Lets Get Personal: How It All Started Pt.2

If you haven't read Part 1 of my story I suggest you do to put things into context. Following my previous post I'll continue to go into depth about my disorder and journey...

My first day in my treatment center was horrifying, my parents dropped me off and once they left everything kicked in. My laptop, phone, and all other "contraband" items as they called them were taken out of my possession and given back only at night time for an hour which was our only free time. I was immediately thrown into groups where I had to discuss my issues with other girls I didn't know (there was only one other girl in the residential house when I was first admitted). I was forced to sit down at a table for every meal and snack eating with a counselor as they watched over us and made sure every single point of an ounce of our food was ingested. If the meal couldn't be completed in the 30 minute timed meal then you had to drink a supplement that added up to the same caloric/ nutritional value as the food left. If you couldn't complete that then you were forced to stay on bed rest all day and not allowed to leave because you weren't eating and therefore had no energy. It was extremely strict and there were a lot of rules, although I met some of the most beautiful and inspiring people. One happens to be one of my best friends to this day- If you're reading this I love you so dearly S.C.! These girls that I connected with changed my life and made this experience so much easier, as you can imagine a house full of girls with eating disorders was also filled with drama. I tried to stay out of it but between the 5 of us that ended up being there, there were some pretty interesting stories I will definitely be writing about at a later time. I was in the treatment center for a month, many girls end up in there for much longer. No, I was not weight restored no where near close, in fact I virtually put on NOTHING. ( I will explain weight gain, the metabolism and everything of anorexics in another post as well). The reason I left was well because I had to get back to school to insure I graduated, and my insurance stopped covering the costs of the treatment center because I was no longer medically unstable at the time. Treatment was hard, really really hard but I learned a lot from there, not so much from the cheesy counsellors who honestly had no business trying to help us because most of them had little to no experience with eating disorder patients ( SO DUMB). But from the girls, and I also learned a better understanding about health concerns and helpful tactics to stop the disordered voices and concentrate on what's real and what isn't. Although treatment for me caused some issues- it put thoughts in my head. It made me hyper focus on my disorder. In the center we had meal plans according to how much we needed to gain and I had to be re-fed and worked up to a normal diet. All of our meal exchanges gave me the impression that I had to follow it to a T.. and if I didn't then for some reason I would gain so much extra weight and everything would be unstable. It became a complete other way for me to try and control my eating habits and everything else, and it made me develop extreme anxiety around food on top of what I was already experiencing and if I was "allowed" to have things or not. Directly after my residential center I was put into a program extremely similar to my residential, just not living there. I had groups, meals, weigh-ins and meal plans. I quickly dropped out of this program. It was all women working there and it was extremely feminist, and not in a good way. One of our counselors blamed men for us women having insecurities and how it's their fault and not ours. I disagreed with this heavily and there is no other person to blame for me having an eating disorder, not even myself because it's a mental disorder that I did not chose to have and would do anything to get rid of. This was one of the many examples of the unhealthy false information I was not going to choose to hear anymore. I convinced my parents to let me leave the program because it interfered with my schooling as well. I wasn't making any progress at the time and this treatment really wasn't helping. I was doing fine for a while everything was going okay, but slowly overtime things just got really bad. I spiraled down a path of restricting my food again unconsciously. I had been dealing with a lot of stress and anxiety as I was trying to finish up all my school work and I often forgot to eat and my stomach shrunk again and before I knew it I was in a full blown relapse. This past summer was worse than ever before. I lost all weight I had gained in treatment and recovery and plummeted to my lowest weight ever, that I'm currently trying to escape from. It's extremely difficult to gain weight in recovery for many reasons and I will explain the science behind it later. I then realized once I had gotten so low that the next step was honestly giving up my life to this illness, and I wasn't willing to do that. So this time I'm doing recovery MY way. I'm working with a nutritionist and every day is a battle, but every day I get stronger and my meal plan increases. I'm so determined to get better and finally heal mentally and physically from this illness. With the help and support of my family and friends this has become possible. My lovely boyfriend (best friend) helps me daily and without him I don't know what I'd do. This illness is not glamorous and I'm beyond thankful for the love and support I've received from him and everyone else. So here I am still extremely underweight with a very large journey ahead of me, but I'm ready- for freedom and for happiness.

#anorexiarecovery #anorexia #edrecovery #recovery