NEW CHAPTER, LAST BLOG

First things first, shout out to Sarah Hz!!! Keep rocking recovery, lady!!! I'm proud of you! (And of course all my other lovely friends...gotta include you, too! haha)

Ok, so.....blog..

One of my therapists once told me I had one of the “meanest” eating disorders she has ever treated.  Now considering she worked at an eating disorder hospital where she worked with patients day in and day out, that surprised me.  But looking back, it’s easier to believe her now.  I had such a deep hatred toward myself and my body.  You have no idea- no one knows- all the different ways I abused my body for so many years.  I thought I deserved it; I believed the self-inflicted abuse was necessary after what I had done and after what had been done to me.  That’s why, when I look at myself now, I am in complete awe of God.  I am in awe of the place I am at in life, the way I feel about myself.  I believed the lie that so many people believe- that I would either die from anorexia or I would struggle with it for the rest of my life.  To my friends reading this who are struggling: THIS DOESN’T HAVE TO BE FOREVER.  I don’t care what your doctor says.  I don’t care what society says or what statistics say.  My God is so much bigger than any eating disorder, no matter how severe.

I consider myself blessed to be alive.  Overcoming has been such a battle.  I’m not saying I’ve made it all the way through- I still have my moments- but I can honestly say that I am no longer CONTROLLED by an eating disorder!  I look back and wonder how my body escaped so much destruction…yes, I lost bone density and am at risk of fracturing my hip (I’m 21 for crying out loud, not 80!), my body literally ate away at my muscles, my hair started to fall out, my vitals were out of whack, I began having heart problems, the list goes on- but all this is/was reversible.  I have one friend who was given two days to live because she was at such a crucial weight and her organs began to stop working.  I WAS AT THE SAME WEIGHT.  I praise God that my body has been able to withstand all that I put it through!

Some people don’t understand eating disorders, and I’m coming to a point where I can begin to understand and accept that.  It’s not the norm for someone to refuse the very thing that will sustain your life.  But for years, all I heard from people-some out of concern and love yet some just out of ignorance- was that I needed to get over myself, that I was so selfish to be doing this to my family, that I should ‘just eat’, that someone should shove a burger down my throat, that I should get over it because worse things could happen, that there are starving children in Africa, that I just needed to pray harder and trust God ‘better’….I’ve heard it all.  So many times, I shut myself in my bathroom and cried.  I couldn’t even imagine getting a meal in, yet people shut me out because my behavior just did not make sense.  What hurt the most was hearing people say “just eat.” JUST eat.  If ‘just eating’ was that easy, I would have stopped in a HEARTBEAT.  So would my friends that I have met along my journey- the 40 year old woman with a pace maker because she flat-lined and missing teeth due to lack of calcium.  The 12 year old girl who had a meltdown over having to drink a small cup of soy milk.  The 11 year old girl who had to be hospitalized and separated from her family because she refused to eat.  The 50 year old man confined to a wheelchair because he was too emaciated to WALK.  The 60 year old woman who just wanted to be with her grandkids but couldn’t keep a meal down.  I could keep going.  Eating disorders are UGLY.  They are not FUN.  Living with anorexia or bulimia is hell.  Not only are you slowly killing your body, but you have friends and family criticizing you, doctors telling you that you just need more pills, and therapists telling you there is no chance of 100% recovery and that relapse is inevitable. 

After years of therapy, doctors appointments, support groups, treatment centers, psychiatric holds, etc and doctors were STILL scratching their heads, I began to believe that there was no hope.  I had tried EVERYTHING.  I really truly thought the only thing I was good at was losing weight- I couldn’t stop and I never lost “enough” to make me feel ok.  That’s the ugly thing about anorexia- I weighed less than I did when I was in middle school and yet I felt guilty over something as little as a couple pieces of cucumber.  At one of my lowest points, I was given a 5250 (extended psychiatric hold) that said I was severely disabled and at risk from dying because of the shape my body was in, and I STILL hid my food!!!

WHY am I sharing this with you?  To give you JUST A GLIMPSE at the fact that God is REAL and He wants to restore lives.  I couldn’t have gotten to this point on my own.  No one can, no matter how hard you try, how many therapy sessions you have…there will still be a void.  Like I said, I’m not saying I’m at 100% and that I never struggle.  I still have my moments-BUT they pass just as quickly as they come up.  I do not obsess about what I’m going to eat, how I’m going to get rid of it, or how I’m going to get out of eating with friends/family.  I FEEL FREE!!!! And I am simply in awe of God- I revisited some tough memories at Mercy and He showed up and broke down walls I had built.  I finally MEANT IT when I surrendered everything- all my fears about life, all my preconceived notions, all the hatred that I had-and gave it all to Him.  I’m not saying it was some instant ‘magic’ process.  It took time.  But oh my goodness, you CANNOT leave Mercy and still doubt if there is a God- you see the change in these girls’ lives and it’s just incredible.  Honestly, I was a little….well…peeved at God for a while…just wondering why all this had happened.  But when you seek God, the Bible says He will show up.  And He did.  And I have this peace that is kind of hard to explain.

Anyways, I’ll kind of sum up what’s been going on since I graduated from Mercy a month and a half ago.  Since I was in treatment all last year and then half of this year (shoot, make it in and out of treatment and doctors appts. and all that crap for the last 4 and a half years), I am just simply trying to adjust to REAL LIFE.  I’ve been catching up with friends and family, going out to dinner and actually EATING more than lettuce and diet coke!!!!, and looking for a job (ahem…if anyone knows any ideas…because so far job hunting kinda sucks to be honest).  I am SO EXCITED to be going back to school in August!!! Because Dave Ramsey is a genius and because of the amount of student loans I have, I am going to Cypress College and then hopefully I will transfer back to Hope in the spring.  Oh goodness, I miss Hope so much!  I have an incredible accountability partner that I meet with twice a week whom I LOVE, and I’m seeing my regular dietician once a month just to check in and make sure everything’s ok weight-wise.  I am still going to Richfield Community Church and it looks like I will be working with jr highers (I’m excited, yet still quite crushed that I will not be working with the same girls I’ve had for the last few years…trying to trust God’s plan in this).  I want to look for a college group close to my home and also am looking for a Spanish service to go to every once in a while to mix things up. J And no, to those of you who think I’m going to a Spanish-speaking service to meet nice Christian Latino men, you are…partially…wrong.  I am just looking for ways to keep practicing my Spanish, and besides, I made a decision not to date for 6 months after graduating from Mercy.  I prayed about it and decided I needed time to adjust to life again and focus on my relationship with God.  No need for boy drama! Haha. 

I got to go to Mexico a few weeks ago and catch up with the kids at the ranch, which was INCREDIBLE!!! And I didn’t bring the eating disorder along with me this time!  The week after, I went to Palm Desert with my family on vacation.  We’ve gone every year since I was a little girl, and for the past 7 years, it has been more of an overwhelming experience than vacation because I’ve had to worry about eating out at restaurants and wearing a swim suit all day.  Last year I couldn’t even go because I was at lovely BHC.  THIS YEAR, however, I had an incredible, relaxing time and even wore a bikini!  It was also cool because I got to be a little real with my cousins.  When I wear a bikini, you can see my most obvious scar.  My cousins, being young and curious, asked me about it, and while being VERY VAGUE, I got to explain how I had really been hurting but I didn’t handle it in the right ways, and I told them that if they were ever having a hard time, they could come to me.  It was cool.  We even had a “No-parents-night” where we took them to In & Out and then to get slurpees.  It was so fun to joke around with them and JUST BE NORMAL!

So overall, things have been going well.  Some days get a bit challenging, but I am reminding myself that readjusting to life doesn’t happen with a snap of the fingers.  But it’s good because it has me running to God for help.  This week I am considering…well, no…I’m going to do it…I’m calling Kaiser to see a therapist to help me out with my flashbacks.  They have kind of caught me off guard and I’ve decided I want to face them before it begins to affect my eating again.  At first I felt like doing this would be a step backwards, but a few good friends have reassured me that it’s not.  And looking back over the past seven years, I would say I’m in a great place- so why not take some precautionary measures to keep it that way.  I look forward to the day when I have NO MORE APPOINTMENTS!  But two or three a month is a lot better than 16, so I’ll take it!

I decided this would be my last blog entry under Beauty from Ashes.  It’s time to close this chapter and start a new one.  And since the main point of this blog was to keep people updated while I was in treatment, I would say its purpose is gone.  And for the sake of being corny, since I started this blog with a song that really fit with how my life was at the time, I’ll end with one that I heard the other night.  Listen to it if you can.  It made me BAWL with tears of relief!

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Fw9EDKGHTU

Third Day- Born Again
Well, today I found myself,
After searching all these years,
And the man that I saw,
He wasn't at all who I'd thought He'd be,

I was lost when You found me here,
And I was broken beyond repair,
Then You came along and sang Your song over me
It feels like I'm born again
It feels like I'm living
For the very first time
For the very first time,
In my life

Make a promise to me now,
Reassure my heart somehow,
That the love that I feel,
is so much more real than anything
I've a feeling in my soul,
And I pray that I'm not wrong,
That the life I have now,
It is only the beginning
It feels like I'm born again
It feels like I'm living
For the very first time
For the very first time

It feels like I'm breathing
It feels like I'm moving
For the very first time
For the very first time


Thank you to everyone who encouraged me and prayed for me along the way.  Love you all.  And to my friends who are still in the middle of this battle, DON’T STOP!

Love, Sarah Michelle