actually going on internally. After mentioning it to her this one time though, I did not bring it up again.

By the time mid-August came around, I was deeply unhappy. I felt like I was stuck in a vicious cycle: feel upset, eat food, cry, get angry at myself, feel upset, repeat. I looked at my body in the mirror and thought “I HAVE TO DO SOMETHING.” I was not only deeply dissatisfied with how I looked, I was also confused by what was going on around me. My parents and sister have always been extremely supportive of me and we have great relationships with one another. However, in our busy lives, we were struggling to spend time together, and we were also not the best at communicating with one another. My mind interpreted this as “dysfunctional” and I thought our family was falling apart. I took this on my own shoulders and thought it was my responsibility to fix what was probably not even broken. I was also trying to do too much. I wanted to be everything for everyone, but was constantly not reaching the expectations I set for myself and was confused by how I could be better. I lost sight of God’s sovereignty and his power so much so that whenever I read or heard a news report about something that had happened on the other side of the world, I somehow thought it was my fault and my responsibility to fix it, and I felt deeply the pain that I saw other people going through.

So with all of this going on in my mind, I kept coming back to body-dissatisfaction. I thought I needed to lose weight because I was neither healthy nor pretty. And this is when things happened very quickly. Up until this point, I had been eating normally. Ok, I described earlier the “binge eating” I had identified in myself and also, what even is normal eating? So let’s just say, I was eating enough and had not consciously changed my eating habits. Then one night, in late August, as I was lying in the bath thinking about how I really needed to lose weight, I actually came up with a plan. And the plan sounded oh-so-simple: “I could just stop eating.” I literally thought this. Contemplated it. Then I thought “no, I’m not that kind of person”.  It grieves me that I actually thought that, because it indicated the stigma I held at the time towards eating disorders. After having this thought, and then neglecting it, I questioned “so what do I do? The answer: “I just need to eat healthier”. The next day, I attempted this “healthier eating” (which was in fact the start of disordered eating habits). This attempt lasted for about three four days. On the fifth day, I consciously began starving myself.

This is where I will not go into any further details about what I did or did not eat, when I ate, nor about my exercise habits. It is simply not necessary or helpful for anyone; for you nor for me. Safe to say, I did eat some things or else I would not be here today to tell you. But it was not nearly enough to sustain a healthy, functioning body. And my exercise routine was disproportionate to the little I was eating. And so, you guessed it, I lost weight. And fast. So did my problems go away? Did I become happier in how I looked? Probably you guessed it again; no. Well, that’s not entirely true. I did have moments where I looked at myself and thought; “I do look slimmer,” bringing me a false and fading sense of happiness. But most of the time it was more, more, more: I need to lose more weight. I need to burn more calories. I needed to do more. Because, in my mind, I was not enough.

As I lost weight, I also lost so much more. I lost connection; with my friends, with my parents, with my teachers, with my sister, with myself. My mind’s full time job was to provide enough energy to breathe, think, walk and fuel the anorexia that had rooted itself in me. I had nothing left to expend on friendships or true connection with people. Nor did I want to. I found it far easier to just fade into the background. I also lost my faith. I found that I did not want to talk to God, because I knew deep down what I was doing was not part of his best desires for my life. I lost my ability to think properly. Purely because of the lack of nutrients coming into my body, my brain was not able to function at normal capacity and therefore I could not think properly. Thus I was a lot more emotional during this time – I was not able to process information coming in and responded excessively to small things. I also found it harder to concentrate on my school work. I lost a lot. And it sucked. I did not really enjoy it. But somehow, to my distorted brain, gaining a thin body was worth all these losses.

I should mention, for those of you who do not already know, at 21 years of age I still have the same best friend as when I was born who also happens to be my biological sister (see my blog post The Key to My Recovery). She is two years older than me and, although I know we’re not meant to pick favourites, she really is my favourite person in this world. We grew up sharing everything, from the last piece of chocolate in the chocolate jar (well, with some arguments of course), to our deepest fears, worries and joys. So keeping everything that was going on a secret from her was so hard. It was exhausting. And eventually I cracked. The weight I was carrying on my shoulders (pun unintended) was too much to bare. One night, when our parents were away from home, I knocked on my sister’s bedroom door. She was almost asleep, and so I was so close to backing down. But she told me to come and talk to her anyway, and I could not say no. I walked in, sat down on her bed, and said “I think I have an eating disorder.” How it was that I was actually able to identify the problem in myself enough to utter those words I do not know. I thank God that he gave me insight and objectivity enough to recognise it as such. But from those words came a conversation through the night where I poured my heart out to my sister and told her all I had been holding in for so long. Some things I could not say, but most of it I was able to explain with (I hope) at least some sense. I don’t know how it felt to be my sister in this moment. I can only know from what she has told me. Knowing what the pain of having anorexia is though, I can only imagine the pain of hearing someone you love dearly is experiencing that pain. But somehow she kept whatever grief she was experiencing to herself and instead comforted me as only a big sister can.

After I had basically emptied the contents of my heart onto her lap, I finished by saying “but I can fix it. I can just start eating again.” To think I myself uttered those same words that so many people mistakenly and naively tell people with an eating disorder… Luckily my sister had a lot more sense and willpower than me at this point and encouraged me to seek professional help. I don’t think either of us knew how one goes about such a thing, and I certainly was not in a position to find out. But my sister sat with me the next day as I called the medical practice we’d been going to for years and booked an appointment with a new doctor there.

This first appointment set me on the path to recovery – a journey that would take almost five years, but one I can now say I am glad to have travelled. I visited the GP and she went through a number of different tests to assess my mental state and eating behaviours. She then helped me set up a mental healthcare plan, and referred me to a psychologist. She also referred me to a dietician, who became a dear friend and mentor. I would like to take a moment to acknowledge the work of Fiona Rowell, who was a talented, wise and empathetic dietician and also my sister in Christ. Fiona passed away earlier this year. I visited her for about six months before I was referred to the paediatrics eating disorder unit, and then again after I was discharged from that unit. She was compassionate, fun to talk to and full of knowledge. She also had an enthusiasm and a smile which were both contagious. I have discovered that a lot of dieticians are not familiar with eating disorders, and finding a dietician who is willing to work with a teenager or young adult with an eating disorder, without fuelling their “health obsession” is rare. So I am extremely privileged to have worked with Fiona. She taught me a lot of what I now understand about normal eating, and many of the healthy thoughts and practices I use are as a result of what I learnt and worked on with her.

Just before I started seeing Fiona, I also began seeing a psychologist. This was the first time I had ever encountered a psychologist and I honestly did not know what to expect. I found the appointments helpful in many ways, but it was also strange for me to talk to someone about all the thoughts and feelings I’d been having and for her (the psychologist) to not respond in shock or horror, but instead to just nod and go “yeah, that’s pretty normal.” So as my first experience of seeing someone professionally to discuss my mental health and eating problems (other than that initial appointment with the GP), it was really good to be able to begin to open up and talk through some of the things I was experiencing. However, looking back, I also acknowledge that this psychologist was probably not the best fit for me, and I never felt totally relaxed around her, and still had the sense that I had to have my guard up. Also some of the therapies she used did not work well for me.

The next couple of months as I continued to see the psychologist and dietician regularly, and the GP intermittently, things actually did start to look a bit better. I was in fact only a small way through my journey and fight with anorexia, however on the outside things already looked as though they were on the way up. I did start to feel happier again, and I think the act of being open with my immediate family and health professionals helped with that. However, I had not actually started a lot of the hard work in recovery; that is, we (my psychologist and I) had not yet addressed many of the underlying factors fuelling my ED, nor challenged many thoughts or behaviours, and I had not begun weight restoring. I suppose what I was experiencing was a “Band-Aid fix” on my problems that was not sustainable. And sure enough, after a few short months, the walls came crashing down.

The summer holidays of 2015/16 had been reasonably enjoyable for the above reasons. I was able to be out in the sunshine and got to hang out with some friends, which I had not done much of in the past six or so months. School started back in February, and although I still found it a struggle, things continued to go fairly smoothly. I say this now, but I am sure at the time I was still not functioning well. However, within perhaps a month of school going back this Band-Aid fix/ honeymoon phase/ whatever you want to call it, began to wear off and my mental health and eating habits fell to a lower point than they had been the year previous. Again, a lot of this part is hazy in my mind, but one memory sticks out: I was sitting in the lounge room with my sister and we were both on our laptops doing homework. She had gone to get herself some cashews to snack on, and she offered me some. I declined, but she persisted, saying I could “just eat one.” So I think I said “fine, I’ll have one” or something like that, and took it from her. I sat it on my laptop and continued working. Inside, my mind was going crazy. I was trying to convince myself to put the cashew in my mouth and eat it, but I could not bring myself to do it. I wanted to eat it just for the sake of avoiding questioning from my sister, but the ED voice was so strong and I couldn’t even pick up the cashew . Eventually my sister said something like “are you going to eat it?” and I burst into tears. “I can’t do it!” I sobbed. I was so ashamed, and so confused, that I physically could not even eat one cashew. Being the intuitive and caring sister she is, my sister sat with me and told me she had noticed the change in my mood and behaviour, and thought it was time to seek help again. Luckily I had an appointment with the dietician in a few days’ time. I almost cancelled, but something in me managed not to. I am so glad I was able to go to that appointment as soon as I did, because if I had put it off, I think my situation could have got a lot more serious.

So a few days later, I took myself off after school to visit Fiona the dietician. And once again, I was so close to concealing what had been happening and how much I was struggling to eat, but something prompted me to spill the beans. We had a long chat, and she asked me to fill out a few questionnaire things to assess what my mental state was like. I don’t remember much of what the questions were or what I wrote, but I seem to remember one part was about comparing the pros and cons of eating, and that page was filled with eating disorder thoughts. After reviewing everything, Fiona told me that there was not a lot more she could do for me in my current state. She indicated that I needed more support and monitoring than what I was getting, and so she referred me to the Paediatric Eating Disorder Outpatient Unit at our local hospital. She called my parents, then called the hospital, and I had an appointment booked in for the next day. This referral was absolutely necessary to help me, because up until that point I had mostly been trying to do things (or not do them, as the case may be) on my own, pushing away any help from my parents or sister. But it was also a journey that brought me to rock bottom as I had to finally confront this anorexia demon, and it dragged my family down with it.

More to come in part two…..

Thank you for reading so far, I reckon you’re pretty great for just sitting through as much as is already here! Please let me know what you think, if you would like to hear the rest of this, if there are things you think I missed or you did not understand, and if you would like part two to be just as detailed and long, or kept a bit shorter and succinct! Thanks in advance for the feedback 🙂