Courage Out Loud.

I was at an acting conference in Orlando about a month ago when volunteers from our crowd of performers were asked to come forward and share their 'story'. This may sound strange to all my non-actors out there, but actors are odd and nothing if not storytellers. 

I’m a chronically impulsive person. I like to blame this on my theatrical upbringing where I was taught to ACT ON IMPULSE because thinking gets in the way of truthful acting. Unfortunately, outside of acting, in many instances acting on impulse can land you up to your ears in hot water. 

I know this to be true, because this is the story of my life.

So naturally, I blinked an found myself in front of a crowd of expectant faces waiting on me to eloquently regale them with the tale of how I came to be in the there and then. 

I shy away from sharing really any details of my life with others, because I can't tell the story of my life without talking about the thing that consumed most of it.

My eating disorder. 

So I’m standing up there, my inner dialogue going, “Okaaaay, how the heck am I going to do this? I won’t know what to say and I’m just going to end up making a big fool of myself.” (Which is something I am all too familiar with.)

But my inner dialogue dialogued back with, “Just be honest and I’ll take care of the ‘how’.”

And so I stood up there, 5 feet 3 inches of terrified, and shared the story of Me, Anorexia, and How I Was Saved From Myself. 

And a funny thing happened. Rather than being flooded with the shame of airing my dirty laundry before a crowd, that shame that I drag with me through my daily life actually lightened in load. To my surprise, people were coming up to me the rest of the week saying things like, “Thank you for sharing your story. That was so brave and it really spoke to me.”

This led me to some rather interesting epiphanies.

I hate talking about my eating disorder, because people don’t understand. There are so many misconceptions and stigmas surrounding the topic that honestly I can’t fault people for not being able to grasp such a foreign reality. 

HOWEVER, the only way to dispel those nasty stigmas and misconceptions is for somebody who lives with ED every day (i.e ME) to be brave enough to explain my reality. 

Furthermore, my getting up the gumption to share my experience, could help those who are struggling with the same experience realize they’re not fighting those eating disorder dragons alone. 

Wow. 

If that isn’t powerful I don’t know what is. 

And that’s why I’m here, sticking my flag in the ground, and claiming this space. 

I invite you to be an active audience member as I share with you the installments of my story in hopes that it touches your heart and inspires you to use your own voice. 

In addition to my personal yarn, I hope to open the floor to answer questions and have conversations that might provide some insight on what living with an eating disorder is like.

Additionally, I’d like to invite guest authors to come forward and share their personal tales. 

No matter what that thing is that you’ve been afraid to share, I promise you that flaw is the very thing that makes you uniquely beautiful. 

And you wanna know something else?

I also promise you’re not the only one who wrestles with your particular vice.

By being willing to have those taboo conversations you’re opening the door to be a light to somebody else. 

We are all hopelessly flawed.

The secret? We must embrace those flaws and recognize them as the bright stars that make up the constellations of our soul, connecting us to the greater universe.

And in doing so I think we’ll find that we’re all just little black sheep in our own right.