All day I kept coming back to this question..."In the eyes of my docs, loved ones, etc am I considered a successful case of recovery or do I fall on the other side since though I'm recovering from the anorexia/bulimia I have destroyed my body beyond much repair"? I look at where I was a few years ago, before even being allowed to go to college I was shipped off to treatment by my parents and it was completely ineffective, I was compliant only until they let me out, relapsing before insurance even gave out on day treatment after inpatient. I spent the months leading up going to college starving, purging and slicing myself up every night. I had a friend who I consider more like my family take me in a month before I left for school and it was the closest thing I would find to recovery for a long time. He basically devoted his entire last month of summer to helping me eat, keeping me from purging and making sure I didn't cut. I was blessed to have him and his family including his future wife there for me taking care of me when I wasn't even their responsibility. I left for my freshman year of college a week after leaving his house. Little did I know that I was in for some serious replases and years and years of struggling.
Looking back on that time now I can see that I was completely blessed to have gone to a school with a doctor on their staff who specialized in eating disorders. At the time I was reluctant to go see him to be honest with you I was basically drug there by some friends, who tried their damnedest to help me, when I was probably not even close to willing to let ED go and actually deal with my issues. The first time I saw Dr. R I was adamant that there would be no leaving school and no more treatment, which was the first thing he told me I needed. I started seeing him in November and by December found myself admitted to the hospital with a feeding tube and pretty much falling apart on a regular basis and trying to exercise when no one was watching. Dr. R saved my life, he kept me on as a patient after I had to leave school, he spent week after week listening to me come up with more excuses as to why I just couldn't eat and I had to cut, he was there through some really tough times, and he rescued me on a regular basis by admitting me to the hospital for tube feedings and IVs. He often dealt with anorexia because the real me was buried somewhere deepdown inside unable to find a voice loud enough to overpower the monster. He could have dropped me as a patient and even threatened to do so many times because I was chronic and showed very little improvement, constantly needing to be in the hospital. Looking back I can only imagine how terrifiying it was to see me everyweek covered in cuts needing to be stitched up restricting my food and fluid and exercising all the time. He use to tell me the same thing all the time, "change your paradigm"...I swear I was getting so sick of hearing it I wanted to through a bottle of tube feed at him. I can honestly say that I owe my life to him and I know others who probably feel the same way. I was so happy when I could email him and tell him that I'd made it a full year in my recovery. (FYI...doctors that specialize in eating disorders are a special kind of people because seeing young people come in all day and watching them destroy themselves, constanly in crisis it takes a toll)
By the time I was able to listen to the good doctor's advice and change my paradigm I was alreay diagnosed with severe gastroparesis, they had removed over eighty five percent of my stomach and I had a j tube placed in my small intestine to nourish me...you would think just the fact they took most of my stomach I would have jumped up and started to recover but I didn't...I refused to do my tube feeds properly, was cutting myself on a regular basis, and taking a deadly cocktail of meds to help with depression, anxiety, and sleep. I overdosed three times in a matter of five months one of which landing me in the ICU, but I just couldn't get it, I couldn't fight it. By the time I met Josh I was half dead, simply exsisting rather than living and I was doing my damnedest to stop doing that. I can't explain what turned everything around and brought me back, part of it was Josh...we became close friends at first then a couple. He helped me in everyway he could, taking razors and sharps away when I was unable to take them away from myself, he was there to help me get off all the meds that were clogging my head, and he never walked away...let me tell you I was a train wreck. Unfortunately we learned within months of me beginning my long journey into recovery that my stomach was basically useless and my intestines were now suffering damage, I would need to be on a feeding tube forevery to get my nutrition and spend almost a year on a central line for IV nutrition. Life quickly became surgeries, countless doctor appointments and the realization that my eating disorder had destroyed my body leaving the very organs I needed to eat and absorb food pretty much useless.
So, here I am now almost three years since I've given into my anorexia or put a razor into my flesh, 26 years old on a daily dose of narcotics to simply tolerate the pain in my intestines, a backpack full of tube feed, five trips to the OR since August, countless nights spent in the emergency room, and facing down the knowledge that I will only get sicker and our treatment options are limited wondering the answer to my question. I think I should be considered a success because if you've made it this far on this long entry you will have only gotten a taste of what I've been through and survived. I am no longer a prisoner to that monster screaming in my head that I have to cut, I have to restrict, I have to purge. I no longer spend my days doing sit ups and obsessing over numbers I can handle extreme emotions without cutting. My physical body is destroyed, I'm lucky it has made it this far with the damage I put it through, but emotionally I beat the odds. By all accounts I should be dead now and I'm here being a mother to my son, something some people thought I would never be able to do. Yes, I'm sick and that's not going to change, somedays I cry because the pain is so bad but I get through it, I get through everyday without going back. The monster is still lurking in the distance and claws its way in sometimes and I'm tempted when things get tough, but I tell it to take a flying leap and push through which is something I couldn't have done three years ago. In the end I was able to let the disease that took most of my adolescence/young adulthood, my friends, my family, and my health go...I changed my paradigm.
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