Womanly Wednesday: A Guest Post On Eating Disorders And Second Chances

Thanks for stopping by for this week’s Womanly Wednesday!  This is one of my favorite parts of the week where different women bravely and vulnerably share their stories. This week, we have the honor of hearing from a lovely new blogging friend named Liz.  Liz writes about marriage, motherhood, and life over at Sundays With Sophie, and her blog is definitely one you need to add to your must-read list!   I love how bravely and honestly she is sharing about her journey of wrestling with an eating disorder, and I have a feeling you will too.  

Hi, I’m Liz!  This is what you know about me, mama to Sophie, and wife to Kyle.  I’m the sole writer of Sundays with Sophie.  Mama by day, blogger by night and wife on the weekend.  But, here’s something you don’t know about me.  Something that I haven’t talked about before, something I’m bravely telling the world.  I’ve suffered from both Anorexia Nervosa.  It happened quickly and quietly.  This is my story.

I celebrated by 21st birthday like many of my friends, drinking heavily and partying all night.  I had just broken up with a long-term boyfriend (remember him, he’s important to the story) and I was out with friends who were all single.  We were ready to party and have fun.  What started as just a simple night out, became a bar hopping, shot-taking, alcohol induced night and I spent the next week doing that exact same thing.  But my drinking is not the point of this post, the aftermath is.

Because of the intense drinking I had done the week of my birthday, I began feeling ill and sick.  I begin to lose my appetite, suffer from nausea and vomiting and heartburn.  I ignored the symptoms and continued about my life; thinking it would go away and that it couldn’t be that serious.  I also had lost some of the pesky weight that I had been meaning to lose.  Why fix a problem when it was helping me?  It wasn’t until a friend forced me to go to the doctor that I found out that I had an ulcer.  With medication the ulcer issue was resolved, but not my will to lose the weight.

My stress was high: my ex and I were fighting over everything, I found out he cheated on me during our relationship.  His reason?  I wasn’t pretty enough or skinny enough.  This weighed heavily on my mind.  I was also worried I wouldn’t graduate from college and I felt like my life wasn’t going the way I wanted.  It was so easy for me to slip into my bad habits again, overexercising and cutting foods.  These were the two things that I could control in my life. And in two months I lost 26 lbs, plummeting from 106 to 80 lbs.

I went from looking healthy and happy to sick and weak, despite this, I forced myself to keep exercising.  I got it into my head that my ex would take me back if I was just skinnier.  My ex was a piece of work, we’ll just leave it at that.  I had lost parts of my hair, ribs were poking out, I could cut someone with how pointy my hip bones were, and I was so weak.  I didn’t even want to get out of bed some days, but I would and make myself sicker.

That was 2012.  After hitting rock bottom in December 2012, I finally accepted that I needed help.  Thankfully my one greatest trait helped me out after nearly destroying me (I have determination and strong willed, it’s what caused me to lose the weight) and I was determined to become healthy again.  I think it was my vanity that saved me, I couldn’t stand how much hair I had lost and the bald patches I had gained when I lost the weight.  By February 2013 I had gained 10 lbs and while I was still underweight I started looking healthy again and started feeling happier again.

I met Kyle in March 2013 and was honest with him that I was still recovering.  He was supportive, loving, and so sweet about everything.  Kyle was main reason I wanted to stay healthy, and my daughter Sophie is the reason I’ve stayed healthy two years later.  Kyle didn’t judge me for my past.  He didn’t understand the severity of the problem, but he knew that I needed someone to lean on and that was the most important role I needed when we first met.

I struggled during my pregnancy though.   Seeing the numbers climb on the scale and accepting the fact that it was needed were two very hard facts to accept.  The small body I had gotten used to was now larger than ever, every rib that had been poking out was now swallowed by the cushion my body had created for Sophie, half of my pregnancy was spent fighting an internal battle of gaining weight and not gaining weight.  I did gain the necessary weight and was actually very healthy throughout my pregnancy.  I wanted to, Sophie gave me a reason to live, to be a mother.

Two years later it’s still a struggle.  Anorexia is not an addiction, but it may as well be one.  It’s not something that just goes away, it weighs heavily on my mind.  Some days I don’t eat at all.  Others I eat far too much and feel just as guilty.  Sophie has been a big motivator for me to stay on track, but losing weight and being skinnier still pops up frequently.  What I can say is that I’m still “healthy” and I’m not currently restricting or overexercising I still fight everyday to be healthy.  To be a wife and to be a mother.