"Running in Heels" is a book I THOUGHT would be fairly light chick-lit in good company with the Shopaholic series.
A bit into the book, it dawns on one that the main character is anorexic, and diving headlong into bulimia. Much of the book deals with how her thinking patterns that resulted in this eating disorder almost destroyed her life and relationships. The beginning of her recovery is rocky.
What truly astonished me was how WELL the author nailed what it is like to have (and begin the recovery from) an eating disorder.
The obsession with food and fat just masks feelings of inadequacy and being unwanted and a host of other neurotic issues. It starts off as a discipline, or a way to control SOMETHING when everything else is beyond any control.
If I could only be more disciplined about food, then everything (read: life, family, job...) will be okay.
If I was skinny...
If I was pretty...
If I stopped needing anything at all...
I once went 3 weeks without eating anything at all. After the first few days, you stop being hungry. A few days later, the mere THOUGHT of food makes you nauseous. A couple weeks later, you pass out in chemistry class and your little experiment in starvation ends when your chemistry teacher starts sitting with you at lunch and says he will do that every day until you show him you are eating again.
That's when I discovered bulimia. They could make me eat. They could not make me keep it down.
The biggest shock of all, as I was reading this book, was knowing I really, truly, used to think and act that way... and that I do not anymore.
I honestly could not tell you the last time I shoved fingers down my throat because I felt terrible about needing to eat. Or skipping eating for a few days just to prove I could. Or using food to simply numb out and pretend I'm not hurt, angry, sad, afraid.
The author's description of white-knuckling through the beginning of recovery was so accurate, I felt she could read my mind.
I ate both pieces of toast, with butter, resenting every single bite. I felt horrible, bloated, greedy. I think about the familiar feeling, the fast release and unthinkingly head to the bathroom. I stop myself at the door, thinking, no, you promised. You said you'd stop. I walk away and sit in a chair. Maybe if I read something. Maybe if I left the house. The bread feels heavy. The bathroom is only a few steps away. I rub my stomach to see if I can feel the lump. I think that a quick run will burn off that 350 calories -better run farther in case I miscalculated. No, no, no. That was normal food. I ate normal food. Normal people do not intentionally throw up normal food. You can be normal. Really. I circle my wrist with my fingers, seeing how much they overlap and if my pig-like consumption of two pieces of toast with butter has caused the chain reaction of fat growth I expect...
It was a long rough road out of that.
So many, many people believed in me when I did not believe in myself. God placed people in my life to help me work through all of this stuff that caused head-swinging weight losses and gains and messed with my metabolism and teeth and sanity.
I think I was led to that book that seemed so carelessly chosen at the time. I've been wondering if all the effort I've been putting in the last couple/few years has gotten me anywhere.
I had forgotten so much about that part of my history. I cannot imagine torturing myself like that now.
I think I am only bothering to write about it now to just let people know that there IS recovery, when you learn to love yourself enough to take good care of yourself. We were ALL loved into creation. God surrounds us with His love and support and GRACE that heals our lives.
However you are abusing food (or drugs, or other people, or...) -whether to numb out or prove control or punish or whatever... there is a way out. A difficult, scary, windy road that you will occasionally find yourself face down on after tripping over something you didn't expect to find.
If you keep getting back up, eventually, you will get out.
I mean, I did, you know?
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