her story.
my name is emily. i’m a 20-something who has just recently learned the art of taking care of herself. according to my mother, i’ve shown signs of disordered eating as early as 3 to 5-years-old. i was always very small for my age and it was constantly brought to my attention how scrawny i was in school.
high school is when everything started to show up. the anxiety attacks i had experienced my whole life began to elevate to the point where i was missing classes and even leaving school early. i was perpetually miserable. my sophomore year, i began resorting to self-injury in a desperate attempt to distract from the emotional pain with physical pain. i would isolate for weeks on end and the only communication with my parents was expressed in screaming matches that could have made cats in heat cringe.
my junior year, i stayed home from school for 2 weeks because i felt too dejected to go anywhere near my high school. senior year, i started skipping lunches and would go hang out in the auditorium for the hour. three of my teachers began to catch on and expressed, on multiple occasions, their concern for the weight i was beginning to drop.
everything went downhill from there in college. i binged my way up to the “freshman 15″, then fasted my way down, far past the weight i entered school at. i eventually dropped out and went into treatment, despite not being ready. (just before dropping out, however, i did finally quit my self-injurious behavior.)
my treatment repertoire consists of 3 iop programs, 2 day programs, 2 residential stays, and 1 inpatient admission…in a pear tree. it wasn’t until this final go-around (inpatient to day to iop) that i finally felt it. it being that “click” that i’ve heard doctors talk about fully recovered patients experiencing. i couldn’t do it anymore. i was 21 and while my friends were out partying and working on BAs and experiencing life… i…. well, i was waking up each morning to a thermometer in my ear and a BP cuff around my upper arm. i was asking nurses to check my toilet, before i was allowed to flush, so they would know i hadn’t thrown up. i was writhing in pain each night while my body desperately tried to remember how to digest food. this was not how i wanted to live and i refused to do it any longer.
i was discharged from walden behavioral care the week of january ‘o8. now, i am the happiest i have been since i was a child. i have beyond come to accept myself and am becoming the person that i really want to be; the person that family and friends have lately been describing as funny, especially caring, and fun to be around. for the first time in as long as i can remember, i am completely in love with my life.
now, spreading awareness and helping others through this hell has become a passion of mine. i feel like i can’t do enough to help the eating disorder community, but i’m determined to do everything i’m capable of. i refuse to keep everything i have learned to myself.
as jenni schaefer declares in the introduction of her book, Life Without Ed, “i have never been married, but i am happily divorced.”
