Most kids going into their freshman year of college utilize their last month at home by finishing up dorm shopping (or starting it in a panic), spending as much time as possible with friends and family, and enjoying their last days of no work or worry. My last month of summer was anything but.
I have struggled with an eating disorder for the past two and a half years. The summer going into my freshman year, I reached my lowest weight. I am a 5’7 female whose normal and healthy weight should be around 140. Two years ago, I was 165 pounds, but two months ago I was 108, strutting the beach with protruding ribs, a hollow face whiter than printer paper, and empty eyes that had once been like a deep blue ocean filled with mystery and hope for the future. That was gone when I was a size double zero. People used to describe me as bubbly and personable, but there was no space within me for happiness; I kept my malnourished mind and body a safe distance from everyone and everything I once loved. I starved myself of nutrients, hope and love so drastically that my heart couldn’t take it. Literally. With five weeks left of summer, I was admitted to Connecticut Children’s Medical Center for severe bradycardia. My heart rate, compared to the normal 60-70 beats per minute, fell to 28. One weekend I was running 5k’s and eating celery, and the next thing I knew I was on bed rest being forced to eat over 2,000 calories a day. I hadn’t eaten even 1,000 calories in a single day in the past two years. I was supposed to be in the hospital for three weeks, but my parents came to my rescue and fought tooth and nail to get me out. It is not that the doctors weren’t trying to help me, but they weren’t treating me. At least, not how a mental illness should be treated.
The common misconception of eating disorders is that they are only a physical disease. People think once someone has admitted to having one, they should be able to eat a sit down meal and begin stabilizing their weight.
That is NOT how it works.
An eating disorder is all mental; it just so happens to affect its victims physically as well. The hospital, in a way, dehumanized me. I was stripped of all things that brought me pleasure. I was on best rest, I was not allowed to watch TV, read, have my phone, draw, color, play games, or even have anyone in the room besides one parent. My sister,who is my best friend, couldn’t even visit me. There was a nurse who sat outside my door 24/7 to watch me, and had to unhook me from a machine so I could get out of bed and stick their foot in the bathroom door every time I had to pee. (I have the bladder of a squirrel, so that happened A LOT.) I spent the first 32 hours at CCMC staring at a blank wall… and no one cared. I had a mental breakdown after my first morning there, kicking and thrashing in the bed so aggressively that my heart rate reached 150 and a parade of doctors and nurses came rushing in.
Eventually, since I had been obedient and ate all of the horribly disgusting hospital food that they put in front of me, they gave me the privilege of reading. The reward system that the hospital created out of food may have helped me to gain weight, but it destroyed me mentally. I cried more in my week at the hospital than I had in the last year. Eventually, every time someone brought a tray to my room, meaning it was mealtime, my chest would tighten, my mouth would close off, and it took everything in me not to cry. My mom, who wrote her dissertation on Eating Disorders, my father, who held my mother when her heart stopped beating from anorexia, my therapist, and even my mother’s therapist, all wanted me out of room 526 of floor seven at Connecticut Children’s. So what felt like eons later (only seven days) and after arguing with doctors and therapists and dieticians for three days, I was finally able to leave CCMC and go home.
But my whirlwind of a summer did not stop there. I spent one week at home after that, sticking to my meal plan and religiously meeting with doctors, therapists, and dieticians. I was doing really well. Then, my doctor handed my father a letter that said she would not allow me to start college in the fall if I did not go to an in-patient facility to be treated for my eating disorder; and if I did not comply, they would call DCF on my family for medical negligence.
I was screwed.
So a week after coming home from the hospital, I repacked my bags and jumped on the ferry to the Center for Discovery in The Hamptons. At this point, it looked very unlikely that I would be able to start college in the fall. I love school, and college has always been my dream. I cannot remember a time where I looked forward to something more than Sacred Heart University. So the chance that I would not be able to begin living that dream was heartbreaking for me. And what was even scarier for me was the environment I would be living in; not starting school and going home in the fall to an empty house with nothing to occupy my time was a recipe for relapse. They were setting me up for failure, but no one could see that besides me and my family. Shipping me to a house in The Hamptons for recovery was not the solution for me. However, I must backtrack, as my time in The Hamptons was one of the best eating disorder treatments I have received. Ultimately, it was just timing that had made me so anxious and against being at The Center for Discovery. I was only there for a week, the shortest amount of time anyone has ever stayed there. By the time I got home, I had five days with my family before moving to Park Avenue for the next four years.
I used up all of my tears before moving into Sacred Heart University, so although I was sad to leave my family, the waterworks I was expecting never came. It was the third time in the last four weeks I had packed my things and said goodbye to my family; and the first two times weren’t my choice. So coming to Sacred Heart University was an absolute blessing. I left my family with a smile radiating from my face for the first time in… well, I can’t remember the last time I had smiled that brightly. I had the chance for a new start. I was finally leaving my parents willingly. No IV or heart rate monitor were strapping me down, no supervisor was telling me when I had to wake up, eat, sleep or shower. Coming to Sacred Heart, I felt like I could finally breathe. I could finally be me. I was free. So no, I did not cry when my parents left. I smiled, because I knew, and deep in my heart I knew they knew as well, that I would be fine.
Although the statistics show that most people with eating disorders plummet in college, I began thriving. And I am not going to lie, there are some days that are much harder than others, and perhaps I do not eat as much as I should. There are days where I am working out at Bobby Valentine and I start thinking about how many calories I am burning and how many calories I ate that day. If I am at 63’s, I sometimes catch myself studying the ingredients and calorie count on the cards of each item.
My eating disorder will always be a part of me. I know that. I know the voice is never going to be completely silent. But I can catch it now. I can tell that voice to shut up. Even here at Sacred Heart, there are days where I sit down to eat and my body physically will not let me. But that is okay. That is part of recovery. But going into Freshman year with an eating disorder, I found that you need to challenge yourself, but you also need to let go of structure and allow yourself to live.
So if you are reading this, either because you have an eating disorder and need to feel understood, or just wanted to learn more, thank you. And know that you are understood. We all feel second best sometimes. We all feel fat and worthless sometimes. But we are not. We are exactly who God intended us to be. We are all beautiful in our own ways. And to feel beautiful, we need to believe we are beautiful. Next time you look in the mirror, say “I am beautiful.” Say it out loud. Tell yourself that you are great. If you do this, I guarantee you, the next time you look in the mirror, you’ll love yourself a little but more than the last. I have only been in college for six weeks, but I think I have learned the most important lesson any girl could wish to be taught; You define your own beauty. You define your own worth.
So you know what I say to my eating disorder? You have no control over me. I am beautiful, and no one else can tell me otherwise.