ED and Me, Part II

July 2, 2014 by Lisa @ SweetPeaSnacks 1 Comment

Hey guys!  Yesterday, I posted the first part of my ED story, and today, I’m picking up where I left off.

Part II

Most of my junior year of college passed in a blur.  I started seeing a therapist in the fall, but I don’t think I was really ready to accept that what I was doing was unhealthy, and I certainly wasn’t ready to change my habits.  This was my first year living off campus, which meant that I had complete control over all of my meals (no more dining halls).  I was also taking a heavier coarse load than I was used to, and one of my geology classes required weekly hikes.  By the end of every week, I was utterly exhausted.  As a result, I stopped going out and my social life pretty much fell apart.  I was starting to feel overwhelmed, and that winter I started cutting myself as a way of dealing with stress.  Things got worse around winter break, when I developed a stress fracture in my foot.  I had to cut back on my workouts, so I cut back on the amount I was eating.   Gum and diet coke became the focus of my diet.

I think I sort of hit rock bottom towards the end of the school year.  During spring semester, I was working at an internship while still maintaining a full course load, and heavily restricting my calorie intake.  I would literally cry when I got home every night because I just felt so overwhelmed.  My friendships were suffering.  My relationships with my family were suffering.  Matt stood by me through it all (by some miracle), but it couldn’t have been easy for him.   I would snap at him for the littlest things, and I was absolutely miserable to be around.  He would cook me dinner, and I would have a total breakdown because eating it would put me over my calorie limit for the day.

By the end of the semester, I was the lightest I could ever remember being (if I had to guess, I’d say I weighed close to what I weighed in the third grade), and I was seriously depressed.  I felt like my life was out of control, and at this point, my issues were starting to wear on Matt, who at the time was dealing with the stress of adjusting to his first job.   I didn’t know who I was or what I wanted – all I knew was that I wanted to be thinner.  It was the lowest I’ve ever felt; I so badly wanted to just give up.

That summer, I stayed in New York, instead of going home to NH like I had every other summer.   I started working in a coffee shop, which was great in that it meant unlimited free coffee, but at the same time awful because I was constantly surrounded by food.  The first few weeks were hell.  But somehow it got better.  By the end of the summer, I think something in me had changed.  As school started up again, I knew that I physically couldn’t do another semester like the previous one.  I started looking to online support groups, and even healthy living blogs, for help.  I never posted anything on my own, but I started reading and realizing that other people had managed to overcome their EDs and establish fairly healthy relationships with food. I tried therapy again (per Matt’s request) – this time with a school counselor, and with slightly more success.  I started eating a little bit more, and I noticed that my energy skyrocketed (and so did my GPA).  I’ve made little baby steps throughout the past year, but I’m definitely still a work in progress.  I still sometimes over-exercise when I think I’ve had too much, I still experience a large amount of food guilt, and I’m still incredibly hard on myself sometimes, in terms of body image, but I’m miles ahead of where I was this time last year, and my desire to be thin now has to battle with my desire to be healthy.  The two are no longer one and the same for me.

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So that’s pretty much where I’m at right now.  I know this was really long and probably incredible boring to read, but once I started writing, I found it hard to stop.  I just kind of went with it, ya know?  I’ve never actually written all of this out before, and it’s interesting to have to think it all through, and actually see where I am today, as compared to where I was in the past.  I feel like I’ve started to get my life back; I have friends again, and I’m a lot more fun to be around (at least I hope I am) now that my life doesn’t revolve around calories.  I also feel like I’ve still got a lot to learn about myself, though.  It’s like, I went so long focusing on my calorie intake that I forgot to actually pay attention to who I am as a person…does that make sense?  Almost like I skipped a couple years of developing my personality, my personal tastes.  But I’m excited to do so now!

🙂