Overcoming an eating disorder at Wake Forest

I cannot recall the exact moment I began to spiral out of control, or if there was a day when I was not consumed by thoughts of food. I considered my eating disorder to be derived from the aftermath of my friend’s suicide, although I was already suffering from many issues that no doubt contributed to such behavior.

If I were to tell you what I did most during the summer before my sophomore year, it would be running. Physically, I worked myself to the brink. Mentally, I exercised control over my thoughts via substance abuse and adrenaline highs. It was inevitable that I would eventually fixate on my eating habits, employing any measure of control to restrict my diet.

The first time I purged, it was followed by an exhilarating endorphin rush. I was addicted and I didn’t care. It wasn’t until the school year came around that I began to feel frightened: I was submitting myself to excessive abuse, a daily regime of binging and vomiting that produced lesions on my skin and blood in my spit.

As autumn rolled around, I desperately tried to stop. I managed to persevere for days believing that I would make it, although what would elicit a change in my behavior was not some stressful experience but rather the abrupt, panicked thought that this normal state could not possibly endure.

Depression engendered fatigue and I no longer believed myself worthy of saving.  My friends began to notice my hollowed husk of a body, that I would disappear after meals and smuggle food into my room in an effort to appease the ache in my stomach.

With their urging and support, I eventually sought counseling in the spring of sophomore year. I confessed to my counselor that perhaps I wasn’t afraid of bulimia: perhaps I was afraid that I liked it. However, speaking my thoughts out loud, tasting their weight on my tongue, was cathartic. Releasing them from my mind set me free, delivering myself from the false insistence of paranoia.

This was not to say that the road to recovery was easy. The first 48 hours were torture. My stomach was not used to carrying food for longer than an hour and I felt distended and bloated as each second passed. I considered myself weak and pathetic, wallowing in self-pity until I succumbed to sleep.

Yet when I woke the next morning, I was victorious. I clung to my triumph with grimaced smiles and willed myself to keep the streak. The name of the game was coping, and I became fluent in its mechanisms. I learned how to quiet the monsters in my head, drowning their cacophony with music and writing and running and laughter.

Although bulimia scarred and transformed my body, I refused to let my struggle define myself. I did not want to be perceived as a victim, nor did I want to subsist on a lifestyle of cautious recovery. I was hungry for life, instilled with a new, fierce energy. I discovered love for myself.

Absence of fear revealed a new truth in its place: recovery does not get easier… you simply grow stronger. My body is a lesson in healing; now I am getting to know myself anew. Recovery is a journey, one that I hope will evolve into growth, a process I aspire to share with others.

To everyone in this beautiful, ruthless, fierce world that suffers from eating disorders, from body negativity, from low self-esteem, from image distortion – you are not alone.

Forgive yourself – love yourself; there is nothing more exaltedly human to behold.

We are wild creatures, passionate and savage and reckless and real, and although we often break, we will always endure.

This is part two of a two-part series from The Tab Wake Forest about eating disorders at Wake Forest, in honor of WellBeing Week. The first part, another student’s narrative, can be found here.