Anorexic? Me? No Way.

At exactly this time last year, give or take a few weeks, I was at my lowest weight. I was 96 pounds. I would look in the mirror and what I saw was all muscle, no fat, and I was so proud of that. In my head, I was getting to peak physical condition, eating healthier than I had ever been, with a diet consisting of salads with no dressing or cheese, very minimal carbs and sugar, and a whole lot of egg whites, protein, and fiber. Like I said in my previous posts, I was aiming for under 1000 calories a day. And in my head, this made me disciplined.

But the thing is, I still wasn’t satisfied with myself. I still felt like I wasn’t healthy enough or fit enough, and this was the only thing I could focus on. It’s part of the reason I isolated myself from everyone and had tunnel vision on myself. I couldn’t focus at work because all that was going through my mind was how lazy and inactive I was working at a desk for 8+ hours a day. I was absolutely miserable, but somehow I convinced myself it would be worth it. The girl you see in this picture was lost. And anytime I was confronted, I would go along with the fact that I should get help and that I was working on gaining weight and eating more. But was I? Hell no. I would tell people what they wanted to hear because in my mind, they were envious that I was in such great shape. I believed myself to be someone that people envied.

God if I could go back and just shake myself awake, I would.

Why anyone would envy to be a starving, underweight, depressed woman is beyond me. I was delusional. I wasn’t me. That picture above has never been shared with anyone except with a few people that I trust. I was trying on swimsuits and packing for vacation when I realized that absolutely none of my clothes fit me anymore. I went out and bought new shorts, swimsuits, tops, etc., all in the smallest size they came in. Because why should I be anything but the smallest size? Why would they make that size if I wasn’t supposed to fit in it? I took this picture and was like wow, Nikki, look at how strong you’ve become, you can see the definition in your abs and arms. My thighs have the gap that so many long for. Notice the Apple Watch – the watch that only came off my wrist to sleep or shower. It was my bible. It was my source of truth and source of motivation. And now I look at this picture and it’s terrifying for me to look at. To realize how lost I was without even knowing it. To think that I denied my Anorexia because being classified as Anorexic meant I was sick, that I wasn’t healthy. And if I wasn’t healthy, what had I been doing to myself? I refused to believe that I made myself sick, that I was harming my body and mind, that I was weak, that I was struggling, that I needed help.

I dug the hole for myself, so I deserve to be here.

I don’t remember the day that I admitted to my mom that I needed help. I don’t remember the final piece that triggered me to do it. Maybe all of the lies I was telling about getting help had finally added up enough to make me feel guilty. Maybe it was the amount of times I had snapped at someone commenting on my food or workouts. Maybe it was me realizing the past year was a blur. Maybe it was because I couldn’t sleep, I had veins popping out of my body, I was cold all the time, and I couldn’t think straight. Most likely? A combination of everything. But once I had realized what I was doing to myself, I had this immense amount of shame. How could I have done this to myself without seeing the implications? I made myself believe at that point that I deserved to be in this deep, deep hole that I dug. I did it to myself, I don’t deserve to get help. I don’t want to be a burden to anyone or take up anyone’s time trying to get better when it was me who put myself there. It was like I was continuing to spiral the more I realized I had harmed myself. I put myself at risk of not being able have children, for heart failure, for my organs shutting down, for my hair falling out and brain barely functioning. But at some point I had realized that this was the reason that I couldn’t help myself. I didn’t know how. I didn’t know how to change the ideas and beliefs that I had sworn by for so long. But me getting help meant that I had to admit to others that I was sick. And I didn’t want to be sick. I didn’t want to be Anorexic.

But I was.

I was so sick. I was extremely Anorexic. My mind had wired itself to believe everything my eating disorder was telling me. And once I began seeing a therapist and dietician, I thought it would be a weight lifted off my shoulders. I was in for a rude awakening. Once you begin your journey to recovery, the real work begins. It consists of learning to feel every single emotion you pushed down and numbed out. It means a flood of emotions you never wanted to feel. It means mourning the loss of your old self, and eventually, mourning the loss of the way the eating disorder made you feel. It’s terrifying, it hurts, and it’s a hell of a lot of work. It’s the hardest thing that I have ever had to do. And I’m still doing it. I’ve had to look back to my childhood, to the things I’ve learned throughout my life that drove me to spiral into this broken state. To the things that have hurt me, things I’ve done to hurt others, my family, my friends, my relationships. But one of those most important things that I’ve realized from looking back on my life, is that each and every painful memory, every beautiful memory, and everything in between, formed such a strong woman. Instead of allowing myself to feel that pain, I had chosen to ignore that. I was ignoring the strength that I had in fear of facing emotions and feelings that I didn’t think I could relive or cope with – I didn’t want to feel weak ever again.

I’m still learning. I’m still recovering.

I still struggle with letting myself feel pain or sadness. It’s so much easier to ignore the negative emotions and distract myself from them. I’ve struggled recently with keeping myself accountable because while I do allow myself to be sad, angry, annoyed, etc., I don’t do anything about it. I pity myself and I don’t separate my thoughts from my mind – I would THINK them, but once I could forget them and push them down, I would feel fine. But ‘fine’ is not how I want to feel. I want to fully feel like me. And since I’ve found my voice in writing, I feel so much more open and welcoming to every single emotion I feel than I ever have before. But don’t be mistaken. I still have eating disorder thoughts. I still skip breakfast sometimes or workout for longer than I should. I still feel guilt after eating at a restaurant or just eating more in general than I used to. I still have the days that I really struggle. Yesterday I wanted to curl into a ball at the idea of having to wear a swimsuit next week on vacation. Being in a swimsuit makes me feel vulnerable. Like I’m defined by what my body looks like in a swimsuit. So yes, I still have eating disorder thoughts, but I’m letting myself sit with them and reflect on them. If I restrict for a day, I go to sleep that night and I tell myself that I can do better tomorrow. That one day of weakness doesn’t define my progress in recovery. I hear Ed’s thoughts in my head and sometimes that voice is louder than my own, but over the last few months, his voice is getting quieter, more infrequent. I don’t want to shrink myself down to nothing anymore. I don’t want to make myself small and unnoticeable. I want to be proud of who I am, with all of my imperfections and quirks, with the good moments and the hard moments. Because at least I know that I’m not numb anymore. That the hard days are just that – a day. 1 mere day here and there, or maybe a few in a row, out of an entire lifetime. My life is not worthless. I am not defined by my eating disorder, I’m defined by my strength to recover, my kindness, my heart, and my mind. My life is worth living. And I can’t wait to keep living it.