From Darkness To Light

My story begins around middle school, when fad diets and friday night dances were motivating me to try to look good, fit in, and be asked to dance by one of those equally as awkward looking and geeky boys.  I developed early, and at fifth grade and 5’4” was a “bigger” girl, at least in my own mind.  I think I had hips and “curves” if you can call them that, but wanted that sleek, thin look that I saw on TV and in the People magazines I compulsively read.  I spent those middle school years on yo-yo diets, on one week and off the next, with no basic understanding of health but just the desire to eat vegetables and fruit only, and when that got old it was back to cookies and crap as my hormones and hunger was setting in, my hips were expanding, and my heart was latching onto this dream of having the “look,” whatever that means?  I wanted to not only look perfect, but holistically to be perfect.  Perfect body, perfect grades, perfect friendships, perfect environment, and beyond.  I wanted perfection in every area of my life and felt out of control when things were not perfect.  In hindsight I can see that this desire for perfection and ultimately control were the major driving forces that led me to this lifestyle of destruction.  

This continued throughout those middle school years, and climaxed in eighth grade when my low self-esteem, perfectionism, and poor body image reached an ultimate high, or low for that matter.  I had gotten my first B in school and I had been rejected yet again at another event and was of course best friends with the pretty girls.  

I had come to hate myself and my life.  

I did not find joy in anything, in fact I had forgotten how to enjoy life.  I didn’t laugh, I faked smiles, and was ready to end my life once and for all.  The tempting thoughts of suicide were ever present, and while I never would have taken my life I desperately wanted to and dreamed about such a sweet release into eternity with my Savior.  My relationship with Jesus was certainly not alive as noted by the lack of fruit in my life, but I knew who He was, I knew He loved me, and I knew He was good.  

I honestly do not remember how I got out of my suicidal state, maybe I blocked those months of my life out completely, but somehow I did and the move from middle school to high school was surprisingly fresh as life felt new and even somewhat exciting.  It was the fall of my freshman year, and I was absolutely floored and amazed to have been asked to the Homecoming dance by a JUNIOR!  It was my first boost of confidence and a very life-giving experience to have been “chosen” for such an occasion.  I immediately started looking for the perfect dress and landed on a beautiful royal blue, very fitted, long dress.  In hindsight I can see that the fit of this dress was the beginning of my innocent pursuit of weight loss.  

While fad dieting was nothing new for me, I had never been able to stick to a diet of any kind.  However, this desire to “look good in my new dress” was just enough of a motivator to kick start the beginning of my descent into the pit of disordered eating.  What always shocks me is how innocently this journey began.  I was a smart girl, and although somewhat brainwashed by the incessant images of unrealistically thin women in the media, I had a good head on my shoulders and excellent models of health at home and knew better than to become anorexic.  I did not decide one day that I was going to pursue this awful lifestyle, but rather slipped into it slowly and unaware until it will too late and I was in over my head.  I often refer to the slow process of a snowball effect, it started so small and was soon compounding out of control.  

It started with eating less at lunch, while my parents were not around.  That transitioned into skipping lunch all together.  Meanwhile I was slimming up just a bit and friends and family were noticing the changes in my body and complimenting me as some of those extra pounds I had put on during those awkward middle school years were shedding and I was turning out to be a decent looking young woman.  These comments and compliments were motivating, causing me to eat less and less.  The homecoming dance came and went, and instead of returning to my normal eating habits I rather enjoyed this new little hobby I had and continued skipping lunch, but also adding a smaller supper.  My stomach was shrinking and my motivation to lose more weight was growing.  It was easy to tell my parents I had a big lunch and was not very hungry while also telling my friends I was going to have a big meal at home that evening.  Lying and secrecy were the marks of the unhealthy lifestyle I was living and I can now see the threshold of when my innocent diet to lose a few pounds turned into an addiction which later turned into an obsessive monster.  

To spare the details, this snowball grew bigger and bigger each month.  By the time winter came I was getting to the point of looking unhealthy, but it was easy to hide in baggy winter clothes.  My pants were all falling off my slender sides and the basketball workouts were really wearing me out as I had little energy to run killers and practice drills when I had not eaten all day.  Around winter time I remember skipping lunch and dinner most days, completely withdrawing from all friendships at school and relationships at home to pursue this new obsession that had overtaken my mind.  I thought about food constantly, just never ate it.  More than losing weight, I loved the feeling of being in control.     

I also developed this black and white thinking about foods and only ate foods that felt safe to me, that I believed would not cause me to gain weight.  For example: Carrots- good.  Cookies- bad.  Celery- good.  Chips- bad.  Those are more obvious ones, but then somehow my mind separated every single food into these good and bad categories.  Good and safe foods for me were fruits and vegetables and cereal.  Those were the only foods I felt ok eating.  Everything was bad and harmful and destructive in my mind.  I remember after the new year I was at my lowest and eating the least that I ever had, I remember a two week span in which I think all I ate was carrots.  I don’t know that I was truly “anorexic” because most days I ate something, but I certainly was unhealthy in every way- physically, mentally, and spiritually.  

I even remember waking up in a sweat in the middle of the night after having a nightmare that I had eaten a bagel.  I became gripped with fear that I would gain the weight back and my obsession with weight and image grew stronger and stronger.  I remember the rational side of my brain, which was now only a teeny part of my decision making process, recognized how unhealthy I was, but I ignored reason and jumped fully into this addiction.  

In February of that Freshman year I remember that for lent I decided to fast from ALL unhealthy foods- fats and sugars and pop and really anything in my “bad” list.  Now I had an excuse as to why I was so picky with my eating.  I am ashamed to share that I misused a God given tool such as fasting, but I did and it worked as I kept losing more weight.  I think I plateued somewhere during this 40 day fast, and while my weight stayed the same it was certainly unhealthy.  I really did not have any more fat to lose.  I transitioned into eating three meals a day again, they were just extremely small.  I knew all of the tricks to make it look like I had eaten more than I had.  Taking very small portions, moving food around on my plate, taking teeny teeny bites, keeping food in my mouth and walking to the bathroom to spit it out.   On that note, I was never bulimic only because I couldn’t figure out how to make myself throw up.  I tried and tried, but can see the miracle it was that I physiologically could not do it. 

I also remember lying a lot.  Lying became second nature to me. 

When basketball season ended, I implemented working out into my daily lifestyle.  I played volleyball and basketball and so this was the first time during my obsessive state that I was not consistently moving my body and decided to start exersicing at the YMCA.  I would go every day after school, and this only added to my unhealthy thinking and body.  I became obsessed with the numbers as I would work out on all of those different machines.  45 minutes here.  300 calories.  3 miles.  30 minutes.  Miles.  Calories.  Minutes.  I would stare at those numbers during my entire 90 minute workout and I was slowly slipping into madness.  My perfectionism increased as I could never work out long or hard enough to satisfy my hunger for this obsessive desire to lose more weight.  1 more mile.  10 more minutes.  100 more calories.  I pushed myself beyond my limits day after day after day.  

By now people were obviously noticing the negative effects, so I broke every relationship that I could and put up walls with every single person I could not shake, namely my family.  People would try to talk to me about my body and I refused.  I lied, I pretended to smile, I faked it, and I was good.  

Meanwhile I was a very successful student and involved in every club imaginable- planning events and making more surfacy connections at school as a twisted means of my secrecy.  While my social life was seeming to increase on the surface, it was secretly decreasing the more I withdrew and hid my true self from these “new friends.”  I knew a lot of people, but never let anyone truly know me or the pain I was in as I isolated myself from the world to remain locked in a prison of my own sin.  My relationship with Jesus was non-existent, never a part of my thinking or decision making.  I was stuck in a pit and this snowball that had started so small and innocently was crushing me from the inside out.  

All spring I continued this daily routine of eating three small meals and working out.  Finally summer came and I decided to get out of my house to get my parents off my back about my weight.  I spent a few weeks in Oregon and others in Minneapolis with family, never staying anywhere long enough for my loved ones to catch on to my unhealthy eating habits.  I again was extremely successful at faking my way into looking good and healthy while secretly continuing to destroy my body. 

Fall of my sophomore year brought a few months of the same behavior and then in early November FINALLY the breakthrough I needed.  It had been a little over a year since my Homecoming incident.  I will never forget the night my life changed forever, in every way.  

I was reading the Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren and the first line read, “It is not about you.”  That was it.  That was all my spirit needed to hear in order to turn away from such a terribly selfish lifestyle.  As I write I recognize that it is only because of the grace of God that He spoke to me that night and reached down and pulled me out of this pit of sin.  Ephesians 2:8-10 comes to mind, "For it is by grace that you have been saved- through faith.  THis is not from yourself, it is the gift of God- not by works, so no one can boast.  For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do."  

I look back and see that God has good plans for my life and I was so off the path towards these plans.  "He reached down from heaven and rescued me.  He drew me out of deep waters.  He rescued me from my powerful enemies, from those who hated me and were too strong for me.  They attacked me at a moment when I was in distress, but the Lord supported me.  He led me to a place of safety.  He rescued me because he delights in me. " Psalm 18:16-19.  

This was the first time I had ever heard the voice of the Holy Spirit, and in a very gentle but firm voice I heard and felt and saw the reality of how selfish I was.  My conviction and desire to change came from a revelation as to how selfish my lifestyle had become.  It did not start with a desire to get healthy, it started with a gentle invitation and desire to stop thinking about just me because the self-absorption it takes to maintain an eating disorder is sickening.  

I remember weeping, for the first time in years because the depression, suicidal thoughts, and eating disorder had blocked my emotions and caused me to put a chain on any feeling I had.  But I wept, and it was the first sign of light after years of living in darkness.  And that was the night I gave my life to Jesus Christ.  I had hit rock bottom.  I had nothing to live for but some stupid image I saw on TV, and I was finally ready to let it go, to give up my unattainable pursuit, and to let God be my everything.  

This was 13 years ago now, and I have been healing from these mistakes and choices ever since.  I believe this year is the final cherry on top of my healing experience.  

That same night, I went and confessed to my mom that I had a problem and wanted to get help.  The next day I saw a therapist, a nutritionist, and a dr.  These appointments continued.  I also started getting involved.  After such a strong conviction about my self obsession, I had to get outside of myself.  Within the first week I started coaching 4th and 5th grade basketball, leading a small group for jr. high girls, and volunteering at an after school program at my old elementary school.  I was so sick of myself and had to get my mind on helping other people.  This was a huge part of my healing. 

I ended up going to therapy for around 18 months, trying to reset my brain as to how I looked.  It was presented to me that I had a distorted body image as I was lacking a certain chemical in my brain due to the lack of nutrients I was giving myself.  So while others would see the body size 0 waist I had, I saw a chubby girl with fat sides and a big round chipmunk face.  I literally saw something different when I looked in the mirror, and my therapist and I spent months resetting my mind to the truth about the way I looked and then the truth about what was healthy for me.  

I also went to a regular doctor to check things out as I was obviously too thin.  I had not had a menstral cycle in over a year, which is always a sign that things are not healthy.  I was informed that my muscle and bone density was extremely low because I had no fat left on my body so when I would not eat or over-exercise my body started the process of eating away at the muscles and bones.  I am again thankful I stopped when I did because while it was very unhealthy I prevented things from getting any worse and thankfully was not at a point of needing hospitalization.  

Looking back my body had gone through the following weight changes during the progression of my eating disorder.  During the fall of my freshman year I weight around 125 and at my lowest point weighed around 100.  From what I can remember, in health class we were learned about BMI and took our body fat percentage and in the beginning of the fall it was 35% and by the end of the semester was down to 12%. 

While my body had been through a lot, my mind was in much worse condition.  

My nutritionist helped me set goals for a healthy weight and get there.  My mom, nutritionist, and I all decided that it was best for me not to see my weight, so she would also weigh me backwards so I could not see the numbers.  While this was 13 years ago I kept this routine until last year when I was getting weighed consistently during my pregnancy.  I always had a hunch my healthy weight was around 125.  

I saw this nutritionist for months and she helped me stick to my goals.  I had to break down this black and white thinking where I could understand again that all food is good, just in moderation.  This took years and years of hard work.  I remember during our first appointment she asked me what I enjoyed eating, and after much thought I answered “ice cream.”  I had to take off the filter of black and white thinking I had lived with for so long and really ask myself what I enjoyed again.  She challenged me to eat 1/2 cup of ice cream a day as a starting point and I did it.  It was so indescribably painful; I would weep every single time for those first weeks and months, but I did it.  Every appointment we added another food and this process was long and lengthy, but I took her challenges and did the hard work I needed to do to gain weight.  

I finally wanted to be well.  

During these initial weeks of transition from darkness to light, my relationship with Jesus was growing every single day.  Eating ice cream and talking about my feelings was painful and vulnerable and scary.  Because I had blocked out everyone in my life I felt very alone, but in that place I learned about the precious friendship that we have with Jesus and the intimacy that is available to us with the Holy Spirit.  

I was also given my first vision. 

I specially remember sitting in my room and praying one night in that first week of my recovery.  I was praying about my body as I grieved the loss of my dream “look.”  And while I was praying, I saw myself.  Healthy.  Free.  Smiling.  Beautiful.  To this day I will never forget that vision and how I looked.  I had a red hooded sweatshirt on and jeans that FIT.  I had a healthy, round face, and the most beautiful, curly red hair I had ever seen.  To preface I had never liked my red hair, but in this vision it was beautiful and it was CURLY.  I had also never had curly hair before.  

As I prayed through what this vision meant I remember praying, “Lord, that woman is beautiful but that is not me.”  And I remember hearing a response, not audibly but deep within my soul.  This voice said, “If you obey and gain the weight you need to gain and do what the doctors are asking you to do, this will be you.”  And I can testify that after ONE YEAR of obedience, one incredibly excruciatingly painful year of giving up everything I held dear, every dream and desire I had for my body, every comfort, every unhealthy thought pattern, that my hair started to curl.  

To this day my hair is a constant reminder of God’s faithfulness, grace, and mercy. 

While my battle and healing was not complete after that one year, it was significantly better and this snowball that used to be destructive was now forming around healthier habits and pursuits.  Jesus Christ became my everything and my desire to know Him and grow in Him replaced my obsession with my body.  

This has been an ongoing process of healing, and I honestly believe I am at the final stages as I pursue health once again this year.  God is my Restorer and my Healer.  He is my only Hope.  He is Enough.  And He is good.

A picture is worth a thousand words.  

These are some images I could find of me during my freshman year of high school, when my weight was dropping quickly.  

 

It was such an interesting experience looking through these old photos while home at my parents during Christmas because I can specifically remember the pain behind these fake smiles.  While it is painful to remember these trying years of growing up, it makes me so thankful for the JOY I have found in life through Jesus Christ. 

This video perfectly illustrates my story.  I weep every single time I watch it.