National Eating Disorder Awareness Week

All week I've been seeing posts on twitter, instagram, and a few blogs that I follow about National Eating Disorder Awareness week. I see a lot of posts from people who've struggled and beat their disorders, people who are still fighting, and many who don't have an eating disorder but want to spread awareness and encouragement. This is awesome! Many people don't know how serious ED's are and how many struggle with them. As many of you know, I've battled with anorexia myself. I had some serious life patterns of the disorder for about 4 years, and even after recovery have slipped back into them a few times. Because I think a lot of the general public don't understand very well what can cause these kinds of patterns and struggles in someone's life, and because it is NEDA week, I wanted to take a few minutes to talk about what can lead someone into an ED, and my own personal battle with anorexia.
First of all, I'd like to get the thought that those with eating disorders simply starve themselves in order to gain that "perfect" body that they see all over magazines, online, and on TV out of your head! This is a huge huge misconception. Maybe the media have planted some seeds of bad body image, but in the cases of many I have talked to and in my own case, it contributed none to little to the development of our anorexia.

The National Eating Disorder Awareness sign.
It stand for loving all of yourself.

My anorexia started being a problem for me when I was about 14 years old. I didn't know at the time why I wanted to do it, why I liked feeling hunger and going days without eating anything. I just knew that it felt good and I liked it. Now, however, as I'm looking back over the years and realizing what was happening in my life at the times my disorder was developing the most, it's easy to see what was going on. I didn't have a very stable life as a kid. There was always something going on with my parents which kept them very busy. Along with a lack of parental guidance and affection, I had very little consistency in my life. So I started starving myself. Just a little bit at a time in the beginning, 3 or 4 days, and then longer amounts of time later on, a week or 10 days. It was something I could control, it was something I could rely on, and it was something, hunger, that could distract me from the other pains in my life. I knew that I shouldn't treat myself that way, but it was the only way I knew to cope with my situation. It became my crutch.
Over the next few years my ED developed and became a lifestyle. I'd go long amounts of time without eating anything and only drinking water, and when I did give in to hunger and have an apple or even a sandwich, I'd immediately start hating on myself. I was supposed to be taking charge of my life, I was supposed to be stronger than the hunger because maybe if I could be stronger than my hunger I could be stronger than the other hurt I felt. I thought that if I couldn't resist my hunger for food I was failing myself, and the thing I feared the most in my life was becoming nothing. I feared not being able to overcome my situation, and not becoming anything better than the examples I saw as I grew up. 

"I learned that courage is not the absence of fear
but the triumph over if." -Nelsen Mandela 

When I was 17 years old my life took a wild turn for the worse. My parents were at each other's throats more than ever before and I leaned on my anorexia harder than I ever had in the past. I needed it to carry me through. I needed to feel more hungry than alone. I needed to feel more hungry than angry. I needed to feel more hungry than broken. I didn't eat for days. 
About 10 days into it I stopped being able to feel anything. I couldn't feel angry, or tired, or even hungry. I hardly slept. I never ate. Then one night, after 15 days of not eating, I was up listening to my favorite Lana Del Rey music and staring at my bedroom ceiling. I realized that this wasn't working anymore. I wasn't feeling hungry, I wasn't feeling anything, and I'd seen some of those closest to me become numb. I saw their life become dry and meaningless, and I did not want to become that. I wanted to live, really live, and I wanted to feel stronger than my circumstances again, but my ED wasn't cutting it anymore. So I went on a run. I ran for about 2 hours until I started feeling tired, and worn out, and when I could feel tired and worn out I began feeling all sorts of things I'd been trying not to. 
I got really angry. I remember being angry at my dad for some of the things he's done to me, I got upset with my mom for being so absent and standing by, and I got mad at myself for not dealing with it. I got mad at myself for taking the easy way out, for blocking out the real pain. I finally realized that my ED was not the strong thing to do. I had to face the real problems in my life and my anorexia was now one of the biggest ones.
I decided that I didn't want to be stronger than my hunger, I wan't to be stronger than my eating disorder. I wanted to feel everything I'd been running away from, and I wanted to conquer those unhealthy patterns. I began forcing myself to eat even when I wasn't hungry. I forced myself to eat once a day, and then twice, and finally three times, until it started feeling good to eat again. It took over a week of this force feeding to even begin to feel hungry again, but I kept going.
It wasn't easy. I still wanted to lean on my crutch of anorexia, but I knew I could be stronger than that. Full recovery took about a year for me to acquire. I slipped up many times, but I kept going. 
If you have or still do battle with a disorder like this the number one thing I would say to you is that you are stronger than your disorder. You don't need that crutch. Having anorexia isn't a way to overcome. Overcome your anorexia, force yourself to eat if you have to. You're already mentally strong, now work on being physically strong. Because being strong isn't about not feeling things or resisting the hunger, it's about resisting that crutch and building healthy habits. It's not going to be easy. It took me months to win against my eating disorder and I still have relapsed a few times since, but I KNOW you can do it. You so totally got this.
It also helps immensely to talk about it. I know it's hard. I didn't tell anyone about my struggle till I'd already decided to quit and felt like it was mostly over. Admitting your weaknesses is a difficult thing, but I wish I had done it sooner. Find someone you can trust and open up to them about what's going on. They might not understand, and most I've found will initially assume a lot of things about you like that you just want to be thin or whatever, but take the time to explain it to them. They'll want to be there for you, they'll want to encourage you. They might not know how, it's hard for people to understand what's going on inside someone else's head, but give them a chance.

I hope that this post has helped you better understand the thought processes behind an eating disorder and how serious they can be. I've read that about 1 in 4 girls and 1 in 10 boys in college have had or currently struggle with an eating disorder. It's not something you can necessarily see from the outside. Anorexia isn't a cookie cutter thing, it's different for everyone. So let's be aware, let's realize that those who have a problem with this aren't shallow, they're not simply trying to be thinner, and let's understand that you can NEVER fully understand another person. You can be there for them, you can listen to what they want to say, and you can love them. That's what people fighting these disorders really need, someone to be willing to fight with them.
Love you guys! I'm thankful everyday for you incredible readers :-) Happy National Eating Disorder Awareness Week!