Just A Worrier

Basically, all my life I overheard my Mom tell people "Oh, Melanie is just a worrier."  This was never said in a negative way or with any sort of judgment. It was always framed as a loving explanation of my individual character. So, I obviously believed that I was a worrier, after all, if my Mom said it, it had to be true. 

And I was. 

I knew that I worried, that I worried a lot, about all sorts of things, and I just rationalized that to some degree, I probably worried more than average because how else would I be referred to as "a worrier."  I never felt bad about that label. In fact, I just thought it was a healthy part of "my normal" (if that even makes sense). 

I remember as a young girl (probably for several years between 4 and 7) I could not sleep unless I had "Uni" (a stuffed unicorn- I just happened to be pretty obsessed with unicorns). Most of you are probably thinking that an attachment to something is relatively normal, however, for me, it was more that just an object of comfort.  There were nights that I know my mom spent hours looking for that silly white unicorn because I was sobbing and refused to go to be without it.  The reason I couldn't go to sleep without it? I was convinced that something terrible would happen if I did.  Something would happen to my mom or a million other terrifying things a child's mind could conjure.

While I just assumed that my fears were a normal part of being a worrier, my perception of my own worry and what that actually meant wouldn't even be challenged until I was well into adulthood.

Self discovery is a life long process and somehow I was completely oblivious to one key correlation that could have saved me literally years of pain, turmoil, and a battle to escape from the only way I had discovered how to cope (sort of).

Here's where things get a little personal (okay, a lot personal).  I beg, as I share my story, that each person who reads this will be compassionate.  I know that judgment is inevitable. I also know that of those reading this, some will not be surprised, some will be, and some will fall somewhere in between, but I have learned that hiding our struggles never helps anyone and it certainly did not help me when I was in the depths of it. So here is my dirty little secret (that is not dirty. I would not change my story because that would change who I am because of it).

As a senior in high school I was struggling.  There are a million reasons.  Millions of contributing factors.  I plan to share many of the "big ticket" events that I feel like led me to the place I was in later, but the key contributors to my struggle at that time were a perfect storm of worry, perfectionism, and lack of self esteem.  My world was about to be flipped upside down and I felt totally out of control.  The story is long and the details are even longer but one Sunday night after coming home from the farewell of one of my dear friends I made a choice that would dictate my next seven years.  In my search for something I could control, I completely relinquished what little control I had left. 

I had over eaten.

My stomach ached and as the perfect storm of things settled down on me, I made a choice.

I want to be perfectly clear that I take full responsibility for that choice.  It was a choice I never would have dreamed I would make, even in the moments before I made it.  I also want to be clear that, while there may be millions of reasons that I made that that choice, nothing and no one made me make it.

That Sunday night was when I entered my first major battle of a war I had been fighting my whole life.  My tactics were not good.  That battle was the first of countless other devastating fights I would wage over the next seven years and I was not prepared. 

How do you fight a war  you don't even understand?  I didn't do it very well.

I would battle varying forms of an Eating Disorder at varying degrees of severity for those next seven years. 

Putting those words in print is probably one of the scariest things I have ever done ( I will probably have some form of regret in the morning- fear that someone will no longer like me or that others will be disappointed because I'm not perfect enough, I'm broken, that they will try to use a label to define me, or that they will scrutinize every bite I take from now on, but in reality I have always been afraid of those things.  I will never be able to make everyone like me or make everyone happy and admitting my mistakes doesn't make me any less perfect than those who are continuing to hide theirs), but as terrifying as hitting the "post" button on this entry will be,  if it gives hope to one person, if it makes one person question their perception, if it can be a light to even one soul, then that is worth all the judgment and ridicule that may come my way.

Unlike the majority of people who battle eating disorders, I walk a very narrow line.  I didn't lose or gain extreme amounts of weight, I didn't isolate myself, and most of all I never got to a point where I wanted it, to a point when I didn't want to give it up.

I can tell you that starting on that first Sunday evening, with each symptomatic moment, I hated it.  I never wanted to do it again.  I promised myself I wouldn't.  But then, I would give in. . . and I would hate myself even more for it. 

After two years of constant failure, while I was in my sophomore year at Utah State, I finally sought professional help.  I had gone to a panel discussion on campus about eating disorders put on by a residential treatment center and I listened to their clients tell their stories.  The one thing that jumps out at me was that one girl said she had been fighting her battle for 7 years and it hit me like a rock. At that point, I was two years in and I could not imagine how horrific it would be to live in that turmoil for 7.  I made an appointment with the counseling center that day.

I was given a psychologist who specialized in my particular issue and also attended a body image group weekly. 

I wish that that is where my recovery began.  Sadly, being the perfectionist I am, I was fantastic at being a patient.  I was commended on my group participation and did well in my individual sessions.  I completed all of my assignments and was able to abstain from engaging in symptoms for almost 3 months while receiving treatment.  The problem was that nothing about me changed.  I was just doing what I had always done- exactly what was asked of me. 

At the end of those three months, my therapist told me that she felt like I was in a great place and that I no longer needed to come in. Great.

I'm not sure how long I lasted, but it wasn't long.  That deepened my despair and hopelessness.  All I could hear was a constant "you can't do this" and "you are not strong enough" and despite the deep ache that consumed every bone in my frame screaming for it to be over, I couldn't do it.

I continued to fight, but completely on my own.  I never told another soul (which, in retrospect only fed the problem).  I would have days or weeks or even an occasional month or so when I would do well, but it was always short lived and the despair would return. 

Looking back, the saddest part to me is that on the outside, I think I looked perfectly happy.  I had friends, good grades, dates, and adventures. I was involved in school and clubs and activities. I didn't look sick.  I was surrounded by people yet absolutely, deeply alone.

I graduated.  Got married to an incredible man.  Started working in my dream job (as a recreational therapy tech at a behavioral health center, helping others when I couldn't even help myself). And the storm continued to rage.

Two more years past.

Then, luckily (I actually don't believe in luck, more in divine intervention but starting a sentence with "divine intervention" doesn't flow as well), after a seven year battle (a battle that I was not winning) I stumbled into the office of someone who could draw a connection that had always been blatantly clear but that I had never even considered on my own. 

I found myself sitting on a couch in front of a wrangler clad man (who had to have been at least my fathers age) with a beard that would have rivaled Lorenzo Snow and whom was only wearing socks (a pair of tattered cowboy boots were nestled at the side of his dark walnut desk). In that first session, he just wanted to know about me.  Not about what I ate or how. Not about my current "symptoms." Just about me.

That is where the revelation came. My worry was not "just worry." My worry was not just an elevated version of other peoples normal.  My worry had a name and if I had only know that name, I would have been far better equipped to go into battle.  I already knew how to fight. I had the tools, the knowledge. I had spent 4 years studying and 2 more helping others wage the same war I had been fighting my whole life but because my war had been mislabeled (and I was to naïve or blind or clueless to put it together) I was losing and losing miserably.

Anxiety. I was anxious? All this time? Really?  All those moments of regret and guilt. Could it all be caused by one emotion? An emotion I didn't even realize I was experiencing because I just thought I was a "worrier?"

Over the next month and a half, this crazy, wonderful psychologist would scribble out unidentifiable diagrams on his legal pad, usually while sitting cross legged in his wool socks on the floor, explaining how my anxiety related to my world.  We never talked about my symptoms.  He never asked. But the things that I learned about myself, about how I relate and react to the world around me, allowed me to see in a way I had never been able to see.  That in turn, allowed me to challenge my view of my world.  Once I could identify when I was feeling anxious, I could discover what was causing me to feel that way and then I could face the cause head on.  Once that happened, I didn't have to turn to a coping strategy that was an escape for feeling out of control.

Divine intervention often strikes more than once and miracles began to happen.  I not only began to understand who I was but also what really mattered to me.  On a whim, I applied for another of my dream jobs as a Clinical Exercise Specialist for that same Residential Eating Disorder Treatment Center that had held the panel discussion I had attended nearly 5 years earlier.  Despite a hundred obstacles, I was offered the position and my amazing husband pushed me to pursue my dreams and we packed up our lives and moved to Logan. 

I believe that the timing had to be perfect.  Things had to happen on God's time, in his way, in order for my recovery to happen and I don't have a doubt in my mind that it was his hand that paved the way at precisely the right moment.

My psychologist encouraged me to take the position. My recovery was solidified at that moment. I knew within myself that I could not walk into that position and ask those girls to do something that I couldn't or wasn't willing to do.  It forced me remain in recovery because I couldn't lie to them.  I couldn't look them in the eye and expect them to recover if I wasn't willing to.  For the next two and a half years, every morning I made a choice.  That choice was to face my fears and anxieties without giving in to unhealthy coping mechanisms. 

It was not easy. It still is not easy.  It never will be easy. I will fight this war everyday for the rest of my life but at least now I know what I am fighting.  It has been five years since I engaged in self destructive eating behaviors and every moment, every hour, every day is a victory. 

We all have our demons in a very real way.  One of the few people who really knows each of us, knows our hearts, our strengths and our weaknesses is the person trying to set us up to fail.  He was our brother just as much as our Savior is and those who followed him were very likely our friends and loved ones. He is cunning and masterful, but he also has weakness and that is where we can win (and we CAN win!).

I had to learn to trust in my Heavenly Father. In His plan for me.  I do not believe that is was His plan for me to suffer through those tortuous seven years, but I do know that we have our trials to make us better, stronger, more compassionate, and more Christ-like people.  I would not trade those years because through that experience I have learned so many priceless things.  To rely on my Savior. To fall to my knees.  How if feels to feel hopeless AND that the stifling darkness DOES lift and the sun DOES shine again. I have learned how to love others who are facing similar struggles because I have been through it and I could give advice and hope that I could never have understood without going through it. 

I have a lot planned for this blog and I welcome your questions and suggestions.  If you can gain only one thing from my story, I pray that it is a message of hope.

My heart breaks for the time I wasted in misery.  For the path that one choice led me down; but the JOY, the breathtaking, soul shaking, love until it hurts JOY that I have in my life is worth every stumble and face plant in the mud and trudging, heavy, painful step forward that it took to get here.  Life is HARD. It is meant to be.  Whatever your challenge, that is your test and there is definitely something to be said about ENDURING to the end but don't let the enduring over shadow the beauty.

We are children of a Heavenly Father whose love is beyond what we could even comprehend (and if you are a parent, you have a tiny glimpse of what His love is like). His plan for you is beautiful but it is most likely not the plan you have envisioned for yourself.  Just have a little faith, and if you can't find that faith, then have a little hope.