I'm new to this whole blog thing, so bare with me. :)
The reason I decided to start this blog was because my thoughts were getting tangled up inside my head, as so many things are happening in my life. Trying to recover, maintain a good relationship with Christ, keep up on school work, plan my future, star in my school musical, work on the Disciple Management Team (DMT) of my church, convince my parents to accept my vegan lifestyle- Phew, let me take a breath. That's not even half the list. I'm in a time of my life where things are changing and I'm beginning to take on some adult responsibilities, although I am only 14 (for the record, I'll be 15 in July;) Struggling with an eating disorder for the past three and a half years has really opened my eyes to the harsh reality of life- it isn't all rainbows and butterflies. Some people have to deal with that reality much later in their teenage years, but unfortunately I got an early start. Hey, I'm not complaining though. God obviously wanted me to go through some very traumatic experiences for one reason or another. Maybe I don't know exactly why these things have happened, but I will find out the reason somewhere down the road.
What "things" are you referring to, Leanne?
As I said earlier in this post, I've dealt with an eating disorder since I was 11 years old in the 6th grade. It all began when they weighed us in gym class at the beginning of the year.
The scale read 121.
1 2 1.
I could've cried right then and there, but I held back the tears until I was alone in my room that evening. I decided I wanted to lose a couple of pounds. I made an innocent plan to jog in place a few minutes a day, do sit-ups and crunches before I went to bed every night, and limit myself to one snack after school. I wanted to fit in better and be able to wear all the pretty clothes that the girls in my class wore. I wanted to be able to change in the gym locker room in front of everyone rather than stay cooped up in the bathroom stall because I was terrified of anyone seeing my repulsive body.
An 11 year old shouldn't have to feel like that.
I had a doctors appointment at the end of that month and found out I had shot up almost a whole inch, and lost four pounds. I was ecstatic. I told my mom, and she said that was great. And it was, because I was slightly overweight at 120 pounds.
But I didn't stop there.
I met a friend in 6th grade who was new to the school. Her name was Emily. Emily and I became closer than I have ever been to someone even to this day. We spent every second together. We had sleepovers every weekend, and she came over my house several times a week. We went to dances all the time at catholic schools in the area that we were way too young for, but our parents didn't know what kids really did there. We wore revealing clothes and danced with guys we had never met prior to that night. I felt really self conscious wearing tiny shorts that hardly covered my butt, and crop tops that showed some of my stomach. Emily, on the other hand, appeared to have all the confidence in the world, and I was jealous.
One day, Emily told me she wanted to lose weight. Remember I was trying to lose weight too at the time, so of course I thought it would be so cool to have my friend do it with me. "Let's be weight loss buddies!" I suggested to her. She happily agreed, and for the rest of the 6th grade we would restrict our lunches together, count our calories, and give each other 'diet tips'.
Emily moved away at the end of the 6th grade, and we've only met up once since (at another dance-shhh! ;)
By the end of my 7th grade year, I had lost 30 pounds and grew 2 more inches. I was now borderline underweight, and you could see it in my sunken cheeks and protruding collar bones. I was excessively exercising, and counted every calorie I consumed. My mom took me to the doctors, who told me I had an eating disorder. My parents told me I had to gain weight, because I did not look well. The word "anorexia" came up in every conversation we had.
That summer, I did gain.
But not necessarily because they told me to, but because that summer I developed a new disorder that would send me in a deteriorating downward spiral for years to come.
Binge eating disorder.
By the end of the summer and the start of 8th grade, I was back up to 120. I had gained 30 pounds in 3 months. I had also began cutting myself, and it became an almost everyday thing. However, the cuts were not too deep, yet.
8th Grade
This was hands-down the worst year of my life thus far.
I gained another 10 pounds by November from binging. I ate when I was bored, I ate when I was lonely, I ate when I was happy, I ate when I was sad. I carved the word "FAT" into my right thigh, and to this day the scar is shockingly noticeable.
Then something weird happened.
I started to lose weight without trying. I was still binging almost everyday, mostly on carbs and sugary junk. My favorite things to binge on were cereal, peanut butter, and salty snacks like pretzels and tortilla chips. Despite the binging, the scale continued to drop as days went by. I loved it. Along with the weight loss, I was getting bad stomach aches that worsened from the moderate ones I got throughout 7th grade. I also noticed something else- I was extremely thirsty. I would come home from school and drink 5 bottles of water nonstop, binge, and then inhale 5 more whole bottles of water. One day I calculated how many cups of water I had guzzled down and it came out to 35 cups. I knew this was not normal. I went to the doctors for my stomach aches, and decided to mention my excessive thirst while I was there. They did a urine sample and a blood test, then I went straight to my friend's birthday sleepover party. I had no idea what unfortunate events the next day would bring.
10:00 am on December 22nd, 2012- The phone rang. I was in my room writing in my journal when my mom came in.
"You are one sick child," she said in her soft motherly voice. One look at her and I knew something was seriously wrong. I dropped my journal and walked over to her. She hugged me tightly and said "I love you." That's when I burst into tears.
I spent in the next 3 days in the hospital, being poked and stabbed and questioned and hooked up to a painful IV. It would have been 4 days, but I pretty much demanded to be released before Christmas Day. It may have been the longest 3 days of my life.
I had been diagnosed with Type One Diabetes. No, not the kind your grandmother has. Not the kind your dad has to take a pill and lose weight for. The kind that is unexplainable, unpreventable, and incurable. It will never go away. If I hadn't have gone to the doctors that day for my stomach aches, I would have died suddenly within the next couple of months.
This was all so new to me. Learning to give myself injections every time I eat or drink something, pricking my finger ten times a day, learning how to treat high and low blood sugars, and so on.
I took the diagnosis well initially, and thankfully I'm not someone who is terrified with needles.
Then I discovered something.
I was gaining weight, and lots of it.
Nobody had told me that insulin = weight gain.
I gained 15 pounds in the first two weeks home from the hospital. I was at my highest weight ever, actually being launched into the overweight category, and I was extremely depressed.
I would rather not revisit that time in my life, between the end of December 2012 and the beginning of the summer of 2013. I cannot imagine getting to a lower point than I was. I was diagnosed with moderate depression, but I think it was severe. I felt like I was already dead, despite my beating heart. I missed about 15 days of school that half of the year, seen four therapists and countless doctors, and nobody could help me. The only release was slicing my skin with a sharp razor, and literally watching all of my pain spill out. The scars I inflicted upon myself may be the number one thing I regret, as they are still very visible today and continue to hold me back from many opportunities and social events. I almost fainted more times than I can recall, once being successful, and some of my wounds continued bleeding after several days.
Why would I do that to myself?
I don't know.
No, honestly, I DONT know what led me to hurt myself. It just made me feel better, and I thought I deserved it. I was not worthy enough to have pure, unsoiled skin.
I can proudly say that today, February 5th 2014, I am 129 days clean. *does happy dance*
But my eating disorder is another story.
The first time I purged was April 11th, 2013. I have not led anything close to a normal life since then. I began to purge everything I ate...then it became binging and purging. I developed bulimia, which is what I struggle with today. My doctors and my parents don't help me with it, they make it worse with terrifying monthly weigh-ins and check-ups, threats like "if you don't stop losing weight we will do this...we will send you here..." and the latest threat to my parents, "If you don't put her into treatment, the hospital will report you for child neglect."
Ha.
I'm just going to laugh until that happens. NO threat, no one, and no thing will stop me from getting to the weight I want and engaging in whatever eating habits I want. If you had/have an eating disorder, you completely understand where I'm coming from.
This story is going all over the place, so I am going to wrap it up by telling you where I am today.
I'm off insulin due to a combination of the lack of carbs and the "honeymoon period," which is when my pancreas is still producing enough insulin to keep my blood sugars stable, but it will start to produce less and less and eventually I will be fully dependent on injections. The doctors estimate this will start to happen by this summer.
Since the first time I purged almost a year ago, the longest streak I've gone without purging is one week. It's an everyday battle, but I'm currently in recovery, which is a choice I made/was forced into over the summer in ongoing outpatient treatment. My heart is still not 100% in recovery, and I'm still purging quite often, and restricting when I'm not binging. So basically, I haven't moved very far in recovery, but I have made some progress which is good enough for me and my parents. We have hope that I will one day overcome this, just like I overcame self harm.
My weight is much lower than my high weight, but certainly in the healthy range. I'm still losing at a slow rate... once again, it is a constant battle between me and the evil voice inside my head.
My depression is very much improved, and I contribute that to the decision of starting a mostly raw vegan plant-based lifestyle. :)
I left a lot of detail and traumatic events out of this that I frankly never want to think about again, and I don't think they would do anything but upset anyone who reads this as well. I also left out some illegal things I would prefer not to be arrested for, but you may ask me about them if you are that curious, haha.
I'm going to make blog posts whenever I feel like, which will most likely be a few times a week. I want to redefine Leanne. I don't want to dwell on the past, I don't want to hate or hurt myself anymore. I will move on. I will get better. I will recover.
