A long overdue post...

Feburary 26th kicks off NEDAwareness week and in the spirit of eating disorder awareness and my recent personal decision to recommit myself more fully to recovery i am going to try my best to get into the rhythm of posting updates, thoughts and stories more frequently to my blog. If you’ve read my first few posts and are reading this now i want to thank you for patiently sticking by me as i learn how to use this blog as a tool to be vulnerable through my healing processes. If you’re reading my post for the first time I want to say thanks for being here and joining me as I tell my story. My hope is that by sharing mine with you, you’ll share yours with someone you love and trust. Vulnerability and community are powerful healing forces that i don’t believe are tapped into enough in our daily lives.  

Since my last post the seasons have cycled. Relationships ended, grown and began. i went back to school, i quit one of my jobs, i took a few trips, i suffered and healed from both emotional and physical injuries. i feel like i’ve grown and learned a lot about myself and the world around me, but I also find myself waking up every morning to new challenges, misunderstandings and questions. 

(CW: violent accident, suicide)

In July of 2016 I witnessed a horrific incident that took a toll on my emotional health and well being as well as my recovery. It hasn’t been until the past few months that I feel like I have finally found my footing again. 

i was waiting for the train after a therapy session one day. It was hot and sunny outside and the train was running late as usual. i took a seat on the ground towards the end of the platform and pulled out my phone and began to mindlessly scroll through some social media platform. About 10 feet in front of me there was a middle aged woman pacing back and forth. The first thing i noticed about her was that she had a couple bracelets made out of the pony beads. i used to play with them as a kid all the time. i wondered if she had made them, or maybe she had children or nieces or nephews that made them for her. For some reason the image of her bracelets is one that has never left my mind. She was staring at the ground very fixedly as she paced and was mumbling to herself in a way that made me think she was upset about something. She suddenly looked up toward me and asked if i knew what time the next train was coming. i told her that i thought it was supposed to be her 10 minutes ago and then made a dry joke about the train being unpredictable. During the interaction she barely made eye contact and had turned away before i finished responding. i shrugged it off and returned to my mindless scrolling. A few moments later i looked up to see that the woman had ventured off the end of the platform and was wondering along the tracks. She remained out there for a moment staring in the direction the train would be coming. A few moments passed and she found her way back to the edge of the platform, still mumbling to herself. i was trying not to stare so i shifted my gaze down to the other end of the platform where a crowd of 10-15 people had gathered anxiously waiting for the train. i whipped my head back around as i heard the sound of a train whistle heading towards us. i stood up anticipating the train’s arrival only to realize that it was not a local and would be continue riding right past this station. It seemed as though this woman had not made the same realization. As the train approached the platform she quickly approached the tracks. i started towards the edge of the concrete screaming, “No ma’am no!” My screams were drowned out by the blaring horn of the train and before i could look away she had laid down in front of the train and took her life.

Still screaming i sprinted as fast as i could away from the scene until i collapsed in a grassy area behind the station where other witnesses had also retreated. An older woman helped me to my feet and didn’t say anything but just held me as we both sobbed. i don’t know how long we stood there, but the next thing i remember i was on the phone with my best friend, Tess, but i was still hyperventilating so she couldn’t understand me. Another girl walking toward the train station grabbed my arm and began telling me i was safe and helping me breath. i heard sirens in the background as i began to walk away. With Tess still on the phone i crossed paths with a dad and his two children in a stroller walking towards the station. It was only then i calmed down enough to warn him of what just happened so he didn’t walk that direction and was able to tell Tess what had happened. 

About a block away from the station I found refuge on a concrete wall outside of a Starbucks. I had hung up with Tess and she was calling my cousin and my boyfriend at the time so they could wait for me at my apartment when i got there. i ordered an uber to go home and waited for it outside there. I was still crying, shaking and very visibly upset when a Starbucks employee came out and asked me if i was okay. She listened to what happened and left for a moment and came back with a free latte for me. i don’t know if caffeine was the best thing for my heart rate but i drank it anyways. 

The rest of the day, weekend, and weeks following are kind of blur. i didn’t ride the train for a long time afterwards. The sounds whistles and sirens sent me into panic mode. i began having unwarranted flashbacks and my sleep was dabbled with nightmares. i still have questions that will always remain unanswered about who that woman was and why she wanted to die. i often found myself thinking of the conductor who was operating the train as well as all the other witnesses. i felt angry, sad, unsafe, out of control. As these thoughts and emotions began to overwhelm my psyche i began to cope in ways that were familiar and comfortable, but not healthy or recovery oriented. i was still meeting with an outpatient therapist regularly and by November talk of seeking a higher level of care became a topic of conversation in our sessions. i knew if i didn’t start to intentionally choosing recovery again, everyday, another trip to the hospital was in my future. i soon came to the realization that the therapist i was currently seeing wasn’t the right fit for me. i had seen him while in the hospital so when i was discharged it was easiest to continue working with him, even though he didn’t necessarily use approaches that best suited my personal recovery. If i was going to recover i was going to have to make some major changes.

Except for the month i spent in the hospital, November was quite possibility the hardest month of 2016. Like so many of the friends and make shift family that surrounded me, the political climate had a severe impact on my well-being and mental health. November quickly turned to December and i began to understand how i, how we, were to overcome this collective experience of hopelessness and defeat. Step one was self-care. Resistance without self-care is futile. In fact, it is impossible. If I wanted to be the activist my heart felt called to in this fight i needed to start by fighting for myself. Step two was community. I needed to surround myself with people who were going to encourage self-care, recovery and resistance. We were going to need each other more than ever in the coming weeks, months and years. Less than three days after the election i had chartered a bus and began organizing a group to go to the Women’s March on Washington. i had a big trip planned at the end of December. I was going to New York, then Pittsburgh for the holidays, followed by a 10 trip to California for both work and leisure. i had plans to continue to go to school in the spring. i had a job working with two amazing children that always had a way of keeping my hope in check.

i had too much to lose to not recommit myself to recovery, and so i did. 

^a PSA for the current administration and my eating disorder^

I am not alone. You are not alone.

First I would like to apologize for my lack in posts. As I began my recovery journey I found it more and more excruciatingly difficult to formulate thoughts and sentences about what exactly it was about my story that I wanted to share. I quickly learned that recovery was going to wear me out like a full time job; emotionally, spiritually, physically and relationally. I also learned that in order to vulnerable with others you must first learn how to be vulnerable and honest with yourself. As I began treatment for my eating disorder I found myself slowly slipping back into deafening silence, but I am finally ready to break that silence. 

Caveat: I wrote this after my first week of treatment in the beginning of February, but had a really hard time sharing it with the world wide web. As I begin writing again and opening up to myself and my family and friends I will continue to fill you in on what my recovery journey has been like so far. So 6 months later, here is blog post number three. Thanks for all the love, encouragement, patience and support while I remained distant. Whether you know it or not it kept me going.

Back in October of 2015 I had my very first experience with a day treatment program. After being mugged in early September I had reached a point in my battle with anxiety and depression that made it clear I was in need of more support than one 50 minute therapy session a week could provide. A week or so later I found myself in a partial hospitalization  program for adults recovering from mental illness and addiction. During my first day at the program I already had my discharge date in mind. Despite knowing that you have to do more than just show up to make any sort of progress in therapy, just showing up seemed to be all I could manage. I had a panic attack on the first day, and the second day, and the third day, etc. Anytime I tried to speak up in group I could feel my cheeks ignite, my breath quicken and my legs start to shake. After a few experiences like that I resorted to coloring and keeping my lips sealed. I made it to treatment everyday for the first week, but by the second week I was down to 2 or 3 days and by the third week I discharged myself. I didn’t invest much of myself into that program, but I learned a valuable lesson about commitment and investment in therapy. I was able to take that experience and learn from it, so I could approach recovery and therapy differently this time around. I tend to be extremely goal oriented and often get way ahead myself which causes me to pressure myself with expectations. My first few days at Renfrew I realized I was in need of a major shift in perspective of the recovery process if I wanted to make the most out of my time there. My unrealistic expectations kept me trapped in my cyclic negative thoughts about myself. 

My first day of treatment at Renfrew went fairly well. It was mostly a day of introductions, tours, familiarizing myself with the other girls and the layout of the day. My emotions were a compilation of anxiety, ambivalence, excitement and dread; but I walked out of those doors at the end of the day knowing and believing that I was exactly where I was supposed to be. Every moment leading up to the one when I stepped into that building for the first time was ordained. I spent the weekend prior to treatment attending a training conference for individual and group crisis intervention and suicide awareness in Pittsburgh which didn’t give me much time or space to build up anticipatory feelings until I got on the bus to go back to Philadelphia Sunday evening. As I sat down on the bus a wave of anxiety and fear crashed down on me and soaked my cheeks as I began to acknowledge what I was going home too. Thankfully I had the seat to my self, but there was a boy about my age sitting across the aisle from me. Right before the bus pulled out he put his hand on my backpack to get my attention. Tears still streaming down my face I was hesitant to look up. As I met his eyes I saw concern and compassion as he looked at me and asked if I was okay. Feeling slightly comforted and mostly embarrassed I tried to reassure him that I was fine and thanked him for asking.  I eased in my headphones in attempt to drown out the voices in my head uttering, “You are alone. You are alone. You are alone.” About two and half hours and a not so fabulous nap later we pulled into the rest stop and I quickly grabbed my purse and bee lined for fresh air. Thirty minutes later I plopped down in my seat and noticed the boy across from me already sitting down. He took out his headphones and leaned across the aisle and asked me, “Are you sure you’re okay? You looked really upset. If there is anything you feel like you want to talk about I’m here to listen.” I gave him an vague and brief description about what was on my mind and he responded by asking if I prayed. I replied yes and he laid his hand on my shoulder and said a simple but powerful prayer. Together we said, “Amen” and in that moment I knew I wasn’t alone. That boy was a steadfast reminder of God’s unfaltering presence and unconditional love. I am not alone. You are not alone. We are not alone. Even if you or I were the last soul on earth, we would still not be alone.

If you’ve read my last post you know that it is borderline absurd to believe that an eating disorder is about vomiting, starving, exercising, or any of the other abusive tactics one reaches for when struggling with an eating disorder. If extreme enough, these behaviors will eventually annihilate health and well-being, but isolation is the real killer. Eating disorders are an illness of silence, shame, and disconnection. Choosing to suffer alone with an eating disorder is often a choice that serves to validate the worthlessness and self-loathing those struggling often feel. Since my eating disorder has taken control my social anxiety has imploded affecting most of my relationships in one way or another and holding me back from making new ones. As I was standing on the platform waiting for my train to take me to my first day of treatment. The whispers had turned to screams, “You are alone. You are alone. You are alone.” I entered my first group therapy session that day where I was clearly not alone, but the voices in my head remained unfaltering. Despite the love and support from friends and family it took about two days before those voices lowered their volume and I truly started believing that I really was not fighting this battle alone.

If you’ve ever had an eating disorder I’m willing to bet that you have cried through a meal. If you’ve never had an eating disorder I’m willing to bet that crying through a meal sounds ridiculous. Well, damn was I glad to be surrounded by women who’ve shed tears over pizza, fig newtons, and birthday cake when I got to lunch on my second day of treatment and my fear of carbs and a bloated stomach got in between me and a slice of bread. Immediately the girls around me began encouraging and comforting me, thinking back on all the times a meal has sparked a similar emotional reaction in them. I really wasn’t alone. I was surrounded by people who knew exactly what I was feeling. It was then I realized how truly important the group therapy setting is in this recovery process. I had been isolated for so long I forgot what it truly felt like to be in genuine community with people. I am not alone. You are not alone. We are not alone. All you have to do is speak up and test the waters of vulnerability. 

Project Heal

i visited Philly for the first time ever with some friends during my senior year of high school. After three short days in the city i knew these streets would be home someday, i just wasn’t sure when or how. Fast forward four years later i am proud to say i’ve been a Philadelphian for over a year, attending Temple University as a social work major, and working as a nanny for some amazing families. i want to tell you that my love for this new and exhilarating place overshadowed the struggles and isolation i felt my first year living here, but i quickly learned that love is no easy feat, even if it’s just brick and mortar that’s stolen your heart. i’d be lying if i told you that my first year in the city was comfortable, easy, and painless; but i would also be lying if i told you that i wasn’t exactly where i was supposed to be. 

i was 13 years old the first time i stabbed the back of my throat with my fingertips. i can’t remember where i was or who i was with. i can only remember feeling the desperate need to empty myself of all of the garbage inside. i spent the next years intermittently resolving my fears and anxieties by starving them away, puking them up and bleeding them out; and remaining relatively silent about it. To my dismay, during my freshman year of high school the scars on my ankles and my wrists no longer went undetected by my family and friends. Those scars landed me my first therapy appointment, and many more after that. Despite the multiple therapists and inpatient experience i had, i never mentioned my disordered eating behaviors to a clinical professional until i was twenty years old. After spending nearly seven years in denial about the reality of my eating disorder and the impact it was having on my life emotionally, physically, spiritually and relationally i finally started to come to terms with the fact that i needed help and support that i simply could not provide for myself, no matter how hard i tried. i simply could not do it alone. The year before moving to Philly i started seeing a therapist and for the first time i addressed my eating disorder in therapy. My biggest set back during my time with that therapist was that i wasn’t going to therapy because it was something that i truly wanted to do for myself. i was going to therapy simply to please my loved ones that had grown increasingly concerned with my weight loss and my relationship with food that i could no longer hide. i still had not fully accepted my own reality and therefore could not put in the time and work that i needed to in order to move towards healing. Moving to Philadelphia gave me the space to process and fully understand where my life was and where it was headed if i continued to treat my mind, body and soul the way i had been. It gave me an opportunity to introspectively explore what healing meant to me and understand how to pursue that path wholeheartedly not just because loved ones were worried, but because it was what i wanted for myself. Unfortunately my denial followed me to Philly and it took almost a whole year until i truly and deeply began to accept the reality of my eating disorder and saw healing on the horizon. Intellectually i think i’ve always known the way my eating disorder eating disorder was affecting my life, but it wasn’t until July 2015 that i fully committed that reality to my heart.This past summer i made the choice to see a therapist and for the first time felt determined to seek true self knowledge and healing from this insidious disorder. The process of accepting myself and my eating disorder is one i am still definitely undergoing. i still have fleeting thoughts that tell me i’m not sick enough or thin enough to seek out intensive treatment, but i am slowly learning to recognize those voices as echos of my ED and how to acknowledge them and work through them without believing in them as truth. 

Summer came and went and although i was in therapy and doing my best to be honest with my therapist about my ED i still silently suffered when in company of most family and friends. Fall semester began and i had a full course load of classes staring me down that i believed i was ready for. It was the second week of school and i was just barely balancing my emotional well-being, working almost full time, relationships, prospective school work, and spending most of my day with my thoughts consumed by my ED. Over the past year i had gotten pretty good at this balancing act, but on the second day of the second week of the semester, as i was on my way to the gym around 6 am, i was attacked and mugged and just like that the show was over. He hit me with his bike and i fell backwards and hit the concrete hard. He got away with my phone, and fortunately i got away with only a few minor cuts and bruises, a sprained knee and a slight concussion. Unfortunately, my emotional wounds reached much deeper. After the attack I began experiencing extreme hyper vigilance and heightened levels of anxiety; to the point where I was unable to leave my house to attend class and I found it very difficult to concentrate on my school work. In between waves of anxiety, I experienced undertows of depression. Those tides dropped me off not too far from suicidal thoughts and left my thoughts drowned out with ideas of constant danger, death and self-loathing. Having experienced previous trauma, I believe this event compounded preexisting PTSD symptoms and made my self-injurious and disordered eating behaviors and thoughts exponentially worse. i spent the rest of September desperately trying to stay afloat and continue my balancing act, but i could no longer deny the fact that i was drowning. i withdrew from my classes and spoke to my therapist about seeking more wholesome and integrative support. Due to limitations with health insurance i didn’t have access to the specified and intensive treatment that i truly needed to heal from trauma and my eating disorder. In October i spent sometime at an intensive outpatient program for anxiety and depression. Ultimately this program did not fully address my needs, but at that point in time i didn’t have very many options so i attended and took away from it what i could.

Rewind to a few months prior to all of this i was surfing through Instagram checking out ED recovery blogs and accounts when i came across one called Project Heal, an account for a 501c nonprofit organization that raises fund for ED treatment for those who don’t have access to the care they need. Although i had been following them and reading stories of grant recipients for a month or two it hadn’t crossed my mind as a possibility until near the end of October. i had just quit attending the day treatment program for anxiety and depression i was attending and had no clue what was next or how i would get the support i needed to overcome my ED, when the thought crossed my mind to apply for a treatment grant through this organization. i immediately did some online research and discovered that the next application deadline was November 1st, about two weeks away. Applicants would be notified within two weeks if their applications were being further considered and notified by December 1st if they were chosen to receive a grant. i had never been so brutally honest about my struggle with both an eating disorder and self-harm as i was filling out that application. It was hands down one of the hardest things i’ve ever written. i also began to realize that not only did i need more integrative treatment and courage to be honest with my self but i also needed to reach out and be honest and vulnerable with those around me whom i trusted and loved. i began by sending the application to three key people in my life who i felt safe with for them to read over and give me their feedback. My application was submitted by October 28th and i got an email on November 3rd letting me know that i was being further considered for grant funding. 

In my ideal world, if i were to receive the grant, i would begin treatment in early December and go through mid-January and be released just in time to start my spring semester of school. i was eager to go back to school and put the past failed (as i perceived it at the time) semester behind me, so naturally i enrolled in a full course load and began imagining myself back in the classroom, swamped with papers and deadlines, but loving every minute of it. December 1st came and went and I didn’t hear from Project Heal. Hoping for the best but expecting the worst i began to come to terms with the reality that the treatment i felt that i needed to move toward healing and health might not be accessible to me at this time. Still unsure of what was next i kept my focus on the month ahead of me and making it through the holidays. One week later, i got a phone call from a woman named Kristina who immediately greeted me with a congratulations to let me know that i had been chosen to receive the grant. i couldn’t find the words to express the amount of gratitude i felt during the few minutes of that phone conversation. i also couldn’t find words to express all the emotions i was simultaneously feeling, that i wasn’t particularly proud of. A combination of gratitude, excitement, shock, fear and anxiety welled in my stomach and i began to cry. i had allowed fear and shame to control my narrative for too long and now it was my turn to write my story. The sense of self i felt i’d lost to my disorder began to reappear as whispers of courage and hope. i felt my body rise out of the water that had been suffocating me. This opportunity brought with it steady breath in my lungs, but not for long. One of the first things i learned about recovery is that it is a process of breakthroughs and setbacks, and sometimes they’re one in the same. 

i soon learned what i think i knew all along, if i was going to pursue treatment wholeheartedly i would have to take another semester off of school. This fact felt more earth shattering than it really was and my reality was that if i was going to successfully pursue a degree at all i would have to start first by caring for myself and addressing my emotional and physical well-being. After my initial excitement of receiving the grant began to dissipate, feelings of fear, anxiety, and even anger began to settle in. This was it. i was going to change my life, write a new and different chapter in my story, and leave behind my world of control and self-destruction that i did everything i could to protect and preserve for seven years. i was scared because this world was all i had known, experiencing the world through the lens of my ED was how i made sense of everything. Then there was the anger. There was a part of me, the critical part, the ED control panel, that was upset with me for being vulnerable, reaching out and making steps toward recovery. This cocktail of emotions is something i continue to wake up and grapple with everyday.

Since before i can remember i have known that i would spend my life helping, serving and loving others. For most of my life i believed that i could successfully care for and love others even with absence of compassion and love for myself. Although i found this to be true every once and while, it is not a sustainable way to be in the world effectively be a source of light and hope. The process of giving love must also be met with an act of receiving, or it is not wholesome and unconditional. Pursuing radical self-love is no longer an option if i truly wished to love those i come into contact with unconditionally. My desire to help and serve others has lead me to some amazing opportunities to serve others through ministry, education, and volunteering in the United States as well as developing countries, and has brought me to my current goal in life: to become a social worker.These past few years have taught me over and over again that i cannot effectively help and care for others if i don't do the same for myself. i currently work as a nanny for two families with little girls ages two and six. Through my darkest days over the past year, they have been my light, my hope, my drive. My desire for them and for all the children i come into contact with is for them to believe that their story matters, their voice is powerful, and for them to learn to love themselves unconditionally. So despite my fear, anger, and anxiety i’m going to continue to be hell-bent on loving myself. And on days that i can’t, because there will be days, i will look for the light in the eyes of those i love and have hope in their story, find power in their voice, and strength in their love. 

Lexi, August 2015

Stella, October 2015

~Nayyirah Waheed~