My story starts with a quest for perfection.
I've never been one to blame my upbringing for life's shortcomings or my personal struggles. To me, life is about the choices we make and I believe anyone can break a cycle of self-destruction and abuse with the right amount of awareness, willpower, and positive attitude.
Where I've Been
Failure has never been an option in my life. Meet and exceed expectations, win the respect of others, strive to work harder than most at all times; I internalized these messages early on. Perfection would provide a necessary escape. All I knew is that I could not ever return home once I left...I would not allow myself to turn back once I found a way out.
From an early age, I learned that achievement and determination were my tickets out of a toxic upbringing. As long as I kept a focused eye on my goals, I could circumvent the chaos and instability around me. I swam competively almost my entire life, pulling two-a-day workouts at a young age and approaching the sport with beyond-my-years focus and drive. In school, I was an anamoly. I was internal yet outspoken, a leader yet rebellious, creative but pragmatic, and intellectual yet struggling to find my way academically. I was hurting, a broken kid trying to compete in a rigorous private high school setting that was not designed to support someone with a complicated home life and nontraditional smarts.
If I showed others I had drive, fierce determination, and wicked potential, they took notice. And I needed for people to take notice in order to provide me with the opportunities I needed to get away from an unstable home life clouded by my mother's mental illness. I wanted out, and I learned at an early age that being the best would open doors for me.
In college, I earned respected leadership roles. Administrators loved me, and opportunities fell into my lap. I was the picture of excellence to most. But I was simultaneously living a rocky second life filled with substance abuse, promiscuity, and an overall "I'll do pretty much anything because I really don't give a damn about myself" attitude. The life I led was jam-packed, dangerous, and out of control. On one hand, I desperately needed to achieve success; on the other I tried time and time again to destroy everything I had built for myself.
During my senior year of college, I was raped at the house I was living in at the time. That house was both carefree and wreckless, producing one of the best yet most self-destructive years of my life. I reached out to a college administrator who I had been working under at the time, and she helped me clean up, heal myself, and get back on the right track. Several months later, I had graduated with my BA and, with her help, landed a graduate assistantship in the Advising Center to help pay for my Master of Education in Higher Education Administration.
Two years later, armed with my M.Ed and a few high-quality internships, I landed a dream job as an Academic Advisor. I loved it, worked hard (as usual), and was promoted within two years to a position I didn't think I would land until much later in my career.
I had made it. I was out. On my own and reaping the benefits of hard work and success.
Then...
Falling to Anorexia
Anorexia is the perfectionist's disorder.
2009...my return to sports and competition. I started working out again, and it reminded me of my childhood and the one thing that always felt like home: working hard, training hard. It wasn't long before I started swimming competitively again through U.S. Masters Swimming, trying my hand at long-distance running, and dabbling in triathlons. I got certified as a cycling instructor and was hired almost immediately at my gym. I later earned my personal training certification through an organization that is considered to be the gold-standard for health and wellness professionals.
Weight started to fall off. I started to see BIG results. I was getting fast in the pool again and started to wonder what would happen if I lost even more fat. Many of the messages I received throughout my life ("You need to do more", "You are difficult to work with", "You are too intense ", "We expect more of you") started to compound. I was determined, once again, to fix all the flaws, and my body seemed like the perfect place to start. The results related to body and weight were measurable: better performance, decreases in inches, moving down sizes, dropping pounds.
Started restricting. No meat. No fat. Nothing processed. Nothing white.
One day, after missing a workout I thought about giving purging a try. It wasn't so bad. It quickly became an after-meal habit, regardless of whether or not I had worked out.
Every day. Then, soon, after every meal. Then eating less and less. Purging more and more. Getting sicker and sicker, while striving for perfection in many, many areas of my life.
I finally confide in someone about how sick I'd become. She jumps into action immediately and begins to get me help. A team of specialists is formed around me before I even know what has happened. And my recovery story begins.
