A turning point
A turning point: When I realized I had a problem.
I had been underfeeding, over-exercising, relying on numbers on a scale to determine my mood and the trajectory of my day, weighing in at any chance I could get, and was completely OK with the fact that regardless of where the long red lever rested on the scale below me, I would be granted permission to go off the deep end into obsession.
The blaring silence of concern from those around me fueled my acceptance of the situation. I had built a comfortable routine and found solace in rituals: wake up, weigh, eat, weigh, brush my teeth, weigh, get dressed, weigh. Then continue this pattern until a final weigh before bed.
After about the hundredth weeknight on the beige carpet in front of my full-length mirrors, lying prone, sobbing into the fibers and feeling as though I would never be able to break this pattern on my own, I forced myself to hear the sage whispers within and somehow give them enough attention to hopefully drown out the tyrannical voice of the disorder, a separate being that dictated every thought, mood, and action of every day.
This back-and-forth ensued for years. One narrative inside me was instructing me to destroy my body, to do whatever it took to be thin and stay thin, to tear myself apart mentally until I retreated once again to my mirror-adjacent puddle-to-be. But during one of these sob sessions, I caught a glimpse of my fragile frame in the mirrored doors: My eyes were sunken, my muscles felt weak, and I was deluged in a cloud of complete defeat. As ensconced as I had become in my self-destruction, I suddenly saw in that moment that it was working. The cycle of thoughts and behaviors was actually killing me.
I didn’t know where to begin or how long it would take or what it would involve, but what I did know was that in order to get out of this storm, I needed help.
If I keep living this way, I thought, I will perish, surrendering to the commands of a ghost that wouldn’t quit until I was no longer able to make decisions for myself. In that moment, I chose to begin to refuse to let anything make me feel worse than I wanted to feel.
Pause & Prompt
What was your turning point?
When did you realize you couldn’t carry on as you had been living?
