I mentioned yesterday that I thought anorexia was more of an addiction than anything else.  I think this is a good description for it.  If you asked me if there was an “AHA!” moment where I realized my wife had a problem, I would tell you no.  It was more of a realization across many months.  When she started losing weight, it did become an obsession.  There was one summer I think she could have been diagnosed with exercise bulimia.  However, things would come and go and when I thought there was a problem it would disappear. 

Therefore, I think I always knew there could be a problem, but I don’t think I ever saw the problem develop in the way it was actually there.  It’s like seeing your child grow six inches.  You don’t really see it happen, because you see the kid every day.  However, if you were to look at one picture next to another, it would be very evident.  I think that’s where it was.  She slowly widdled away things she was allowed to do, allowed to eat, not allowed to do/eat.  I saw the slow progression, knew something was happening, but never could see the “forest for the trees”.  Anyway, the following are her words:

It’s embarrassing, first of all. It’s completely embarrassing to me that I let myself get so wrapped up in something as trivial as my appearance that I let it hurt me and my husband so very much. It’s embarrassing that I hold myself out to be this strong, independent woman and that I let a stupid number on a scale dictate my life for so long. There are people out there with REAL problems—cancer, infertility, financial troubles, AIDs—and I am worried about being skinny? I focused my days on whether I was the skinniest person in the room and if I wasn’t, I was a failure (and by the way, I could NEVER always be the skinniest person in the room. So that was a good yardstick for success. Way to set yourself up for disappointment.) It’s truly embarrassing. But if I have learned one thing in recovery, it is that I am far from alone in this. I am a statistic. So many people struggle with this issue and I thought that maybe if I made my story known, other people would realize that they (or someone they know) have a problem and can fix it before it gets unfixable.

For the record, I know that to someone who has never struggled with this, eating disorders seem extremely selfish. I’m not disagreeing with you. Prior to developing one myself, I always thought that people with eating disorders were selfish and that all they would have to do is start eating. Yes, at their core, eating disorders are selfish—they are about control and being the best and worrying about yourself and your looks more than anything else. But they are NOT as easy as “just eat.” You would never think that treating alcoholism is as easy as “just stop drinking” so I’m not sure why people think that it is that easy with eating disorders. So forgive me for being so slow in my recovery—but it was hard.

The Beginning 

So I guess I’ll start from the beginning? I was a nice chunkster in High School. Not a big old fatty but I had some girth to me. It was my own fault: I ate french fries and cheese sticks for lunch every.single.day. I had breakfast tacos multiple times a week and ate a ton at one sitting for dinner. I was just unhealthy. When I went away to college, I remained unhealthy…college food sucked and the only thing I liked in the cafeteria was grilled cheese and french fries…for every meal.

Then, for some reason, I decided I wanted to lose weight. My mom and I started Weight Watchers. For the record, I think Weight Watchers is a FANTASTIC program that really focuses on healthy weight loss. I did, in fact, lose a healthy amount of weight and at the point where I reached a healthy weight, they told me to stop losing weight. I just didn’t listen. So anyway, over the course of 1-2 years (junior & senior year of college), I lost about 40 pounds and was really feeling good about myself.

Then that sweet, baby-face boy proposed to me. And I decided that I wanted to lose just a couple more pounds before the wedding. I remember counting calories very closely but I never went without eating—I just ate as healthy as I could. For the most part, I was just in shape that day.

I had spent the summer working out with a trainer so that I’d be nice and toned on my wedding day. I look at that picture now and I remember how proud I was of how I looked: I had worked hard and I finally felt really, really pretty. If only I could have frozen that moment in time and left it at that.