Why am I so passionate about mental health?  Usually, one becomes passionate about something that directly impacts them or their loved ones.  It is much easier to turn a blind eye to causes/issues when it is not something you see everyday.  Mind you; I have not always been as concerned as I am now, even in the throes of some eating problems (okay, maybe it was an eating disorder that took on many phases, but I still tend to have difficulty referring to my problem as an eating disorder).  Maybe because when you are in the midst of the situation, it never seems quite as severe as it does to those around you. You realize you focus on food too often, subject yourself to various rules and calculations, and have great anxiety when a routine in your eating is shifted.  However, to you, at that moment, this does not feel as much of a disorder as it does the way to control your life.  Food is not the only aspect of living of course, but when your world seems to revolve around food or not eating very much, then you do find it satisfying – being in control.  And you certainly do NOT want to relinquish that control!  You don’t want anyone telling you what to eat when to eat, how much to eat.  You don’t want others mocking your food choices or telling you that you need to eat more. 

It is quite safe and extremely accurate, to say that I have an unhealthy relationship with food.  I would say “had,” but let’s be honest, I still struggle with what I am eating versus what I think I should eat.  It’s just my body doesn’t like being deprived much anymore.  I can take eating less for a while, but then I just need sustenance.  I get caught up in an endless cycle of restriction and then not caring what I eat at all.  In the past, I could combat this with running, but I have been side-lined from running for so long now, that I wonder if I will ever be able to don my running gear again. But I digress . . .

I could give you the details about the disordered eating, and the timeline of events as I remember them.  I have other blog entries about the specifics. If you are interested, please let us know, and I will be happy to share them. For this post, I want to focus on the mental aspects that accompanied my particular eating disorder or disorders.  

I firmly believe that inside of my person is an obsessive tendency.  I focus on something whole-heartedly sometimes.  Now, do I believe this is genetic, biological, or brought on by past issues.  I believe all three of these can play a part, not only in my personal struggles with mental health, but in the lives of many others.  We can be predisposed to mental issues (both genetically, and thus biologically), and also have a traumatic event, or events, occur that trigger our issues to arise to the surface.  Sometimes this might look like childhood abuse, sometimes it could be a major traumatic loss, maybe it’s the feeling of neglect, or that your needs are not being met.  (In regards to abuse, let me speak up and say that abuse comes in all shapes and sizes.  While most people see physical abuse (or at least the effects), other forms can be more dangerous – like emotional abuse, sexual abuse, verbal abuse, etc. So just because you cannot see abuse, doesn’t mean it is not occurring or has not occurred.  That was a free lesson.)  

When something is present in your brain, it may not show up right away, or always in the same way.  This is evidenced in my life, as I had an eating disorder and now I have OCD (that needs to be a separate post as it is quite complex and I am sure many people misunderstand that disorder). 

When I considered losing weight to fit into a prom dress, this was an okay idea.  However, I restricted my eating a bit much, and after prom, I just decided I liked the way things were going, so I continued.  There are healthy habits I picked up, like giving up soft drinks for like 7 years!  But only eating minuscule amounts of food three times a day, might not have been such a great plan.  I had dropped around 15 pounds before I started college.  However, in my mind I was determined NOT to gain “the freshman 15.”  So this meant continued scrutiny over food choices.  I became stuck in a pattern of eating the same thing everyday!  I can clearly remember eating a turkey sandwich (turkey and bread) everyday for lunch.  It was cut in fours.  Sometimes I ate it with A1 sauce or Heinz 57 (don’t ask, I have always been weird with condiments).  I ate two triangles with one glass of water, and two triangles with another glass of water.  I was meticulous.  I think as time went on, it became harder to eat the way I wanted and avoid ridicule.  I took my own salad dressing to the cafeteria.  At night I would eat a salad and bagel, or bagel and cereal, or cereal and bagel.  It was generally a variation of those items.  I did not eat from the hot food bar.  I did not visit the dessert area.  Breakfast was something small, but I did eat breakfast everyday as well (a nutrigrain bar, granola bar, cereal, etc.)  When people questioned my eating, or mentioned problems later on, I never understood.  People with anorexia (yes, people.  This is not just a female issue.  I knew a male that struggled with this as well, and it affected him greatly!) starve themselves.  I ate three times a day.  If I were anorexic I wouldn’t eat three times a day.  I just wouldn’t eat.  

By Christmas break of my freshman year, I was taken to the doctor by my parents.  They were extremely worried about me.  I had lost around 15 more pounds.  I hadn’t noticed.  No seriously, I had no idea.  I didn’t weigh.  I just restricted myself.  I wore the same clothes.  They may have been super baggy, but that didn’t phase me either.  I had complete body dysmorphia.  I had a false sense of my appearance.  I still saw the same person in the mirror or under clothes or whatever.  I honestly don’t remember staring at the mirror for hours.  I just wanted to be thin, ate very little, and didn’t say much to anyone about it.  I can look back on pictures of me during that time and see how thin I was.  I can see how boney my arms looked, or how my hips protruded from my body.  But at the time, I was clueless.  Your mind plays such great tricks on you.  No one can say, “Oh, you are too skinny.  Start eating,” and it just click.  It doesn’t fade away so easily.  It takes lots of time, love, and encouragement from others.  

My doctor over Christmas Break told me that I was an athlete, I was supposed to be active.  I think he said this because not only had I lost fat, but probably muscle as well.  However, I took that statement and ran with it, literally!  I am not sure when exactly I started, but maybe over the summer after my freshman year it began and it didn’t stop for the rest of my college life.  I became obsessed with running.  I ran everyday – EVERY DAY!  I can remember only a few times in my college life after that when I did not run; when I was sick or later in my senior year when things went the other direction.  I mention this because it may seem like something you are going to say to a person in the midst of an eating disorder will be helpful, but it could also backfire or cause other issues.  Now, I love running!  Loved it then, loved it when I became reacquainted after having my first son, and I love it still, even though I am not cleared to run currently.  Running in and of itself is not bad.  Running everyday without fail because it has become an obsession is not so healthy.  

I want to share part of my story, and it is long and quite complicated, for many reasons.  I want others to know they are not alone.  I want you to become acquainted with certain ways of thinking, even though you may not be able to resonate with them, you can hear someone explain how disordered thinking works.  I want you to know that there is no easy fix, no snapping of the fingers or waving of Hermione’s wand.  I battled my problems with eating for the rest of my college life and most of my first year after college. I went from Anorexia to Bulimia (No, I did not throw up, but not sure if you want to know what other means are available in this particular disorder) to compulsive overeating (I am not sure if that is what you would call it.  I honestly don’t know.  All I know is I didn’t eat much at all during the day and ate most of my calories in the evenings and I know that many of these calories were related to chocolate). If one wanted to know what healed me, I would have to say the Lord and my husband.  I don’t know how else I would have calmed things down.  Only by God’s grace could I have stopped obsessing so much, and only by the love and acceptance of the man God brought into my life could I learn that I could be loved for me, not a skinny version of me.  I mean, I ate a cheeseburger on our first date and had not touched burgers in a very long time!  

Mental Health matters.  It is not something that one can wish away, or pray away.  God can choose to heal people, but He also can leave “thorns” in our side to battle.  Paul had a thorn.  I am certainly no better than Paul!  Drew was told that his mental illness was related to his relationship with the Lord.  That he must have some unconfessed sin in his life.  If you are a Christian out there reading this, please hear me, we are not exempt from struggles in this life.  We are not kept from physical disease, and we are certainly not kept from mental illness either.  Having a mental illness does not make you less of a Christian.  It does not make your faith less real.  It does not mean you don’t love God enough, or that God doesn’t love you enough.  It is an illness.  It is time other Christians stop giving us a guilt trip because we suffer from mental illness. We are not going to be perfect in this world.  We will make mistakes, have faults, and our bodies and minds will be far from perfect.  If you have a family member, friend, pastor, deacon, etc. telling you otherwise, please refer them to me.  You do not need that to deal with on top of everything else.  We need less judgment and more love, especially from our brothers and sisters in Christ.  

In retrospect, I would not have considered my eating disorder as a mental health problem in the midst of it anyway.  I am not sure if that was because it didn’t seem like a mental illness, or because I didn’t necessarily understand mental health back then.  I did a presentation my sophomore year on eating disorders, although I am not sure what class that was for.  I now find it ironic that I did the presentation my sophomore year, and I was still going to struggle with things for a few more years.  I think if I could have frozen time, the end of my Sophomore year, to the beginning of my Junior year, might have been a sweet spot, but maybe I just don’t remember as many drastic stories during that time.  

I would love to say that mental health has always been extremely important to me, but despite my issues and tendencies, I don’t think that is accurate.  In fact, it seems mental illnesses were seen as something far misplaced from society at one time.  When one heard the term mental illness, one could have thought of a person as “crazy” or “clinically insane.”  I even remember this gesture people used to do when referring to someone as “crazy.”  If I had to guess, and you are old enough, I would say you know exactly what I am referring to.  One would take their pointer finger beside their head, point to their head, and then turn the finger in circles as it was pointed at their head.  Then there was the commercial for Cocoa Puffs: “I’m cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs,” as if to say he was “crazy” for them.  When speaking to his ex in Wayne’s World, Wayne asks, “Are you mental?” Even Ron Weasley describes Sirius Black as being “mental” at one point. One could see how we would put all these together and not truly grasp the true meaning of mental health.  Yet when one is hit squarely in the face with a personal struggle or when a loved one is battling a mental illness, we then see the truth.