About Me

My name is Lizzy. I'm 20 years old, and I have an eating disorder.

I think I've suffered from disordered eating for most of my life. As a young child I was an extremely picky eater, refusing all vegetables and putting ketchup on everything. I remember binging on cookies, not knowing what I was doing but only that it was wrong. I would eat most of a box of those Mother's pink, white, and chocolate cream-filled cookies, always listening for the sound of an approaching family member, terrified of being caught in this shameful act. I was overweight as a child, a combination of overeating, poor nutrition, and several injuries and illnesses that kept me from getting out and being active for several years. I remember hating my body, comparing it to my noticeably thinner friends and family. I was acutely aware that I did not look like them. My clothes would pinch and my fat would bulge out over my jeans or my uniform skirt - I firmly believe that Catholic school uniforms were a contributing factor in my eating disorder, making me overly aware and ashamed of my size, and giving me yet another way of directly comparing myself to my thinner classmates.

My sister would borrow my shirts and they would fit her beautifully; but I still remember a female classmate turning to me on a free-dress (no uniforms) day and asking, "Why do you always wear shirts that are so tight?" I never wore that shirt, or any others like it, again. I hated swim suit shopping more than I can possibly convey, and I still do. The humiliation of buying something marked "L," or the frustration that the cute swimsuits or shorts weren't made for me - for someone as fat as me.

Most of my life, I swam in T-shirts and shorts, wore baggy sweatshirts, isolated myself to hide from judgement.

Shortly before my 16th birthday, I made a resolution that I would no longer be trapped in my fat body. My grandfather had just passed away, and I told myself that life was too short to spend in a body that I hated. That's what I told myself. Looking back, I think dieting was just a way for me to hide the pain I was feeling, turn the focus away from my anger and sadness and deal with something I could control - my body and my food. Anorexia crept into me gradually, and it wasn't until I looked back on journal entries from that early period of my "diet" that I realized I had become anorexic. It's almost scary to see how slowly it developed.I would say things like "I want to lose a pound by next week" or "I can't believe how much being hungry doesn't bother me anymore."

I have struggled with self-injury since I was 17, mostly in the form of cutting but also occassional burning, branding, scratching, hair-pulling, and tattooing. My group of friends in high school was primarily self-injurers and people with eating disorders. We didn't know about each other's problems when we first met, but by the end of high school we were all deeply enmeshed in our issues.

I first entered treatment when the numbers on the scale hit double digits. I had lost nearly 50 lbs but could not see a difference. A little piece of me cracked and freaked out. I'd been working to get there for so long, convinced that I'd find happiness hidden somewhere within those numbers. What scared me wasn't the fact that I was in double-digits, but the fact that I still thought I looked fat. My senior year is still a blur of therapy, weight, scales, numbers, and misery.

I started seeing a councelor who was treating a friend of mine. I'm deeply grateful to her for the few sessions we had, because they kept me sane until I was able to find a new therapist, who was actually covered by my insurance. When I told my mom I wanted to go into therapy, she was thrilled and immediately set out to find me a therapist. I didn't tell her what was wrong, but being a mom, she knew anyway.

My therapist recommended I start seeing a nutritionist, a medical doctor, and a psychiatrist. The nutritionist was great; my doctor pissed me off every day I saw her (which was almost every day); and all my psychiatrist did was give me drugs that didn't make me feel better and gave me migraines. But my therapist was wonderful. I wish I could say she fixed me completely, but that wasn't the case.

In March 2004, at my lowest weight, I was hospitalized for the first time for anorexia. My heartrate and blood pressure were very low, and my heartrate changed by so much when I went from lying to standing that my doctor was afraid I would have a heart attack. So I stayed in an eating disorders ward for 8 days, eating more in one meal that I would in days, and surrounded by some of the skinniest people I had ever met. I was so jealous, and so angry that I had been forced into the hospital when I was still so fat.

After I got out, I stuck to the prescribed program for all of 3 seconds before I started throwing out food, skimping on portions, self-injuring, and exercising. I cancelled all my appointments with the doctor whom I had previously been seeing, but kept visiting my OP doctor from the hospital because college was coming up, and my parents refused to let me go if I wasn't under medical supervision.

So I went to college in fall 2004, at a small private school about an hour from my house. I lived in the dorms, in the worst living situation I've ever had: a room slightly larger than a single, with 2 other girls - one of whom I hated with a passion - and all the stuff that 3 girls bring to college. I hated every day there. I barely made it through midterms (most of which I didn't take) before I was kicked out. Not for anorexia, but for self-injury. My depression had mounted my entire time there, and I had taken myself off my antidepressants, and my self-harm was getting more and more intense. One night I had to go to the ER to get stitches, and one of my floormates reported it. I was kicked out of housing because of it, and in my panic over the next few hours, I confessed to someone that I was feeling suicidal. Next thing I knew, I was in a squad car on my way to a psyche ward.

That got me kicked out of school altogether.

They only agreed to let me out on the condition that I sign a safety contract with my doctor and my therapist stating that I would not cut and I would not engage in any "dangerous dieting behavior" (i.e. diet pills, etc) and that I would go into an outpatient program. If I violated any of these conditions I would immediately be sent to a residential treatment program. So I complied. I moved back home, went through the IOP program (got nothing out of it), and stuck to the contract for the most part. I took classes at the local community college, looking forward to a time when I could be out of my parents' house, back at a 4-year school, and free to destroy myself as I saw fit.

My prayers were answered when I started at a different university in Fall 2005. I got a new boyfriend, new group of friends, and my eating disorder got a new foothold. I started self-injuring again in October, but didn't tell anyone for months because of the safety contract. My grandmother died Winter quarter, and I think that pushed me over the edge. I wound up back in the hospital, almost 2 years to the day that I went in the first time. In the next 3 months I went in 2 more times, each time at a lower weight and with more unstable vitals.

I had to take a medical leave for Spring quarter because of all the time I've missed. My parents, therapist, and doctor fought me tooth and nail to put me into residential treatment until finally I was given an ultimatum: go to treatment and get better, or be completely on your own. My options were suicide, homelessness, or residential. I won't tell you how close I came to ending it all.

But I didn't. I got on the plane, shaking the whole time, and went to residential treatment in June 2006. I stayed in the program just under 5 months and went home in November. While I was there I experienced moments of hope and freedom for the first time since the whole ordeal began. Someday I will share all the work I did while I was there - journal entries, artwork, writings - but not yet.

Now that I am home I am a state of constant struggle. I have lost all the weight I gained in treatment and am working hard to keep myself out of the hospital. I honestly am not fully recovered, nor am I fully pursuing recovery. But, just as it was in treatment, I have moments of freedom from my eating disorder and days when I have the strength to fight it. I am putting one foot in front of the other.