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“Moments that should’ve been joyful or just neutral became shaded by this heaviness. Simple activities, like catching up with friends or working on a project, suddenly felt so draining. It was as if a constant cloud hovered, casting shadows on my usual upbeat self.”
“Drugs and alcohol were common place and I was constantly moving around. That’s not to say that my parents were using in front of me, just that it was fairly obvious as to what was going on. Because of this, I actually grew up attending AA meetings and was introduced to “recovery” pretty early on. Even so, I would go on to spend 16 years in an alcohol and drug-induced nightmare that almost consumed my life. Irony at its finest.”
“When I got home, I was burnt out and severely depressed. I couldn’t get out of bed for a long time. My fiance took me for walks, helped me bathe, and brought me bland foods. With the help of my psychiatrist and therapist, I was able to get on a course of therapy and medication that finally helped to bring me out of my major depressive episode. I wasn’t truly fully functional again until some time in 2011.”
We’ve interviewed 5 people with with eating disorders that were helped by therapy. Here are their stories and what helped these people most.
“What therapists would label as “mental health” issues—as I’ve aged and grown perspective in my life, I would have to disagree wholeheartedly. Unstable environments and adults that failed to protect me from predators were the sole contributors to my unstable years.”
“I discovered that grieving, healing, and living aren’t linear processes, but intertwined strands of our existence. Healing isn’t about forgetting; it’s about learning to live with loss, about embracing love and pain simultaneously.”
“I met my future husband when I was 26 but I never felt truly connected to him. I felt just as invisible to him as I did to everyone else. When we decided we wanted to have children, by some miracle, I was able to abstain from drinking just before and during my pregnancy. I coped by being very controlling, a shopaholic, and a workaholic. The twins were born when I was 31 and postpartum depression led me back to the only solution I thought I had: drinking”
“No one ever seemed to get it. It was never about being skinny. It was the sense of numbness, false sense of control, and comfort that kept me addicted to the high of this cycle. I was eventually hospitalized and then sent off to residential treatment.”
“No one possesses the ultimate truth. The advice we receive from others is usually drawn from their personal experiences, but it doesn’t necessarily mean their truth will align with ours. This includes advice from our parents. Although they usually offer guidance out of love, their narratives are unique to them and should not automatically become our narratives. We must consciously create our own stories, otherwise we risk blindly following in others’ footsteps.”
“Our daughter noticed changes in me like I wasn’t as active in keeping our house as clean as I used to, and I realized that at my job I was getting more drained, and I am only working 4-5 hours a week. I came to know I had to work on myself, and my new med helps with the depression, and mostly the anxiety.”