In my disease I had two choices on how to handle situations and my feelings: run/work out or starve and restrict my food. My mind was consumed of calorie calculations, planning my day, manipulating situations so I could feel 'in control' of my body and my life and working out. I would sneak in extra work-outs, tell lies, and make up excuses about my insane eating practices and rigid exercise regime. I was nasty to those I loved and who loved me in return. My life was completely out of control, I was very sick on the inside. For a time my anorexia worked for me, I got a high and felt in control, but there came a point where it consumed me and my life, where I merely existed, where my spirit was dying. When I was practicing my anorexia, I wasn't really emaciated. I was quite thin but I had to stay strong enough to play sports; I love sports but my disease took that passion and used it to imprison me. My work-out goals would be to get my upper body stronger, to run faster...etc. but my muscles slipped away, I wouldn't eat properly, I would only eat certain foods, a certain amount of calories. I honestly didn't think that I could eat like other people or I would get so fat! Each day I would go to any lengths to get my fix of exercise and only eat the food and amounts that was safe --according to the calorie calculator inside me head. Slowly, my strength disappeared, my emotions were a roller coaster, and people around me seemed to be getting annoyed and angry with my rigidity and disrespectful treatment of myself and others when food or exercise was involved. My anorexia wasn’t working so well anymore. Everything I tried, different workouts, nutritionists, doctors, councillors, psychologists, personal coaches, and, at one stage thinking that if I gained enough weight back to become a healthy size, THEN things would be better. All of this did help but nothing 'cured' my disease. Someone once said that anorexia is the loneliest place on Earth; I think that's true, even when I was in a room full of friends or family, I was still alone with my head, with my abusive disease, and I was a slave to its seductive promises. Now I can see that the seductive voice was usually the same...when my legs are thinner...after I graduate University...once I'm married...after this next race...THEN I would be happy. Little did I know, this carrot my disease dangled in front of my face was unattainable, once I lost some weight, ran THAT race there was always something more, more weight to lose, another more challenging race, there was no sense of contentment or accomplishment. With each promise, my disease lead me further and further into the darkness until I didn’t even know where I was, I had lost myself, I had lost the innocence, the confident, carefree little girl that I once was, the fun and the joy was gone. Strangely enough, my life probably looked fabulous on the outside, I was away on an athletic scholarship in the USA, had been fortunate enough to travel to many countries across the world, I had good grades, I had friends, a boyfriend, a loving, supportive family, but in the end none of that could make me feel okay; I have a disease.
Miracles happened and after my whole family searched for hours and hours on the internet, my Mom found SACRED. Three weeks later I had completed the intake process and commenced what would be nine months in this holistic, flexible program for recovery. At SACRED I learned how to live, it's more than learning to eat properly and putting weight back on. SACRED provided a safe place for me to get sober, which enabled me to explore the roots of my illness and deal with issues that I didn't know existed. What I love most about SACRED is the flexibility and individual treatment participants get, I love the example the councillors set and the equality in which we are treated. Having SACRED in Edmonton is a true blessing, I am from Alberta and it was a comfort for my family and I to be closer to home. This allowed my family to be a part of my recovery, my addiction is a family illness, it affects all of my loved ones and I feel so grateful to have had the opportunity to recover in Edmonton and close to my family.
My life has changed and continues to change 14 months after finding SACRED. Without SACRED, I don't know where I would be or what I would be doing, I don't know if I would be alive and if I was I would be just existing. SACRED was the place for me and I feel so grateful that it was in Edmonton. Now, I am a part of a supportive, safe network of friends dealing with similar issues, people who I can share my deepest, darkest, most shameful secrets and be accepted with love. My tool box of choices on how to handle difficult situations or just everyday life has grown immensely. Today, I am back at University, I am learning how to play sports, and run in a healthy, sober way, I can eat a variety of foods and go out for dinner with family and friends. I enjoy my life. I have travelled, reconnected with old friends, my relationships--especially with my family and my boyfriend--have changed in an incredible way, and the best part is that I feel different and I see things differently and I'm not so alone. Recovery is definitely NOT easy, I would be lying if I said it was but my life is a lot more flexible today and I can have fun. Recovery is worth it and it is possible. Whatever stage you are in your eating disorder, whatever age you are, it is possible. To me recovery and sobriety from my anorexia is about learning how to live differently and to enjoy the gifts and blessings that I have been given and that I'm surrounded by.
- Past Participant, 2007
I am a daughter, a sister, a friend, a Social Worker…and I am an anorexic, a compulsive overeater and a binge eater. For as long as I can remember, my eating disorder has overshadowed everything I am and everything I do. From a very young age my eating disorder took a hold of me to the point I was nothing but my eating disorder. My eating disorder started with my belief that I didn’t belong; not in my family, not in my community, and certainly, not in the world. I felt different from those around me. I didn’t quiet fit in. There was something wrong with me. And what was wrong with me was that I was too fat. I believed that if I could control my food and my body, lose weight and be thin, I would belong, be acceptable and worthy of love.
I initially used food as a way of coping with the stress, chaos and violence in my home. Food became my comfort, my solace and eventually, my best friend. I would steal food, sneak food and horde food. If I felt scared, I would eat. If I felt sad, I would eat. If I felt lonely, I would eat. Food became my everything. I would spend hours fantasizing about what I was going to eat, how I was going to get the food I wanted and how wonderful it would be to feel full and finally, satiated. Unfortunately, the satiation only lasted a short time and I would have to start again. I hated myself for doing what I did, but I couldn’t stop myself. It was like I had no other choice; I had to have that full feeling. I knew what I was doing was wrong, but I couldn’t stop.
By the time I reached elementary school I was 30 pounds overweight, sad, lonely and scared of everything. My feeling of not belonging grew and I started to isolate from my peers and my family. I withdrew further into myself and into my eating disorder. Statements like “If only you lost a little weight, you would be as pretty as your sister” and “You have such a pretty face and if you lost a little weight you would be such a pretty girl”, fueled my self hatred, drew me further into my disease and was a constant reminder that I was fat, should be ashamed of my body, and that if I wanted to be loved, I needed to be thin.
In high school, I was completely withdrawn, isolated and mortified by my weight. The boys would line up in the hallways and ‘moo’ at me when I walked past. I remember thinking that if I stopped eating in front of people they wouldn’t know I was fat. This is when my restricting began. I wouldn’t eat all day and then when I would get home I would be starving and I wouldn’t be able to stop eating once I started. This pattern of restricting all day and then eating everything in sight lasted through high school, was with me through two university degrees and invaded my work life and what little social life I had.
By my late 20’s, I was a hundred pounds overweight, restricting all day and binging all night. After each binge, I would promise myself that I wouldn’t do it again. I would feel extreme shame and self-loathing after binging, but nothing could stop me from doing it all over again the next day. I tried every diet, every fad and every exercise program to stop gaining weight and to try to alter my body. Nothing worked!
In 1997, I determined I needed to stop gaining weight and since I couldn’t do it my self, I needed to find someone who could. I decided the only way I would stop was through surgery. In May of 1997, I was admitted into the hospital and underwent a complex, potentially fatal, four hour surgery to have my stomach size and function altered. Initially the procedure seemed to work and I lost 50 pounds within five weeks. It wasn’t long, however, that I needed my ‘fix’. With the surgery, I could only eat two tablespoons of food. Anything more than that and I would be in excruciating pain and would involuntarily vomit. I couldn’t control or stop the pain or the vomiting, but I had to binge. Eventually I found that if I drank a carbonated beverage, I could binge without vomiting and I was back to restricting all day and binging all night. I had my ‘fix’ back, and best of all, without the mess of vomiting.
Towards the end of my using, my disease had progressed to the point that I was binging all day and all night, hoping to find some reprieve from the self hatred and self-deprecating thoughts in my head. Most of my time was spent in isolation and in a daze from my binging. I wouldn’t leave my house except to go to work and to pick up my binge food. I withdrew from everyone and everything in my life. I wouldn’t answer the phone, meet friends, or even open the blinds in my home. I was completely and utterly lost in my disease.
In October of 2005, I decided to have another stomach surgery, since the first surgery hadn’t worked. I was so desperate to have the pain of being me, being fat and being completely out of control come to an end, I was willing to undergo another complex, invasive, lengthy and potentially fatal surgery. It was after my visit with the gastroplasty surgeon that I finally hit my bottom. A few days after my appointment with the surgeon, I binged to the point that I thought I was going to die from the pain. I was doubled over on the couch thinking I was having a heart attack. It was then that I realized another surgery was not going to stop my insanity, and in that moment, I decomposed into a puddle of despair, desperation and hopelessness. It was in that moment that I knew I was defeated…my disease had won. The only thing I had left to do was to either kill myself or call Dr. Johnston. For some reason I called Dr. Johnston and within two months, I was in SACRED.
I have been in SACRED for fifteen months and ‘sober’ for the first time in my life! It has been fifteen months since I have had to restrict or to binge, something I have done everyday for 25 years of my life. I am able to eat three meals and three snacks a day. I am able to live life instead of hiding from it. I have a place to share my struggles and triumphs with people who completely understand and who only want the best for me. The staff at SACRED have loved me until I was able to love myself. They have walked the path of my recovery with me. They have cried with me and they have laughed with me. Without them, SACRED would not be the safe haven it is.
I will be forever indebted to the staff, board members and donors of SACRED. Without SCARED, I would probably not be alive today.
- Past Participant, 2007
Dear SACRED
The extent and
depth of my gratitude for your love and guidance is inexpressible,
but I must try my best to let you know just what a difference you
have made in my life. I have never felt so free and full of hope
as I do today, and I am certain that I would not have gotten to
this place of real living without your support and care over the
past five months. This gentle recovery program has nurtured my every
part - my body, my soul, my mind, my entire being - back to health,
and I am endlessly grateful to God for leading me through your doors
despite myself.
Before I came
to SACRED, I felt alone and hopeless, destined for a life
of constant rumination about my fat, ugly body. I was not living;
I only subsisted in a world that I wished still interested me, feeling
that I would never be truly happy. These feelings persisted no matter
how thin I became; my friends and family members noticed my gaunt
face and skinny body, still I was unfulfilled.
At twenty-five
years old I had forgotten how it felt to be happy and carefree,
young and alive. I felt like a shell of a human being, numb and
detached from my friends and my family. The people I loved so dearly
were less important to me than keeping ultra-thin, and though this
very thought sickened me, I could do nothing on my own to see things
any other way. I was hooked, and I could not set myself free.
My anorexia
and bulimia led me to the point of ultimate despair and suicidal
ideation. Prior to my admission at SACRED, I had been working
with a clinical psychologist for years, and had been recently assessed
and medicated by a psychiatrist. The medical therapy really helped
ease the suicidal thoughts, and though months upon months of psychotherapy
had helped me to identify many of the roots of my controlling behavior
around food, none of these services changed my restrictive eating
habits nor my binge and purge behavior. Though I did not want to
die, I knew that I could no longer live the way I was living, and
that if I did not take my own life, somehow my sick mind and dangerous
eating habits would have me dead in the all too near future. My
parents would be devastated was the thought that saved my life.
There is a solution
for us eating disordered folk, but the solution is far from easy:
admit defeat and ask for help every day. SACRED guided me
through this lesson for five months, and I am eternally grateful.
And I really do mean eternally. I have never known such freedom.
I do believe God lives in me, and somewhere inside my heart that
was broken with despair; there was a little light of hope - the
light of life.
Only by grace,
with SACRED's love and guidance, did I let that tiny spark
ignite into the fire of life I am living today. This program of
recovery is full of power, and I pray that many more people who
suffer as I have suffered will be drawn through the doors of SACRED to find the miracle of real life that awaits.
- Past Participant
Mightier Than You
With
stone around my heart,
And mud in my veins,
Your mighty chains of hatred,
Have bondaged me in pain.
The
twisting of my thoughts,
And knotting of my bowels,
Reveals the anger and envy,
As you cry out foul.
My
soul wrapped in chains,
With jealousy and despair,
You shut me into darkness,
From those who would care.
My
life has been ruled,
By your twisted games,
Believing your lies,
Growing more and more insane.
Your
destruction and pain,
Has rivaled my life,
Leaving my world,
Full of anger and strife.
I've
had enough of you,
With your vengeance and lies,
I rid myself of you,
And take back my life.
For
I have another,
Mightier than you,
Whose welcoming me home,
And saying you're through.
You
no longer have power,
To twist and knot,
You've lost your hold,
Your battle has been lost.
I
soar in the clouds,
Play in the northern lights,
I feel my God's presence,
In my day and night.
God's
broken the chains,
And shattered the stone,
Washed away the mud,
Unraveled what you've sown.
I'm
free to learn and grow,
To discover and be,
What my Lord and Savior,
Created me to be.
So,
be gone from my life,
Leave my body and soul,
I turn them to my Lord,
As He makes me whole.
- Client,
SACRED's Eating Disorder Recovery Day Program
"There
is no question in my mind that involvement with the 12-Step Program
saved our daughter's life and helped to restore sanity in our
home."
-
Elizabeth
"
I know that everything I have today would not be possible without
the miracle of the 12 Steps and the work that SACRED has
done to help me..."
"I
am extremely grateful for being given a second chance at life."
-
Lara
