*Trigger warning for eating disorder mentions
Sometimes a worst-case scenario can lead to a life-changing opportunity. This was the case for Kimberly Neil, ‘17, when she wrote a poem titled “A Letter to My Former Self (And Those Like Me)”. She vented her frustrations about diet culture and the romanticization of eating disorders; she herself had been struggling with one for years. Kim posted the poem to tumblr, where it picked up thousands of notes and was found by Proud2BMe, an online community for young people to promote positive body image and healthy lifestyles. One opportunity led to another; a year after being hospitalized, Kim is now a contributing writer for Proud2BMe, and attended the National Eating Disorders Association conference in San Diego, California, held this past September.
What do you do in your role at Proud2BMe?I’m a contributing writer, so I can either go off of what’s “hot” in the news, or if I have a story idea I can email my editor. She’ll decide if it’s appropriate, and I’ll write it.
What’s the best thing that has come from your position?We got an email in July about the 2015 National Eating Disorders Association conference, and they have so many scholarships each year. They give preference to first-time attendees, but just by being a writer they told us directly about it and gave us a link to apply. It wasn’t a guarantee, but I applied, and I got it.
What was the convention like?It was so amazing. There were people who had been personally affected by an eating disorder, friends and family of someone recovering, and people for advocacy and activism, which is what I was there for. There were also treatment providers: people with PhD’s, doctors, people who do research. It was everyone together.
What did you do there?They let us pick and choose sessions when we registered, but when we got there we found that it was pretty flexible, so we could go to something mentioned in the pamphlet if it stood out. I went to a panel on neurobiology. Of course it was mostly people with PhD’s and it was super jargon-y, but it was inclusive in all spaces.
What is recovery to you?It’s a process. I think the biggest thing that I got support for at the conference was the idea that having an eating disorder is on-going. Full recovery is possible, but a lot of researchers don’t believe it. The end goal is a happy ending, but the way it’s presented in the media is very after-school special. Any teenage TV show has someone who has an eating disorder, and their friend finds out, and they’re forced to go to therapy, and they come out and they’re cured. It’s black-and-white, simple. That hasn’t been the story for me; I think it’s on-going baby steps.
What would you say to someone who is struggling with recovery?It’s important to realize that people care about you. [Your eating disorder] becomes the most important thing in your life, and it can make you feel like you don’t have friends or that people aren’t there for you, when in reality they are. It’s okay to ask for help. You’ll find help in unexpected places; I’ve had professors or faculty members here that were super supportive. That’s something that your disorder will make you feel isn’t a possibility, because it will constantly encourage you to lie and keep up that facade of being a perfectionist and having everything together. When you’re at rock bottom with your eating disorder, you’re so attached to the idea of coming across as perfect. You don’t have to be perfect in recovery. . .