This is the story of how the Being Me Series came to be. At the age of thirty eight, married with three kids, I could look back at that time and tap into all the feelings and see how tragic I felt and reflect on what it took to heal. The series is a fiction series about a college co-ed named Amanda who becomes anorexic and fights to find herself again.
Amanda’s path mimics my experience. I wrote the series for several reasons, to give hope to those struggling with mental illness, to explain a disease that is incomprehensible to most, and to show others fighting that they’re not alone and it’s worth it.
My Why I Began Writing… A recovery from anorexia
At the age of nineteen as a college sophomore, I became depressed. On the outside it looked like I had everything together. I had a great friend group, wonderful roommate, I’d finally gotten the hang of studying, and in my eyes my grades were solid. But under the surface things weren’t so good. I got into a bad relationship that brought up old trauma and had pressure from my parents to make better grades.
Then another relationship went south. But I wasn’t one to wallow. I had all the answers and decided, at a weight of 118 lbs (I am 5’4”), I was too heavy and that was the problem. If I looked better surely I would feel better, right? I started working out and watching what I ate.
And it worked. I felt better, or so I told myself. And I got tons of attention and compliments. Within three and a half months I went from 118 lbs to 93 lbs and I looked magnificent. I was skinny and cut and loving life. No matter that the guy I thought I loved was half-way around the world or that my parents still didn’t think my grades were good enough after I made Dean’s List, all that mattered was that I looked better.
I knew how to keep it up as well. I spent my summer not eating and exercising and by the time fall rolled around I basically looked like a walking skeleton. Only I couldn’t see it. In my mind I still looked like I weighed 120. Which, by the way, is perfectly great for someone at 5’4” tall.
One evening, I sat in my dorm starving to death and decided I needed to eat. I had a big test and eating something would give me the strength I needed to study. The only problem was that by this time I had programmed my mind to think eating was bad. Still, I ignored the voices in my head and popped open a can of chunk chicken (don’t ask why), ate a few bites, and something bad happened.
My heart started racing and then my heart rate plummeted. I counted the beats, twenty in one minute. This was not good. Fortunately, I had friend upstairs who drove me to the medical facility on campus. Heart rate still all over the place, I felt as though I were dying. And you know what the doctor said to me? That they couldn’t help me, that I’d done this to myself.
Harsh. And not true. Yes, I started out “in control” of my dieting but it took on a life of its own. I couldn’t stop the thoughts in my head that told me I needed to starve to stay skinny anymore than I could make the earth stop spinning. Eating disorders, depression, anxiety, and other mental illnesses are serious diseases.
The next day after talking to a counselor I dropped out of school and entered a recovery center. I would later learn that I weighed 72 lbs the night I checked in. Probably if I hadn’t of gone to the medical facility that night I would have died.
So I began a treatment program for anorexia nervosa. I had to train myself to eat again and deal with the depression that I’d masked for the past year. After in-patient treatment, a thirty day recovery program, lots of therapy, and volunteering on a recovery floor, I got an apartment and restarted my life with a job and part-time college classes at another university.
It took me the better part of five years to work through my issues and recover from my mental illness. But I did it because I didn’t want to go back and I didn’t want to die.
If you’re struggling now, please reach out to someone. Get help. You’re worth it.
Some mental health resources:
National Eating Disorders Association
National Institute of Mental Health Links and Resources
XO, Tricia
