Why I’m Grateful for My Experience with Eating Disorders.

For 3 years in high school, I grappled with anorexia nervosa and bulimia. Physically and mentally, this was such a dark time in my life. My efforts to manipulate myself away from the fear of gaining weight do me more harm than good. Not a meal went by where I didn’t obsess about calories, calculate how much food I would have to “burn off”, or stress about getting fat.

I grew jealous of “normal people” and how they could just live their lives without food controlling them. I mean, they could seriously eat and exercise without punishing themselves or overthinking? Didn’t seem like a blessing in my books at the time.

But like any struggle in life, this battle eventually ended as well.

In retrospect, I realized that my eating disorders were a critical aspect in my journey to have a healthy relationship with my body and food. This whole experience became a lot more than just trying to lose weight or “eat right”. In fact, it was a complete transformation that fostered deep, unconditional love for myself.

I now recognize that who I was 4 years ago only wanted to feel love for herself without being defined by how her body looked. She, in fact, did not want to be skinny, did not want to cut calories, and most definitely did not want to hurt herself. However, she had to experience what self-love was not to eventually feel what real self-love was.

My eating disorder struggle was one of the first “eras” of my life where I tussled with my subconscious urges and egoic control. I discovered how dark and dirty these aspects of the human experience can be. Compulsive behaviors, such as cutting out food, overexercising, and binging, provided me with so much safety, but only delayed my inevitable encounter with my fears.

I realized that the only struggle in life is letting go of the need to control. This isn’t something anyone can force. Eventually, everyone at some point is forced to do it on their own time. It is a double-edged sword because while controlling something is a war of its own, letting go of control means opening ourselves up to the pain that we no longer can control.

By no longer controlling something, we have to face our fear and pain. It’s as if we have to sit in one spot and watch a horrifying movie about ourselves and our lives and not be able to do anything about it.

However, the fear about fear only lasts a short while. You eventually don’t worry as much about what is bothering you and find yourself exploring other parts of your life. Personally, I found myself in certain life circumstances that naturally pulled me to do other things and not focus so much on food. I felt like my effortful practices and rituals to be skinny and purge no longer were going to do anything helpful for me. There was a moment when I saw the futility of my eating disorder behaviors. My eating disorder behaviors were not going to help me feel better about myself or my body. They only showed me what wasn’t going to work, which was control.

From then on, my truest desire of having a healthy relationship with my body came to fruition in beautiful ways. During the Covid-19 lockdown, I had a sudden inclination to want to move my body in ways that felt good for me. In the beginning, it looked like trying out strength training exercises on a yoga mat in my room with a 25 lb jasmine rice bag as my weights. I fell so in love with lifting that I even invested in a power cage with a bar and weight plates. Eventually, I moved out for college and was exposed to a variety of food, clothing styles, and adventures. The last thing I was worried about was how many calories I was eating. I found myself immersed in an incredible chapter of my life that helped me fall in love with my body and learn to embrace food. It was a beautiful unfolding of a true desire to love myself, and the only thing I had to let go of was control.

Over time, I fell in love with exercising and I inevitably enjoyed the physical results of it. I didn’t even realize that I was experiencing my desire of having a specific body type, wear clothes I enjoyed, and freely eat whatever I liked without worrying how it would “negatively” affect my body shape.

Now, I experience immense respect for my body and listen to what it wants. I wear clothes that make me feel good and don’t compare my body to other people’s. I embrace how my body looks and feels in every season of life. I realize that I developed an unconditional love for my body, meaning my worth was not determined by how I physically looked.

I truly believe I’m experiencing the deepest self-love for my body right now. I don’t think this would have been possible if I didn’t experience the horrific struggle of two eating disorders.

At the time, I didn’t understand why I hurt myself by restricting my food intake.

At the time, I didn’t understand why I let myself lose so much hair because I didn’t nourish myself enough.

At the time, I didn’t understand why I binged and purged to feel good about myself.

At the time, I didn’t understand why I felt like over-exercising was the punishment for eating a normal meal.

But now I do.

It hurt so bad at the time and I definitely had to face the consequences of my actions. However, I didn’t know that I would get to experience a lifetime’s worth of incredible, unconditional self-love my body and myself. I can only thank my eating disorders for that.

I share my story with you to remind you that nothing in your life is happening for no reason. The awful pain and undescribable confusion you might be experiencing in your life serve a purpose you may not know of right now. The fruits of your terrible experiences are more rewarding than you think because they will instill in you immense strength and resilience that no materialistic acquisition can ever give you.

You will realize that your deepest desires simply boil down to wanting to know the truth. The truth about life and yourself. This truth is only understood when you see why negative experiences in your life had to happen.

I invite you to trust every struggle and trust every experience. They are the stepping stones to your deepest desires that only you know of.