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 book 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, first, to give hope to those struggling with mental illness, second, to explain a disease that is incomprehensible to most, and third, 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 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 height of 5’4” and weight of 118 lbs, I was too heavy. If only I’d lose some weight and become toned and fit, that would my life would be better. 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 months I weighed in at 93 lbs and I looked magnificent. I was skinny, 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 maintain my great body, too. 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”. My parents forced me to go to a therapist and I lied. I lied about what I ate, I lied about how much I exercised, I lied about being depressed. I lied to protect my bubble, the bubble where nothing bad happened.
One evening, I sat in my dorm starving to death, trembling from low blood sugar, 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 I’d programmed my mind to think eating was bad. Still, I ignored the voices in my head and popped open a can of chunk chicken and ate a few bites. Unfortunately my body didn’t know how to process food anymore and trying to digest even simple chicken required more energy than I had.
My heart rated raced and then plummeted. I counted the beats, twenty in one minute. This wasn’t good. Fortunately, I had friend upstairs who drove me to the medical facility on campus. Heart rate out of control one minute and barely there the next, images blurred, words garbled, I felt as though I were falling into an abyss. And what the doctor said to me? That they couldn’t help me, that I’d done this to myself.
Harsh. And true but 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 any more than I could make the earth stop spinning. I did need help because I couldn’t help myself. That doctor couldn’t help me, but there were others that could. Eating disorders, depression, anxiety, and other mental illnesses are serious diseases. Diseases that kill people. But I was determined to fight.
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. 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 three 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
