Learning to Love Myself and My Body
By Kailey Fitzgerald, guest contributor
Countless memories of what my life used to be like still continue to circle around my mind. My daily activities consisted of waking up with an impending sense of self-hatred followed by the cycle of drowning out all feelings and emotions through the combination of substance abuse and my eating disorder. Before I began my journey in recovery, I had become a shell of the person I wanted to be. I couldn’t look at my family or friends in the eyes, let alone look at myself in the mirror. My mental health had gone down a drastic decline due to unresolved trauma. I used my eating disorder as a way to cope and when that didn’t work, I turned to drugs.
After a particularly traumatic experience that I survived at the age of 12, I began to seek out forms of instant gratification to soothe my mind. Because of my inability to ask for help, I was unaware of the fact that I required therapy in order to recover. Without the guidance of a therapist and the absence of a friend to confide in, my life became unmanageable. I was about 13 when I first developed purging disorder and as I aged, my eating disorder began to worsen.
Disordered Thinking and Finding Desperation
My trauma manifested in such a way that I hated my body and hated myself for allowing my body to look the way it did. I despised my curves and wanted them gone because I believed that they were to blame for what had happened to me. My inability to self-soothe or ask anyone for help led me to begin purging after every meal. At around 16 years old people started to take notice of my frequent bathroom trips, so I decided that I needed to find a new outlet. Without any hesitation, I began using illegal stimulants to lose weight. In the beginning, I found that when I was high I became emotionally numb. Being numb was something I had craved profusely, due to the emotional trauma that lingered in my head. Of course, being on a stimulant allowed me to go days without eating, satisfying my eating disorder in totality.
I hear many stories from other addicts and the denial of the severity of their disease appears to be common. In my experience, though, I was completely aware of the fact that I was slowly killing myself. Because of my self-hatred and my identity as a victim, my will to live was very fleeting. Some days I would attempt to slow down with my substance abuse, only to end up hysterically crying on the floor after seeing myself in the mirror. I couldn’t stand the person I had become. When I wasn’t abusing substances, my purging disorder would come back. I was constantly trading one disease for another, in full bondage from the cycle of addiction and my eating disorder. My eating disorder and my substance abuse led me to drop out of school, lose close relationships with friends and family, and completely wrecked everything in my path. I no longer knew myself, I abandoned all of the morals I once held dear, and I was close to completely giving up on life.
Then one day, something changed.
My utter and complete defeat led me to finally swallow my pride and reach out to someone for help. Before that moment, I was the type of girl to do everything on my own because I believed that it was weak to admit defeat. I can recall calling my mom and admitting to her everything that I had been hiding for so long. I explained my sexual assault to her, told her that I had developed an eating disorder and that I was now struggling with substance abuse. I expected an angry and disapproving response, but instead, she just did what needed to be done in order to help me in a loving and understanding manner. She got me into a dual-diagnosis treatment center that could help me recover in every avenue.
Recovery, Rebirth, and Rebuilding
During early recovery, I struggled deeply with my eating habits. Recovering from my substance abuse was a bit less rocky because I was in a residential treatment center secure from all drug triggers. However, when it came to my eating disorder it proved to be impossible to stay away from triggers. After all, the mirrors, bathrooms, food, and looking at other people’s seemingly perfect bodies would trigger me extensively. Because of this, therapy was vital for my recovery. Without the individual and group therapy that I was provided, I do not believe I could be writing this today.
In treatment, I became physically sober within a few weeks. Mentally, there was still a lot of work to be done. I learned that emotional sobriety would prove extremely important in maintaining long-term recovery and leading a life full of happiness. Emotional sobriety refers to the ability to self-regulate and manage your emotions without the assistance of drugs or alcohol, or in my case - my purging disorder. In order to achieve emotional sobriety, I was given Dialectical Behavioral Therapy. In this form of therapy, patients are taught how to change negative thought patterns into positives as well as learning important coping skills that work for them.
As I began to recover from my trauma in therapy, the side-effects of my eating disorder started to slowly drift away. After about 3 months of treatment, I could finally look at myself in the mirror through proud and accepting eyes. My identity as a victim transformed into one of a survivor, allowing me to feel empowered because of the things I have done in order to heal. I finally got to a place of emotional and mental stability, which allowed me to provide my body with the proper care and love it deserved. Rather than punishing my body through an eating disorder and substance abuse, I began to reward it for all of the work it does to keep me alive. My body works so hard to provide me with the strength and energy I need in order to complete tasks and have fun, so I began to appreciate it in return.
My recovery allowed me to rebuild my relationships and my life in such a way that I felt as if I was reborn. When I compare myself to the person that I used to be, I can’t even recognize the “old me”. I have learned to be proud of the person I am, including what I have been through. Through recovery, I have found a purpose in life that contributes to my desire to stay sober and free from my purging disorder. Being open, honest, and willing to share my story has allowed me to channel my feelings in a healthy manner and hopefully helps others who are struggling tofeel comfortable enough to reach out for help.
Kailey Fitzgerald is a young writer in the recovery community. She is passionate about breaking the stigmas relating to addiction and mental health through sharing her experience, strength, and hope.