Finding It WITHIN YOU to HealRecovery is hard. And that really is the understatement of the century, isn’t it? This week I was deeply moved by the words of a young woman connected to our Good News community who is struggling to heal, struggling to believe it is possible, and most of all fighting to believe it is possible for HER. She wrote: i’m falling backwards. i am lost as to what to do. i’ve been on a slow but downward spiral ever since i left treatment this summer. even before then i was not trying my hardest to stay on the right path. for the past few months i have spent my days "fooling" everyone around me, only letting a selected few know that i'm really struggling. but I’m getting to the point where, it’s hard to hide anymore. picking up new habits and behaviors on top of the old. why is this quest for thinness so important to me? why do i not care if i hurt my body. why do i not want to live? why am i going against what everyone wants me to do?? So when, like this young woman, on the days you wonder if recovery is possible, and possible for you, I would like to offer you another perspective. You may be new to this community, and if so, you may not yet know my own story of how I recovered from my eating disorder. So if this is you, or if you receive this on a day when you just need a little (or big) recovery pick-me-up, then this article is just for you! At age 6, I was molested by a teenage boy in my neighborhood. At age 10 I was subjected to constant criticism from family and peers about my height, weight, shape and size, all of which were considerably larger than my female (and most of my male!) classmates. My best friend rejected me because she thought I was too fat to be popular. My brother underwent the first of a series of lengthy and painful operations to correct a congenital birth abnormality, and suddenly I could no longer find my place in our family life. I felt alone, unseen, unheard, at times in the way, and generally left behind as we all readjusted to be there for him. So it’s no surprise that by age 11, I was in the first stages of developing anorexia. By age 18, I had not only full-fledged anorexia but the beginnings of bulimia as well. I struggled with recurrent blackouts, deep depression and thoughts of suicide. And I had no idea what was wrong with me. My family alternately blamed me and urged me to ‘just eat more.’ We had never heard the words ‘anorexia’ or ‘bulimia’ connected with what I was experiencing, so my family and I concluded that all my problems were ‘just me’. I began to actively hate myself for what I was doing to myself and our family life, and so I turned all the frustration and anger I believed that my family felt towards me back inside myself. My health took a turn for the worse, and that’s when my world fell apart. I could no longer play music, sing or write songs, I lost my college scholarship and had to withdraw from college and return home to work at a minimum wage job and aimlessly slog through night classes while all my friends went on with their adult lives. I was 19, and I had no idea how to salvage the mess I found myself in. I felt like a stranger to myself. And I felt incredibly scared. So then, from there, how did I get here, to a full and complete recovery, and an active outreach effort to help others who struggle like I have struggled? How is it that, after a fifteen year, incredibly lonely and ignorant struggle, I overcame all of this with almost NO FORMAL medical assistance?? When I was 23 and a senior in college, I landed in the emergency room one night, convinced I was going insane because I wanted to kill myself with the kitchen knife. My brother went with me, and after a four-hour wait a friendly ER nurse came and introduced herself to us. She read my admitting form and said to us, ‘Shannon, I know exactly what is wrong with you. You aren’t insane. You are experiencing a panic attack brought on by your runaway undiagnosed EATING DISORDER.’ My brother and I looked at each other – shocked. We both knew that after 12 years, I was being given my ‘get out of jail free’ card at last. Finally, I knew what I had. Finally I knew what had me. Finally, I had proof that it wasn’t all ‘just me’. My jailor had a name, and a face, and I knew what I was fighting against, and who I was fighting for. I started doing research, started learning everything I could about eating disorders and what had helped others to heal. There wasn’t much information at that time, but I found what I could and used it to piece together the steps of my long journey out of hell. It took a lot longer than I wanted it to, probably longer than it should have. I recovered imperfectly, in fits and starts, and there were days and weeks and months I was covered in bruises from falling on my a** in relapse after relapse. But I didn’t care. I had decided to make recovery my full-time job, and so when I had a bad day at ‘work’, I still had to get up again the next day and go back. Recovery became my hobby, my vocation, my passion, my determination, my lover, my family, my friend, my life’s work. I knew without recovery, I couldn’t have anything else I wanted anyway, so I moved it to the top slot on my priority list and put my nose to the grindstone and WENT TO WORK. It's not necessarily the way I would recommend. It's not the way I would have preferred it. But it's the only way I had available to me, so I took it. I did it because I had to do it in order to survive. I did it because I wanted to live, even when I couldn’t think of a single reason why. And I decided right in the beginning that since my eating disorder had taken everything that mattered to me away anyway, I'd rather die trying to heal than die never knowing if I had it in me to beat my enemy at its own game and get a little of my own back. I walked out on that tightrope very aware that the Grand Canyon was underneath me and I had no experienced guide, and no safety net, to catch me if I fell. I did any crazy thing that came into my head that I thought might help me recover, from serving food to the homeless to following women I respected at work in the lunch line and eating what they ate so I could teach myself how (and how much) to eat again, to moving to India for awhile just to see if I could find the real me with none of the "old me" reminders around to trigger me. Slowly but surely, I taught myself how to turn my mind from my enemy into my ally, and when I did that, I unlocked my own cage and let myself out.It took 8 long years. Most of the time I had no idea what I was doing. Most of the counseling professionals I sought out off and on through those years had no idea what I was doing either. I moved into the helping profession myself and started giving concerts and presentations about the dangers of eating disorders. The media started interviewing me - putting me in the paper and on TV. And still I struggled to recover. But once I laid the groundwork of MOTIVATION - INNER motivation - once I answered for myself the question of WHY I was doing all this incredibly difficult work and what I wanted out of it for me in my life, then no fall was too painful to become permanent. No relapse was humiliating enough to define me, my potential, or my future chances of success - EVEN IF I THOUGHT IT WAS AT THAT TIME. I just didn't care anymore - even about what I thought of me. I was going to recover. NO MATTER WHAT. My heart hurts for those of you - and I know there are many out there - who have suffered at the hands of unskilled, ignorant, misguided or inadequate professional help, judgmental family members, friends or lovers, and a culture and society that praises and glorifies a standard of beauty that demands malnutrition and starvation. Most of all my heart hurts for those of you who have suffered at your own hands through the words you say to yourself and the self-condemnation you see in your own eyes when you look in the mirror. But I have always believed, and now you know that I have actually experienced firsthand through my own recovery journey, that the best professional help is still right inside you. You are your own north star. You know how to do it better than anyone else. In fact, if you ever catch yourself thinking, 'why don't they get it?' 'Why don't they understand?' 'Why can't they help me?', then this is definitely the case for you, because you DO get it, and you DO understand, and you CAN help yourself, much more expertly and powerfully than you realize. So then the next step involves turning those questions around to you and asking yourself, 'What don't I understand about my own power to heal?', 'What can I do to help myself?' and 'What will motivate me to fight for my own life and WIN?' Continue to think about these things. Then think some more. Then think some more. Then remember that I love you - that our entire Key to Life and Good News community loves you. Then imagine just for a moment what it would feel like to be you, to live your life, to achieve your recovery goals, if you loved yourself, and believed in yourself, as much as we do. Then ask yourself, 'am I willing to consider that I am capable of greatness - of living a truly inspirational, remarkable life?' If the answer is yes (and I hope and pray that your answer WILL be yes!) then get back up again. Try again. And again. And again. And keep trying until you succeed. That is how this is done. That is the only way this thing called "recovery" can be or ever will be done. And while I freely admit that I may not yet know much about some of you and your individual stories, I DO know without a doubt that you each have it in you to experience triumph in recovery, because the simple truth is that if I could heal, anyone can. much love, Shannon If you would like to submit a question or idea for a topic you would like to see addressed in a future edition, please send it to Shannon c/o Good News HERE
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