On [my] Eating Disorder

**Disclaimer: This reveals some painful things that have happened; though I tried to be vague.**

     "Why would you be anorexic? You're already really skinny." Four years ago, this was the MOST frustrating phrase I had ever heard. It wasn't about being skinny at all, it was about control in a way, but it was about so much more than that....
     Four years I ago I was 18 years old. Four years ago I was spending a lot of time at one of my pastor's houses - one might even say that I was living there. Four years ago I was torturing myself and had been for about seven years. Four years ago I had pushed my body so far that anytime I tried to eat something that was more than 1 or 2 bites I'd get sick - nausea and vomitting. It was bad. And I know why I did it. For awhile I lived in fear - fear of messing up because less than perfect resulted in harrassment and taunting and on some days being told how disappointing that was, fear of messing up becuase when someone else did I somehow got blamed for it; fear of being noticed because for awhle that generally meant I was getting in trouble; fear of being rejected because I wanted to feel like there was something about me that deserved attention; fear of sleep for nightmares -- real and imagined; fear of crying because when I did, whether from a physical or emotional hurt I got told it didn't hurt, I shouldn't feel that way. This (and maybe even a little more) had me telling myself that I wasn't good enough and my feelings; my emotions were wrong - no matter what they were. So I did my best to toughen up and in doing so, I successfully began to kill myself - though I didn't realize that's what was going on.
     So what did I think toughen up meant? It meant when I was hurting to keep silent; when I had an opinion to keep silent, when I was excited about something to keep silent (though that one was always difficult to do). So I punished myself for hurting, for keeping silent, or for letting it be known, I punished myself for speaking my opinion, but then I punished myself for keeping silent as well. I tried to force myself to not show emotion - I wanted to be a stone, I wanted to be a robot, I didn't want to show my emotion though on the other hand I desperately needed to. So when I did, I wrote poems and when I failed in becoming stone, I decided I didn't deserve to eat. But, when I succeeded in it, I needed to feel the hunger pangs to know I was still there.
     Sometime in junior high, my older brother made a comment when I said I wasn't hungry. He asked me, "what did you eat, an ice cube?" I got so angry - but I was angry that he noticed and I was angry that he was calling me out. So I called him a jerk and got sent to my room. I don't remember him ever saying anything else about it - but then I tried to figure out new ways to conceal it. I often times skipped lunch in jr. high and high school and a few people would ask about it and I would tell them I had a big breakfast, which was pretty much never true, or that I wasn't feeling well. It got easier to hide my Senior year when I committed social suicide and most of my friends stopped talking to me. But I always had it under control...right?
     Fast forward the year after high school, a tragic event and a move and I started getting scared. My body had to be shutting down. The family I was living with often had me eat dinner with them and I hardly touched my food, but at this point it was because food was making me sick. I broke down at some point and talked to Mrs. K and told her about my eating disorder and she said she thought so- apparently it's not so easy to hide when you're around the same people a lot. I started going to CR, which didn't really help anything, moved back in with a friend and then started staying at my pastor's house. When I told him what was going on -and he looked me straight in the eyes and said "You are killing yourself."
     No one had ever told me that - and I believed him whole heartedly. We started talking about it and working through what was going on; and I started to be more open about it with other people as I got better. And somewhere along the way, I stopped talking about it because the response was "Why would you be anorexic? You're already skinny."  So all of that brings me to the REAL purpose of this post....
     While I believe whole heartedly that people who are seeking to be skinny end up convincing themselves that the best and quickest way to achieve that is through starving or purging, in my experience the issues are deeper than that and they get overlooked. If you are trapped in an eating disorder, please talk to your pastor, a counselor, a family member, a friend or even me! Please don't allow yourself to get to the point where your body physically rejects food! There is SO much more for you here and I am thankful God allowed me to see that and that He brought people into my life to help. If you don't feel like you have someone in your life to help you with it, seriously - contact me. God has brought me through it and shown me how much MORE there is and how much MORE I was missing because I was trapped in my own self-destructive habits.
     Through the gospel, counseling, and way too many nasty smoothies (because it was one of the only things I could keep down for awhile - I'm so thankful I didn't have to go to the hospital), God has shown me what my life is worth. He has shown me true, unconditional love through Christ Jesus. Jesus loved me enough to take God's wrath for me that I may live - He did the same thing for you! Let that impact your heart and impact your life.
      2 Corinthians 5:21 says "For our sake [God] made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God." God sent Jesus, the PERFECT Son of Man to live a life we could not live - one that was perfect and completely, 100% in line with God's good and perfect will and to die a torturous, wrathful death that Christ didn't deserve so that WE could have an eternal relationship with God the Father!
      John 3:16-17 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. ¹⁷ For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him."  This is how MUCH God loves us! He sacrificed His own Son in order for us to have a relationship with Him!
      Romans 10:9 "if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved"

Please, read this and again, I urge you, if you are suffering from an eating disorder go talk to someone and if you feel like you don't have anyone to talk with - talk to me.

     It hasn't always been an easy journey to recovery from anorexia, and it is something that I still fight 4 years later. But God has brought me so much joy and happiness since fighting through it, that I NEVER want to go back. Through this He has brought me closer to Him, He has taught me that I am important and significant - I matter, He showed me that there are people, even strangers, who care about me enough to help me get better, He has brought me through the toughest storms I've had to face yet and He brought me through to better things. I am joyful on most days [I'm still human], God has blessed me with a wonderful husband, I now have 2 great jobs that I love, am surrounded by MORE LOVE and COMPASSION than I ever thought was possible, and (even though it wasn't my goal) I weigh less now than I did then...and I eat more. In fact, I now take eating for granted and LOVE eating, oh my goodness do I ever - especially cookies :p Four years ago, I couldn't eat an IN N OUT burger because it made me sick, yesterday I ate one without thinking twice AND THEN had animal fries and I took it for granted until God laid it on my heart to write this.

     Seriously girls/ladies, if God is starting to pull you out - reach out to someone. They can only guess what you're going through, you need to make it known and seek help. You won't get better by wishing someone will notice, you need to take action. Please, don't end up in the hospital because of it or fearing for your life because of it.


 - So maybe this was all a little too personal, my apologies if it made you uneasy - but being someone who has been through it, and who has come to the realization that I will probably always be fighting agianst it in some way - I just want to help others going through it and fighting against it. If this helps one person, I am grateful.