Happy Birthday, ED.

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

love what it loves.

Tell me about your despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile the world goes on.

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain

are moving across the landscapes,

over the prairies and the deep trees,

the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,

are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

the world offers itself to your imagination,

calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting --

over and over announcing your place

in the family of things.

Mary Oliver, Wild Geese

I can point to where it started. On the floor of my shower in a mangled mess of tears. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t see. And I would’ve given anything to die right there on the wet linoleum, leaving my body to wash down the drain. 

That was the day I turned 10.

I’d eaten a slice of birthday cake as is customary on birthdays, but for tiny 10 year old me, consuming cake meant I was a worthless no nothing who deserved a death sentence.

By age twelve I was crunching my calories and exercising roughly three hours a day. Maximum input I allowed myself - 200 calories. Minimum output - well over 1000, not including calories required to simply be alive. 

That was the year I was formally diagnosed with anorexia. 

For years I wanted to know why. 

Why was I born with a monster inside of me and what had I done to awaken the beast?

I’ve heard every theory out there.

Some professionals think eating disorders are genetic. My Daddy was a wrestler in high school which means he spent his teenage years exercising in a trash bag through Florida heat, sweating out all the calories he hadn’t eaten in order to cut weight. 

Glimpse into wrestling culture and you’ll find a first class study on anorexia and bulimia. 

I had lyme disease as a child. Other research believes that the long term neurological effects of lyme can result in the development of anorexia. 

Oh and let’s not forget the suspicion every therapist, nutritionist, and doctor has when they learn… “You’re an actress?”

No. The societal “pressure” of being an actress is not the cause of my eating disorder. On the contrary, the physical requirements of acting demand a certain level of health in order to do the job.

None the less, I always thought pinpointing why could lead me to how.

How to jump the train. How to erase a lifetime of apologies, alienation, medical bills, and shame.

Shame. 

Or maybe I thought knowing why might give me something to blame other than myself. 

Truth is, knowing why the match was struck can’t put out the forest fire. 

So here’s the best answer I’ve found as to why eating disorders manifest… 

A. Those of us with eating disorders are born with brains that are chemically predisposed to the development of ED. 

B. We also tend to be born with certain personality traits. Perfectionism. Self-control. Unmatched work ethic. High ambitions. All positive traits, if left to their own devices. 

C. IN COMES THE TRIGGERING EVENT! This comes in the form of an intensely stressful incident. The death of a loved one, sexual abuse, a drastic move, trauma, trauma, trauma, and trauma all qualify as triggering events. When the emotional toll of said event ignites our chemical predisposition and personality traits, the eating disorder is set in motion.

In reaction to the triggering event, our brain chemicals say, “I know this hurts, honey, but if you give up food and spend the majority of your waking hours on the treadmill, all those nasty feelings will disappear. Poof!”

The ED brain fails to mention all those other things that disappear in the wake of our disorder.

Like our hair and will to live.

Those perfectionistic personality traits transform Dr. Jekyll to Mr. Hyde and become the characteristics that make us “successful” at our eating disorders. The result? We discover a sense of worth in ED, who then becomes our abusive best friend. 

Thus begins the vicious cycle. The eating disorder becomes our brain and body’s go-to coping mechanism. 

Chemical Predisposition + Personality Traits + Triggering Event = Eating Disorder

I know I’m not the only one swimming in circles over this. I’ve found that most of us with ED under our beds spend the bulk of our therapy sessions hunting down clues to how he got there.

Over the years, I’ve learned the key is to quit chasing why and spend that energy constructing your bomb shelter against life’s inevitable nuclear triggers.

What makes your heart beat? Gives you a sense of belonging and fulfillment? 

Let these questions lead you to your gifts and there you’ll find your building materials.

God. People. Art. Those are the floorboards and walls of my emotional shelter. 

But ultimately, I have to remind myself on a minute by minute basis that

My 

Eating 

Disorder

Is

Not

My 

Fault.

When I end up looking like Severus Snape because I tried to be economical and cut my own hair, that’s my fault. 

But my eating disorder is not my fault. I was born with the thing inside of me. 

That being said, now a days, my question isn’t so much, “Why did it start?”

but,

“Why me?”

I’ll spend a lifetime mourning the person I might have been without anorexia, but I’m learning to celebrate the person I’ve become, having survived.