CHRONIC ANOREXIC...HEALED!

This clinically depressed, timid anorexic was trying to starve herself to death,
and was transformed into a vibrant, healthy, confident young woman.

I have been given a gift that I must give away in order to keep. I have been, one day at a time, healed of the life-threatening disease of anorexia. My unusual relationship with food started when I was very young. Ever since I can remember, I used food to comfort me and kill the tremendous amount of pain I was in. I was very sad and angry as a child. I never seemed to fit in or feel as though I belonged with any group of people. I lived in loneliness and isolation. I grew up with all the outside material things I wanted. But nothing ever seemed to be enough to fill up the hole inside of me. As a child, (and as an adult) I was very small, but when I looked in the mirror I thought that I looked fat. Temperamentally, I was two different people: at school I was very quiet and timid, and at home, I was a total terror, throwing temper tantrums regularly. I used watching TV and fantasizing as an escape from reality.

When I was in the tenth grade, my family moved and I went to a new school. I resented people at this high school because they were rich and I felt inferior. My family did not spend money on material things the way other kids’ parents did. That is when the terrible binges started. I would consume huge amounts of food. I just ate and ate. I ate all of the time. Then I had to face the pain afterwards at what I had done to my body. I had so much self-hatred for myself and my body. I was about ten to fifteen pounds overweight but being very short I looked pretty chubby. I thought, “if only I was thin I’d be happy”. On top of it all, I thought I was a loser and therefore was very awkward. I only had a few friends when I was growing up because I was very quiet and very terrified of everything and everyone. I also had a bad attitude, and was full of hate. Nothing was ever good enough for me. I made people’s lives miserable.

This is when I came up with the plot to show everyone that I was “somebody” by becoming anorexic. I was desperate for attention. Anorexia seemed like such a glamorous disease to me. So, I went to a diet program and lost ten pounds pretty quickly. I became an expert dieter and from that point on I was totally consumed and obsessed with every little bite that I ate. My weight continued to yo-yo. If I had a binge one day, then I would starve myself the next. I might eat just three apples the entire day. My mother and I would fight regularly about my weight. I loved the attention I received for losing weight, and I couldn’t get enough of it.

After I graduated from high school, I went away to college. That’s when I started to drink very heavily. I would often drink until I passed out. I loved the attention I received for acting stupid when I was drunk. I remember one day drinking and eating so much that I felt so sick and took twenty TUMS. From that point on, my stomach was never the same and I developed chronic stomach problems. One day they were so bad, I had my parents come up to school to get me and take me to see a doctor. The doctor found nothing really wrong with me. I started seeing therapists and went on antidepressants. I tried different medications and finally ended up on Prozac. I also suffered from acute anxiety.

During the second semester of my sophomore year, I decided to drop out of college for a semester and go into an inpatient treatment center for eating disorders. At this point, I was lifeless and dead on the inside as well as being physically starved. I spent four weeks in the hospital. I gained a few pounds there but nothing else about me really changed.

I graduated from college with an Elementary Education degree and knew that this wasn’t what I really wanted to do, but believed that teaching children was the only thing I was capable of. I did not get a job teaching in the public school, so I went into teaching kindergarten at a daycare center. I was very unhappy.

I continued on in this way doing the same things for a few years: taking Prozac, going to therapy, and attending Overeaters Anonymous. At one point I dropped to eighty-two pounds. My goal was to get my heart to stop. I lived on herbal tea and Nutrasweet, and I weighed myself constantly throughout the day. Much of this self-destruction was to get the attention I thought I needed.

My life drastically changed when I met a girl who had recovered from her compulsive eating and bulimia by working with Roy Nelson, the founder of the Metasteps process; she introduced me to him and he literally saved my life. I no longer take antidepressants and I am at a healthy weight. I have found work that I love and my income has quadrupled. Prior to getting help through Be Totally Free!, I never laughed. Now I laugh all of the time.