The Chaos Within: The Healing Process
Editor's note: Trigger warnings for those who struggle with eating disorders. Thank you, Janna for sharing your mental health story. It’s really eye-opening to see how far you’ve come with handling an eating disorder.
Once to three times a day; it became a habit. She was addicted. Walking into the kitchen, she’d inspect every cupboard, searching for the right morsels to satisfy the urge. Her thoughts would race, ‘Just do it already! Hurry up!’. Two slices of bread, three, four, and then the whole loaf washed down with a litre of chocolate milk. The thirst for more continued to scream in her mind. The box of Mr. Christie cookies, gone. The tub of ice cream, devoured. She finally reached her limit. She then forcefully shoved her hand down her throat. She is bulimic. She has a deadly illness that is slowly destroying every aspect of her life.
What do you think of when you hear that someone struggles with a mental disorder? Some people feel concern, fear, or confusion. Some avoid the sufferers completely. A major mental illness that continues to have an immense impact on my life is the eating disorder. When someone falls victim to an eating disorder, their weight and self-image becomes the prime focus of their life. The all-consuming preoccupation with calories, grams of fat, exercise, weight and body-image allows them to repress the painful emotions that are at the heart of the problem and gives a false sense of being in control. I used my eating disorder to displace emotions that I didn’t know how to deal with. When my parents were fighting, instead of feeling sad or frustrated, I’d go for a very long run, self-harm, or binge and purge. I couldn’t handle emotions; I didn’t want to.
“Trying to explain what it is truthfully like to have an eating disorder is so incredibly difficult. It feels like you’ve been taken hostage by an evil tyrant that now controls your every move, every thought, choice and action.”
Regardless of how this illness started, it soon becomes your entire life. Your brain becomes fixated on food. Your brain becomes fixated on your weight and shape. Your life revolves around these things now. Every morning you wake up in a frenzy; sleeping is laying down and you’re wasting time. You need to be doing something, anything. You can’t stop for a second because you’re trying to outrun the voice in your head that’s trying to convince you that you’re worthless.
The disease tried to take my life multiple times. I’ve had these eating disorders since I was twelve. I’m twenty-six now. Fourteen years of empty promises, never-ending lies and backtracking. I have an irregular and slow heart rate, low blood pressure, I am at a higher risk for developing osteoporosis, my hair is thin and brittle, I cannot tolerate temperatures properly, and my brain has been rewired, which contributed to the development of my Borderline Personality Disorder. This is summed up as "chronic irrationality." Think severe mood swings, impulsivity, instability, and a whole lot of explosive anger. BPD is often connected to other mental illness. It can blend in with depression, anxiety, and bipolar disorder. My BPD was tangled in with my eating disorder, so it was overlooked for many years. At first, I was misdiagnosed with bipolar disorder. It was finally diagnosed as BPD and I started to take the proper medications and get the proper supports I needed to become more emotionally stable. In late childhood and early adolescence is when my eating disorder was at its strongest. I was so entirely fixated on the rules, schedules and commands of my mind that it’s almost unbearable to reminisce.
October 21st, 2008 was my first admission. I remember it clearly. Prior to this date, my life seemed to be going quite smoothly. My family didn’t really recognize the signs and symptoms of my ongoing eating disorder until l two weeks before I was initially admitted. It was easy for me to run 2km in the morning and an additional 2km after “supper;” to continuously do my “100” workout routine and to eat smaller and smaller portions at any given mealtime and not get noticed. My eating disorder didn’t happen all at once. It evolved over the years, so the results and consequences were less noticeable. With no one telling me to eat more, exercise less or no one to cage these voices at an early stage, my weight, mind and overall health reached a fatal level. Two weeks before October 21st, 2008, I didn’t really know what Anorexia Nervosa was or never even consider myself a victim within its grasp. On one particular night my mother came into my room while I was getting ready to go to bed, she was holding a bunch of printed information sheets about Anorexia Nervosa – what it was, what it does and the various statistics of the disorder. Of course, I told her, “I don’t have it. I’m just active and growing.” Denial is a great thing; denial can brush all your worries and problems under the rug. If I considered and listened to my mother that night, my life would be so, so different in every single aspect.
The day of the 21st, I had just come home from school to see my mom on the phone looking frightened and upset. Once she hung up the phone my mother announced that we were going to take my brother to the emergency room because he was sick with the flu and didn’t seem to be getting any better. My gut feeling knew what was about to go down – I knew what she just said was a big fat lie and that we were going to the emergency for me. I knew this because the past two weeks my mom would endlessly show her concern, inform me and accuse me of having a problem, of having Anorexia Nervosa. I hesitated and tried to stop this trip to the hospital screaming and frantically trying to save the tyrant in my life. My mom went to the registration and briefly told the nurse that she had arrived then we walked into the triage. That’s when my life went chaotic. Two nurses walked up and said that I needed to take off my clothes and put the blue gown on and lay on the bed. I looked startled and confused at my mother. Refusing to follow their requests, anger rushed through my body and I ran for the nearest exit. I didn’t get too far till two security guards grabbed me and forcefully walked me towards the stretcher. I was so furious. As the nurses tried to place the ECG stickers on my chest, I kicked one in the face and scratched another’s arm. I was then strapped down. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t escape.
My heart rate was 30 beats per minute. I was so dehydrated that the nurse had to poke me 10 times with an IV needle to successfully get my vein. My recorded weight was 80lbs – that was 5lbs less than two days ago when I last weighed myself. With tears running down my cheeks, my mother tried to comfort me, but I ignored her and refused to speak to her. ‘She was the one that put me in this nightmare’. I was too angry to hear and remember what the nurses and doctors were saying. I felt abandoned, confused and scared. The following day my mom came to visit, and we sat in the room in complete silence until a psychologist entered my room only to change my life forever. It was at that moment she diagnosed me with a mental illness; I had Anorexia Nervosa. I spent the next 6 years in and out of treatment facilities and programs. Being a minor for these years I didn’t really have much of a say in whether I wanted to admit myself and get the help that I “needed.” Every time I was forced into the mental health adolescent unit the same feeling of anger, abandonment and hate rushed through every inch of my body. I knew I had an eating disorder, but I didn’t want to change or get rid of it.
The moment I was admitted, this huge manipulative, falsifying and introverted teen ran the show. I’d go into the hospital and stay for a couple months or so, ate what I had to eat, put on some weigh, and say what I had to say to return to my “land of freedom.” The day I turned 18 was the best day of my life, or so I thought. I was no longer considered a minor, so I now got to call the shots regarding my affiliation with treatment(s) and what I do next. Since I hated being in the hospital, I went on with what seemed to be a normal life having no help and support(s) for my eating disorder. I relapsed terribly. Before this point (when I was around 16) my Anorexia Nervosa had shifted to include Bulimia Nervosa and at its worst I was binging and purging 5 times a day. I never ate unless I knew where I could purge immediately after my last swallow. I could eat whatever I wanted, eat as much as I wanted, purge and not have to worry about putting on weight. People would see me eat and not have to be concerned about me still struggling with Anorexia. But, as all things do, people caught on. It is a little suspicious to be eating at least 1,500 calories per meal then abruptly going to the bathroom instantly after.
My support system that once stood so strongly crumbled right in front of my eyes and I couldn’t do anything to save it – I felt hopeless. What made and still makes this incident so crucial and intertwined with my eating disorder is that it is believed to be primarily my fault for the divorce of my parents. Maybe if I wasn’t mentally ill my parents would still be together, and things would be better – happier. Ever since these harsh words were put in my head they bounce back and forth in my mind. I carry so much shame, sadness, and regret on my shoulders.
After a few years, I left my hometown to go to the big city of Toronto to attend York University. Moving away from my family to start my post-secondary education journey was a big change for me. I had to start relying on myself to provide groceries, clean my suite on my own, do endless amounts of studying, research and projects my classes assigned. Forcefully I had to mentally support myself to encourage, motivate, and push myself out of bed so I could do what I came to York for – achieving my degree. I’d feel even more guilty than I already did for doing anything related to a social life, like going to the gym, going out with new friends, or even going shopping at Yorkdale. I was exploring my new life, meeting and experiencing things I hadn’t been able to do or go through without parental supervision – I was trying to find my sense of self. These extra feelings of guilt that I so desperately tried to repress inevitably made my illnesses worsen because I’d feel more stressed and frustrated. Moving to a new big city gave me the sense of privacy, which soon led to feelings of loneliness and feeling invisible to society.
As time progressed and my routine of binging and purging continued, something in me started to change. I suddenly started to realize that this isn’t a game or a dream, that I was far away from the person I once was. Suddenly I started to see where all this pain on my shoulders was coming from and all I could think of was ‘I want to go home’. The dark is so very tempting and warm to crawl into, but I realized that it’s not a place where I belonged or should have ever been. I acknowledged what this eating disorder was doing to my friends and family and ultimately to my entire being. Every day is a struggle – a fight. This is not the way to live life. Something’s got to change. I needed to start fighting and destroy what was destroying me.
“Mental illness quickly traps you behind its bars and takes complete control of your thoughts, actions, and overall health. The development of an illness occurs gradually making it hard for friends and/or family to recognize and identify the symptoms that are evolving.”
Without noticing the red flags, mental illnesses are quick to deteriorate who you are and twist you into something unrecognizable. You begin to think that this is who you are and believe that this is how life is supposed to be. To help unravel my mind’s distorted lies, the hospital used psychoeducational interventions which encompassed a broad range of activities that combine education and other activities such as counselling and supportive interventions. I learned the physical and psychological effects of restrictive eating, bingeing, purging and low weight status. Gaining this insight and knowledge helped me gain my motivation for change. I continued to go to groups or see my counsellor and learn new information about my eating disorder and began to resolve underlying feelings that I had avoided for so long. I began to feel lighter; I could breathe easier and think more clearly. I’d have a bad day and get the urge to binge and purge, but my newly learned insights stopped these behaviors and allowed for me to identify and then resolve what was truly upsetting me and deal with the associated emotions. When I was able to identify my symptoms and what triggered these thoughts or behaviors I began to move forward.
Learning to accept myself, my illness and the difficulties I faced was a key precursor to the beginning of my recovery. Acceptance led to changes in my lifestyle, attitudes and expectations, growth in self-awareness and helped me to adopt a new sense of identity. Gaining support and acceptance wasn’t an easy experience .There is a stigma, because we live in a world where if you break your arm, everyone runs over to sign your cast, but if you tell people you’re suffering with a mental illness, everyone runs the other way. That’s the stigma. We are accepting of any body-part breaking down, other than our brains. That’s ignorance. And this ignorance has created a world that doesn’t understand eating disorders or depression; that doesn’t understand mental health. This stigma that constantly lingers within our communities often leads others and led me to feelings of rejection, isolation, and a negative self-image.
The stigmas and discrimination of mental illness can worsen problems and delay or impede getting the help and treatment for recovery. At one point, I began to blame others for my illness and wasn’t accountable for what was going on in my life. My view of the illness became blurred and I didn’t see it as a critical problem therefore my ambitions and motivations for getting better and taking the steps towards recovery dwindled. I didn’t have a problem; therefore, I didn’t need help. Using denial allowed my illness to numb everything out and get worse and worse until I could no longer take care of myself and was two weeks away from my death. The first step to accepting an illness is to not be afraid to talk about your crisis and accepting your condition(s) that will make it easier to get the help that you may need. Admitting that I struggled with mental health problems was daunting at first – I was afraid that I might feel exposed and that people would look at me differently. But in the end, all my fears proved completely unfounded. By coming forward with my story, I’ve learned that there’s strength in vulnerability, along with a community of kindred spirits looking to connect, share and feel understood themselves. I expected rejection but I found a large group of people who accepted me and treated me no differently. I was astonished by the amount of people who were intrigued and wanted to learn more about how to properly help me as well as others suffering with mental illness. Feeling accepted had a positive impact on my self-confidence and well-being. Being accepted as part of a bigger picture allowed me to start to develop a sense of purpose and feeling that I could contribute good things to society. By coming forward with my struggles my new purpose in life shone through.
My experience with recovery was not and is not pleasant. it is a grueling and an exhausting journey, filled with doubt. I have had a few stumbles, sometimes they’re huge and all consuming, other times it’s easier to get back on track. You keep seeing your counsellor, or your psychiatrist, or any other number of people in your support system. Then slowly, slowly you start to feel a bit more like you again. You manage to get out of bed on the awful days instead of sitting at home and wallowing. You start to get hold of your triggers and note what makes you go back to that dark place. You plod on, even on the days when it feels as if the world is against you. Then bit by bit the world gets brighter, you notice the small things that warm you from the inside out; you start thinking less about food, more about life.
My recovery has been a rollercoaster ride to say the least. There are good days, bad days, days that I didn’t want to be alive, and days that I wish I could relive over and over. I never want to have to picture the expressions on my loved one’s faces when I once again relapsed. The things I have faced have been far from easy but the gratitude that I feel for the life I live today makes everything seem just a little bit more manageable. I never thought I’d be content with remembering painful memories but now, I can truly say that I am.
My healing is still a slow and hard process, but I know without a doubt it is for the best. I’ve realized that the longer I put off recovery, the less time I must follow my dreams and live a happy and fulfilling life. Recovery might be incredibly difficult in the moment, but I don't want to look back on my life only to see time wasted on having a mental illness. I can't take back the past, but I can choose whether my mental illness has a future. It's been long enough. I think it's time to leave my illness in the past.
Why is it important for you to share your story and experiences with mental health and illness?
It’s extremely difficult to survive and recover from an eating disorder, but it’s even more difficult to recover from one in the culture we live in. My goal is to move away from dieting fads and the thin ideal. My goal is to get our society to stop glamorizing starvation, thinness, and eating disorders or any other mental illness for that matter. I wouldn’t say I want to conquer the world, but I want to be a part of making the world a better, less stigmatized place. I want to inspire people. I want someone to look at me and say, “because of you, I didn’t give up.” I want to be part of the solution. I hope that I can somehow use my experiences with this illness to at least make a small contribution to raising this awareness: that’s perhaps the one positive aspect that I can draw from this nightmare.
- Janna
London, ON, Canada
More about Janna:
“I think that a lot of the weaknesses that I talk about have also become my strengths. Like, I've turned them into strengths. You know, it's also part of my recovery process, and it's one of them things that if you admit you have a problem, then you take that problem's power away.” -Marshall Mathers.
It’s extremely difficult to survive and recover from an eating disorder, but it’s even more difficult to recover from one in the culture we live in. My goal is to move away from dieting fads and the thin ideal. My goal is to get our society to stop glamorizing starvation, thinness, and eating disorders or any other mental illness for that matter. I wouldn’t say I want to conquer the world, but I want to be a part of making the world a better, less stigmatized place. I want to inspire people. I want someone to look at me and say, “because of you, I didn’t give up.” I want to be part of the solution. I hope that I can somehow use my experiences with this illness to at least make a small contribution to raising this awareness: that’s perhaps the one positive aspect that I can draw from this nightmare.
Throughout my academic and professional journey, I have managed to accrue nearly 10 years of practical experience in a social work setting and relating fields. The most rewarding part of my job is being able to accurately identify a person's strengths, sharing that information with a client, and helping them learn how to utilize their individual strengths in a practical way. For many people that I work with, this is the first time they are hearing that they are 'valued' and have something 'valuable'. It is very humbling and awe-inspiring. During my professional progression, I have helped others recognize various insights and motivated individuals to make connections in their own world that lead to a shift in their understanding of themselves. As someone who is devoting my career to the promotion of mental health, I am grateful for the opportunities I have been granted through my work. As a support worker, I have been allowed access into the inner worlds of others. I have been entrusted with thoughts and feelings that are often not shared with others in their daily lives. It is a giant responsibility and something that I thoroughly enjoy.
Would you like to share your story? Click "Share Your Story" below to submit your story:
Do you need support?
If you in immediate danger of hurting yourself or someone else phone 911. For other support please call:
Calgary: Distress Centre Calgary - (403) 266 HELP (4357)
Edmonton: The Support Network Distress Line - (780) 482 - HELP (4357)
Are you somewhere else in Canada? Find a crisis line near you.
International? Find a crisis line near you.
To chat with someone live online go to 7cups.com.