Reader Recovery Stories: Grace’s Healing Journey With Anorexia

We’re all in this big world together, so I’ve opened up this space to share others stories of food freedom and true health. If it’s on your heart to share, email me at robyncoale@gmail. As a disclaimer, while these stories do not contain specific numbers, at times they do illustrate disordered eating behaviors as the story is told- if that triggers you, please take care of yourself and skip over these posts. With that said, my hope is that these stories encourage + refresh you, breathe new life into your soul, drown out lies with truth, and flood your heart with unrelenting grace. 

I graduated high school this week. Hearing my name be called as I walked across the stage was one of the most incredible feelings in my life, especially because I never expected to be alive long enough to experience that moment.

When I was four years old, I thought that I couldn’t wait to be pregnant, because then I would have an excuse for being so fat. I wish I could say that I was kidding, but my eating disorder really has been with me for most of my life. It was there in preschool, when I would knock my lunch off the table so I had less to eat. It was there in kindergarten, when I would incessantly run around the playground at recess. It was there through the awkward preteen years when overexercising was my way to cope with the body I hated so much. And it was there in high school, when simply not eating was my torture of choice. Anorexia had convinced me that I was going to die of starvation, and I had learned to be okay with that idea. Fortunately, through the power of good food, the love of friends and family, and the help of knowledgeable professionals, I was able to recover. I want others to see that life beyond an eating disorder is possible, and that you can always get better, no matter how sick you once were.

When I was very young, I was active, creative, smart, and very sensitive. My wheels were always turning. Between soccer, swimming, tennis, violin, horseback riding, acting, the school news team, and playing with friends, I was always busy. I think that’s why my eating disorder went under the radar for so long. No one would ever expect that such a happy little girl could have something so sinister going on inside. In kindergarten, I started checking my BMI online. I was consistently restricting what I ate, and made up plenty of weird rules about when and what I could eat. I started reading calorie labels, and always sucked my belly in. I think it’s important to add that no part of me was overweight. I was a very average sized kid, maybe a bit tall.

Sadly, my disordered relationship with food was not something that I outgrew. Through middle and high school, I consistently went on crash diets, spent hours working out each day, and became a great liar in order to avoid eating. I don’t have loads of great memories from my teenage years. Rather, I remember throwing up while working out on the elliptical machine, missing out on homecoming and parties because I was stuck in a treatment center (pretending to talk about my feelings (or whatever I needed to do to get out)), and spending hours looking up calorie counts on the internet. My life revolved around getting thin, and I didn’t care about what damage I did to my body in the process.

During my sophomore year of high school, things took a turn for the worse. I didn’t think that was possible, yet, they did. Of course, those around me knew that there was something very wrong. I was losing weight rapidly, and using my busy schedule to hide how little I was eating. My parents, therapist, and doctor tried to get me to eat, but I was so determined to keep starving myself that I refused to listen to them.

I kept at this for awhile. Everyday, I had to deal with the headaches, body pain, dizziness, and low blood pressure that came along with starvation. One would think that these symptoms would be enough to convince me to eat, but really, it took the loss of someone very close to me to make me even consider the idea.

If you asked me to describe the summer before my senior year, I would tell you, “walking the line between dead and alive.” I was eating, but not enough. I was working out, but far too much. I appeared healthy, but was really quite ill. One night, I received a panic phone call from my friend, Nicole. Anytime you get a call at 2 in the morning, it’s safe to assume that something is wrong. Through tears, she told me that a dear friend, Will, who I was at a particularly bad hospital with, had died. He was only 21 years old, and had his life ahead of him, yet his eating disorder ripped away his chance to grow up. After getting off the phone, I cried. Honestly, I more than cried. I sobbed. I laid in the bed, wept for my friend, and didn’t fall back asleep. I felt like anorexia was coming to take me too. I had planned to get up at 6, go for a bike ride, jump in the pool, take a shower, and weigh myself, as always, but losing Will awoke a much greater desire in me: to live. I hate to call it an epiphany, but that’s what it was. I realized that if I didn’t recover, I could be the next to die.

Since that fateful morning, things haven’t been a walk in the park. In fact, recovering from my eating disorder has been the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I’e learned that the only way to make the mean voice in my head go away is to eat, and that compromising with anorexia is no way to live. Today, I enjoy food, cooking, baking, moving my body, spending time with friends, and building a life outside of my eating disorder. I’m at a healthy weight, and consider myself to be fully recovered. I have been able to share my story with those suffering, and hopefully offered hope that recovery is 100% possible. Sometimes, I find myself eating chocolate, or ice cream, or french fries, and I think, am I really the same girl who almost starved to death? It all seems so distant for me.

If you, as a reader, ever decide to try not eating as a way to lose weight, please stop yourself. This won’t give you happiness; it will give you pain and loss. If you’re currently struggling, please know that food is the best medicine. Happy days are coming again. In the future, you will be so happy that you won’t even remember the days where you were too sick to get out of bed. You have to eat. That’s the only way to make this better. Be honest with your treatment team, don’t negotiate with your eating disorder, and let people help you. I believe in you! You’ve got this.

Thank you for sharing your heart Grace! You guys can read more about Grace where she blogs at bravegirlthriving.com