My Journey with an Eating Disorder
My struggles with food began at the fragile age of thirteen. It’s the age when you’re officially a teenager, but not quite done with being a child. The age when your parents provide you with a little unsupervised freedom and independence. It’s the time when you discover how far your newly allowed independence will take you and how much you can get away with before you get in trouble. It’s a time when you start becoming self-aware and self-conscious. It’s also the time when friendships start to get complicated. With all of this change going on at one time, it’s easy to understand how one can easily become confused when starting to navigate one of the most trying periods in life.
I had just started middle school. I was struggling to navigate the overwhelm of having to get up earlier than before, managing the expectations of multiple teachers, the new and challenging homework load and keeping my friends from elementary school, and it wore on me. In addition to my new educational obligations, my home responsibilities changed. I was expected to start dinner, pick up around the house, make sure my siblings did their chores and homework, and somehow figure out how to get my homework started and finished. Adding insult to misery, I was starting to be bullied more than I had been previously. I was called ugly, strange and fat. This started to weigh heavily on me. I was depressed and I became suicidal. I felt I had no control over anything in my life. However, there was one thing I could control. My food intake.
I started to skip breakfast and eat very little for lunch. Since I was responsible for starting or making dinner it was easy to eat less of that too. Over time I would skip lunch as well. I didn’t have an eating disorder, not a diagnosable one anyway, just yet. I was struggling, but I started to turn a corner freshman year of high school. I was beginning to manage all of my responsibilities, friends and frenemies. I was in a good place mentally – for a split second.
The summer before my freshman year of high school I came across a pair of my mom’s old bellbottom jeans. I’d seen pictures of her wearing them when she was in high school. I took the liberty of trying them on, and they were a little tight. My mom saw me try them on, and I remember her exact words, “You know, if you drop a few pounds you’ll probably be able to fit them”. While I probably wasn’t overweight, those words stuck with me and tipped me over the edge. Before the end of my freshman year of high school, I was anorexic. By the time I graduated from high school I was eating less than one meal a day and using all the usual tactics to hide the fact that I wasn’t eating. Tricks like spending all my time in my room, at work, or sleeping to cover the fact that food was the enemy. While I think my parents might have had an inkling, they didn’t press too many buttons when it came to my eating. As long as they saw me eat something once a day, I was good.
Going away to college probably saved me from death by eating disorder. During my four years of college I was able to develop and cultivate friendships that helped me to work through a lot of my food issues. My friends who were aware of my disorder made sure that I ate more than once a day. By the time I graduated I was under the assumption that I had a good relationship with food. This was an incorrect assumption.
When I graduated from college I didn’t have a job lined up and I moved back home. This was not something I wanted to do but did anyway. Moving back home taught me a few things, I learned that I didn’t belong in Colorado. It isn’t that Colorado isn’t a nice place to live, but my personality is such that I don’t fit in or belong there. Another thing I learned is that my family dynamic was such that the stress and pressure I was feeling to get a job and move out was so intense that I began to resent my parents again. The most important thing I learned was that without my support system present and holding me accountable, it was very easy to slip back into not eating. While I wasn’t as bad as I had been during my adolescence, I was heading down that path again. I also learned that my direct interactions with others, or my physical environment were no longer primary factors when it came to my struggles with food and eating. While they still played a slight role, they weren’t the triggers they once were. Now it was I that was the primary trigger. I’d look in a full-length mirror and while everyone would see a pretty, slim young woman, I’d see a short, overweight lady who had no proper fitting clothes. Now, in addition to anorexia, I had developed body dysmorphia. This realization didn’t come overnight, in fact it wouldn’t come until almost a decade later.
After moving from Colorado to Pennsylvania and then to New York, I started falling into old patterns. I’d eat as little as possible, but enough to say I’d eaten. Unlike some with anorexia, I avoided the scale (still do) and would let my pants tell me if I’d gained weight or not. However, when I looked in my full-length mirror I noticed not only any bit of gained weight, but also anything I perceived as imperfect. I spent a lot of time crying behind closed doors, worrying about what others saw when they looked at me. My self-esteem was damn near non-existent and I didn’t know who I could talk to about everything I was feeling and dealing with. I was missing my support system and I was crumbling.
Every time I moved it was supposed to be a fresh start. In many ways each move was a fresh start location wise, but the invisible baggage was never actually unpacked. When I moved to New York, it was to be a fresh start with my boyfriend. It took a few years, but I got my fresh start. I had to do a lot of unpacking to get it. When I tell you I had to unpack, I don’t mean material things, I mean the emotional and psychological unpacking that I had refused to do in the past.
When I first started training in Karuna® Reiki I only wanted to look at certain parts of my shadow self. However, it doesn’t work that way. Karuna® requires you to face your entire shadow. For me that included owning up to the fact that even though I want to come off as healthy, healed and accepting of my body, I still struggle. Even now, I’ll look in the mirror and while it’s a regular mirror to everyone else, to me it’s a fun house mirror. I don’t always like what I see and sometimes I cry. I cry because I know that what’s appearing for me isn’t what others are seeing. I cry because I want to see what everyone else sees. And I cry because it’s a struggle to be positive on days when all you want to do is not deal with food, your body or the world.
While I have on several occasions admitted to my eating disorder and body dysmorphia, I never really did anything to get truly healthy until I trained to become Karuna ® Reiki Master Teacher. Karuna ® Reiki forces you to deal with your shadow self. It brings all the stuff you try to hide from the world out into the open where you can see it. You have to take a good, hard look at all that stuff, and you have to work through it. There’s no ignoring it, no looking past it, no pretending it doesn’t exist. It’s like spiritual therapy.
I use Karuna® Reiki as a way to help my clients work through their shadows, to help them see that everything they are trying to hide in the darkness is only hurting them. I assist them with casting light on the things they hide and help them to work through their struggles on an energetic and spiritual level. I provide my clients with a safe non-judgmental space to explore everything they’re hiding in the darkness. I help them to confront their issues and release their fears so that they can move forward. If you’re going through a tough time and would like help, please email me at thequiethealer@outlook.com. I’m here to help.
I had just started middle school. I was struggling to navigate the overwhelm of having to get up earlier than before, managing the expectations of multiple teachers, the new and challenging homework load and keeping my friends from elementary school, and it wore on me. In addition to my new educational obligations, my home responsibilities changed. I was expected to start dinner, pick up around the house, make sure my siblings did their chores and homework, and somehow figure out how to get my homework started and finished. Adding insult to misery, I was starting to be bullied more than I had been previously. I was called ugly, strange and fat. This started to weigh heavily on me. I was depressed and I became suicidal. I felt I had no control over anything in my life. However, there was one thing I could control. My food intake.
I started to skip breakfast and eat very little for lunch. Since I was responsible for starting or making dinner it was easy to eat less of that too. Over time I would skip lunch as well. I didn’t have an eating disorder, not a diagnosable one anyway, just yet. I was struggling, but I started to turn a corner freshman year of high school. I was beginning to manage all of my responsibilities, friends and frenemies. I was in a good place mentally – for a split second.
The summer before my freshman year of high school I came across a pair of my mom’s old bellbottom jeans. I’d seen pictures of her wearing them when she was in high school. I took the liberty of trying them on, and they were a little tight. My mom saw me try them on, and I remember her exact words, “You know, if you drop a few pounds you’ll probably be able to fit them”. While I probably wasn’t overweight, those words stuck with me and tipped me over the edge. Before the end of my freshman year of high school, I was anorexic. By the time I graduated from high school I was eating less than one meal a day and using all the usual tactics to hide the fact that I wasn’t eating. Tricks like spending all my time in my room, at work, or sleeping to cover the fact that food was the enemy. While I think my parents might have had an inkling, they didn’t press too many buttons when it came to my eating. As long as they saw me eat something once a day, I was good.
Going away to college probably saved me from death by eating disorder. During my four years of college I was able to develop and cultivate friendships that helped me to work through a lot of my food issues. My friends who were aware of my disorder made sure that I ate more than once a day. By the time I graduated I was under the assumption that I had a good relationship with food. This was an incorrect assumption.
When I graduated from college I didn’t have a job lined up and I moved back home. This was not something I wanted to do but did anyway. Moving back home taught me a few things, I learned that I didn’t belong in Colorado. It isn’t that Colorado isn’t a nice place to live, but my personality is such that I don’t fit in or belong there. Another thing I learned is that my family dynamic was such that the stress and pressure I was feeling to get a job and move out was so intense that I began to resent my parents again. The most important thing I learned was that without my support system present and holding me accountable, it was very easy to slip back into not eating. While I wasn’t as bad as I had been during my adolescence, I was heading down that path again. I also learned that my direct interactions with others, or my physical environment were no longer primary factors when it came to my struggles with food and eating. While they still played a slight role, they weren’t the triggers they once were. Now it was I that was the primary trigger. I’d look in a full-length mirror and while everyone would see a pretty, slim young woman, I’d see a short, overweight lady who had no proper fitting clothes. Now, in addition to anorexia, I had developed body dysmorphia. This realization didn’t come overnight, in fact it wouldn’t come until almost a decade later.
After moving from Colorado to Pennsylvania and then to New York, I started falling into old patterns. I’d eat as little as possible, but enough to say I’d eaten. Unlike some with anorexia, I avoided the scale (still do) and would let my pants tell me if I’d gained weight or not. However, when I looked in my full-length mirror I noticed not only any bit of gained weight, but also anything I perceived as imperfect. I spent a lot of time crying behind closed doors, worrying about what others saw when they looked at me. My self-esteem was damn near non-existent and I didn’t know who I could talk to about everything I was feeling and dealing with. I was missing my support system and I was crumbling.
Every time I moved it was supposed to be a fresh start. In many ways each move was a fresh start location wise, but the invisible baggage was never actually unpacked. When I moved to New York, it was to be a fresh start with my boyfriend. It took a few years, but I got my fresh start. I had to do a lot of unpacking to get it. When I tell you I had to unpack, I don’t mean material things, I mean the emotional and psychological unpacking that I had refused to do in the past.
When I first started training in Karuna® Reiki I only wanted to look at certain parts of my shadow self. However, it doesn’t work that way. Karuna® requires you to face your entire shadow. For me that included owning up to the fact that even though I want to come off as healthy, healed and accepting of my body, I still struggle. Even now, I’ll look in the mirror and while it’s a regular mirror to everyone else, to me it’s a fun house mirror. I don’t always like what I see and sometimes I cry. I cry because I know that what’s appearing for me isn’t what others are seeing. I cry because I want to see what everyone else sees. And I cry because it’s a struggle to be positive on days when all you want to do is not deal with food, your body or the world.
While I have on several occasions admitted to my eating disorder and body dysmorphia, I never really did anything to get truly healthy until I trained to become Karuna ® Reiki Master Teacher. Karuna ® Reiki forces you to deal with your shadow self. It brings all the stuff you try to hide from the world out into the open where you can see it. You have to take a good, hard look at all that stuff, and you have to work through it. There’s no ignoring it, no looking past it, no pretending it doesn’t exist. It’s like spiritual therapy.
I use Karuna® Reiki as a way to help my clients work through their shadows, to help them see that everything they are trying to hide in the darkness is only hurting them. I assist them with casting light on the things they hide and help them to work through their struggles on an energetic and spiritual level. I provide my clients with a safe non-judgmental space to explore everything they’re hiding in the darkness. I help them to confront their issues and release their fears so that they can move forward. If you’re going through a tough time and would like help, please email me at thequiethealer@outlook.com. I’m here to help.
The Quiet Healer Journal
My guest appearance on The Livestream of Consciousness with Michael Zinn
When someone is trying to leave an abusive relationship, toxic work environment, recover from an eating disorder or a health crisis it can be overwhelming. People in these types of situations want to leave, but until something profound happens, they won’t.
Dragonflies symbolize change, transformation, adaptability, and self-realization. They also signify new beginnings.
Being both compassionate to oneself and to all others can be a challenge for some. While some find it easier to be compassionate to themselves, but not necessarily to others, and for others the reverse is true. When I first started learning and contemplating this precept I discovered that it was not as easy as I thought it was going to be. In fact, I had to break this precept down into two parts so that I could merge them together into one.
The Universe nudged me into Reiki and now I no longer feel like a Sesame Street song.
You might be wondering why being grateful might be challenging. A couple of reasons that come to mind are perspective and circumstance. The way one looks at their world has an influence on whether or not they feel they have anything in their life to be grateful for. For example, what I’m grateful for may not be what you’re grateful for, and what you’re grateful for might not be what your neighbor’s grateful for. However, we’re all grateful for something. Individuals trapped in an abusive situation, suffering from depression or anxiety, someone who feels oppressed might find it harder to find something to feel grateful for. Getting into and staying in the flow of gratitude is important, especially when life sucks.
Did you know that worrying about tomorrow robs you of today? Of the here and now? It often takes your focus away from the people and situations that need your immediate attention thus causing you to stress and worry more. As much as you think worrying is helping you solve your problems, like how you’re going to pay the bills, what to wear on that hot date this weekend, will the children grow up to be decent human beings 20 years from now, etc., it doesn’t. It steals your peace and joy and replaces it with sadness, anxiety and depression. Worrying is the worst pastime ever!
We all experience anger, sometimes it can get the better of us. Like when someone cuts us off in traffic, our kids refuse to listen, we get an upsetting email from our co-worker or boss. Any of things can turn us into screaming, seething lunatics and ruin our day – if we let it.
Distance Reiki does work. Just ask my client Eric.
