My Eating Disorder
- juliaventresca
- Oct 10, 2019
- 8 min read
Updated: Aug 17, 2023
*TRIGGER WARNING*
This post will be discussing sensitive topics, such as eating disorders and the unhealthy habits related . If at any point during reading you feel uncomfortable, please click OFF of this post, and browse through some of the other posts I have created! (Or you can slide in my DMs and give me some ideas of what to write on next!) :)
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Welcome back everyone!!!
First off I’d like to apologize for the hiatus, starting university again and reconnecting with higher levels of anxiety and stress have been occupying a lot of my time.. But I am still super devoted to this blog, and most importantly creating content that will hopefully help out those around me, and let them know that I am right beside them through this crazy journey of life, and emerging adulthood.
I’ve been wanting to make this post for the past few months now, but, to be honest, I was looking for a time where I was more ‘stable’ in my story, where I could revisit my journey through a more perfected state of mind.
I now realize that sometimes, actually, most of the time, life just doesn’t work like that.
I now also realize that recovery, for anything, is not going to be easy or linear or exactly as you had planned it to be.
It is a lifelong battle, and it's up to me (and you!) to choose to be the best version of ourselves we can be, every single beautiful day we are given on this Earth.
So, today, October 10th, is World Mental Health Day, and I’m taking it as my much needed kick in the ass to write this post.
Without further ado, let’s just dive right into it.
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A little less than a year ago, In December of 2018, I was diagnosed with anorexia nervosa.
Okay, I realize that was a little quick… so let’s back track a bit.
Growing up, I was always a tiny kid. My mom always reflects on the times when our family doctor would scare her to death by telling her I was underweight for my age range and that I needed to eat more. I’ve been so grateful to have grown up always having enough food on my plate to ensure that I would never go hungry, and despite my small appetite (and stomach!) It was always made sure that I was being properly nourished.
The majority of high school, I was handling my body image pretty well. I was working out, staying active, but still having fun and not worrying about whatever the hell I was eating.
My final year of high school was when, for lack of a better term, shit hit the fan.
Already being the highly anxious and perfectionist-prone Type A Capricorn that I am, the constant talk of future plans, (college, university, moving out, getting perfect grades) really began to affect me subconsciously, without me even realizing. Gaining and losing old friends, starting a relationship, and trying to mature and work as hard as I could towards the amazing future I had always dreamed of, there was one thing I found myself wanting, one thing I needed, that I just didn’t have.
Control.
Over my future, over my life, over my relationships, everything.
I needed to feel in control again.
So… what was the one thing in my life that I knew that for sure I would be able to control?
My body.
It started with me researching how to ‘eat healthier.’ Harmless, right?
And then going to run at the gym for hours.
And then eating no carbs, fats, sugar, or dairy.
Within 4-6 months, I had lost around 25 lbs.
It wasn’t until my best friend tried to get me to eat a piece of bread at lunch, (because she noticed that all I had been eating at lunch for the past 3 weeks was a handful of grapes) that I was first hit with the confrontation of my behaviours.
Of course, I denied it and freaked out, and had no idea what she was talking about.
My boyfriend then started to ask why I never wanted to go out to eat anymore, why I was always so tired, why I always claimed I was starving but wouldn’t eat anything.
After a few months, my mom began to start commenting on how she hadn’t seen me eat in weeks, why I began throwing out clothes I’d had for years that were suddenly too big for me, and how I would always claim I was full after eating a handful of spinach with a tablespoon of low-fat dressing for dinner.
I was just being healthy, I was just trying to get into shape, I was just taking care of myself.
Was what the voice in my head would tell me.
I had brushed aside the fact that I no longer had the strength to walk up a flight of stairs, I hadn’t eaten dinner with my family in months, and all I did in every class was calculate the amount of calories I had already eaten and would allow myself to eat for the rest of the day.
Extra points for hitting under 1,000.
I went off my anxiety meds that I had been taking every single day since grade 9. I cancelled plans with my friends, my boyfriend, and my family, because I knew I didn’t have the energy to keep up with them and their conversations, and their constant need to take me out to ‘eat something.’
God forbid someone asked me why my clothes were somehow always four sizes too big and why I was always shaking or freezing cold while everyone else was sweating.
After months of escalating damaging behaviours, one day, in between my 3rd migraine and blackout of the day, I was hit with a terrifying realization, that I wouldn’t ever wish upon my worst enemy.
I had, like, no idea who I was.
I didn’t know what I looked like anymore. I didn’t trust the image in the mirror, it wasn’t me. My eyes were sunken into my face and I could see bones I didn’t even know I had in my
body.
I had given up all of my control to this monster in my head, and I was giving it permission to kill me.
And…. for what?
People often think that those suffering from ED’s follow through with these terrible behaviours as some sort of vanity thing. That girls especially, will starve themselves to skin & bones in hopes of getting down to a size 2 like the models on the runway, or to fit into their favourite pairs of jeans again, or to simply just be considered 'prettier' in society.
So, did my eating disorder make me pretty? I was weak, tired, irritated, scared, cold, lonely, …
Yeah. I sure as hell wasn’t ‘pretty.’
This monster in my head took everything I loved about my life, and told me to forget it. I didn’t deserve success, or strength, or happiness.. with each day I was drifting farther and farther away from everything I loved, and everything that had ever meant anything to me.
I could actually feel my brain becoming smaller. I couldn’t study or pay attention in class or focus for longer than a minute, my brain used the little amount of fuel it had left in the tank to plan out how much longer I thought I could make it that day without fainting, or if I could afford to eat those 3 strawberries just so I would be able to keep my head up in the next class.
.
With the physical shrinking of my body came the shrinking of my mind, my loves and cares and passions and dreams and everything that made me.. me.
I became a miserable person. I would see people laugh and smile and eat copious amounts of calories in one setting without blinking and think.. how do you do that? How are you living so carelessly and so freely and I’m stuck in this prison of a body thats attacking me from the inside out?
The more I listened to the anorexic voice in my head, the harder it became to hear my real voice, and over time it disappeared completely.
It didn't help that the more weight I lost, the sicker I became, it almost seemed like I was getting more .. attention.
Comments from other girls (which I realize now were meant with no ill intents, and are unfortunately part of the societal norm) like "How is your body so perfect?," "How are you so skinny?," "I wish I was a size 0 too," etc., would just further fuel my destructive behaviours, and my eating disorder would eat it right up (no pun intended).
This behaviour carried out and escalated throughout my Grade 12 year, my graduation, and through my first semester of university. Finally, a few weeks before Christmas of 2018, there was a day I looked in the mirror (after finishing my lunch of 3 sticks of carrots and 3 snap peas), at my dull eyes, my grey skin, and my skeleton of a frame, when I thought:
What the hell am I doing to myself?
If I didn’t use whatever last molecule of strength I had left to reach out for help on that day, I wouldn’t have made it through the next semester.
Every day I thank God and my lucky stars for that day.
Because on that day, I chose to fight.
I chose recovery.
Within the next few weeks, I reached out to a local eating disorder center, was diagnosed within minutes with severe anorexia nervosa, and told that if I kept my behaviour up I wouldn't make it to the following year.
And so began my journey to recovery, which I have been on ever since.
Recovery has been and continues to be, the most difficult challenge I have ever faced in my life thus far. It has not been linear, I have relapsed, I continue to have bad days and moments where I doubt my strength, when I want to go back to the illness, but recovery has been absolutely 100% beyond worth it.
The more I fight back, the more I get my life back.
For the entirety of 2019, I have been working through this challenge with the help of my amazing dietician, therapists, and family.
I am now about eight months into my recovery, and writing this post, and being able to look back at all of the progress I have made, I’m brought to tears at the amount of strength, perseverance, and determination I have found within myself.
With recovering and nourishing my body and soul again, I have experienced levels of happiness and strength and love that my eating disorder told me I would never be able to see again.
I have grown as a person in ways that I never believed I could, and I have looked my monster straight in the eyes and told him he doesn’t scare me anymore.
To anyone going through a battle similar to this, the best advice I could give to you right now is to ask for help. ASK FOR HELP. Please. Scream it from the mountaintops if you have to.
If I didn’t ask for help when I did, I would not be writing this post right now.
Destroy the mentality that it’s weird, it’s uncomfortable, that you're not sick enough.
You deserve help, you deserve happiness, and you deserve whatever you need to become the absolute best version of yourself possible.
Anorexia has the highest mortality rate of all mental illnesses, a rate that is “12 times higher than the death rate of ALL causes of death for females 15-24 years old.” (Mirasol Recovery Centres).
Don’t let yourself become another statistic.
Give yourself the love that you deserve.
You only have one body, and trust me, being strong and healthy and happy, looks SO much better than skinny does.
My favourite recovery Instagrams:
@edrecoverygurl
@jenbretty
@bodyposipanda
A helpful resource with information and support for those wishing to enter recovery:
I am still consciously 'in recovery,' and every day I'm continuing to grow mentally (and physically!) because I know I can.
I hope that this post helps at least one person out there, and if you’re looking for a reason to choose recovery, and take your life back, let this be it.
With love and happiness always,
Julia 🌟🌈💋
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