Brianna’s Story

On February 18^th, 2013, I left eating disorder residential treatment for the very last time. Before being discharged that day, I wrote in my journal that it was only a matter of time until I would be back in treatment. After all, I had cycled through relapse after relapse for the past four years. After closing my journal, I finished packing up the rest of my bags and my mom drove me back to my college dorm. Thirteen years later, I haven’t looked back.

I developed an eating disorder during the summer of 2008 before the start of my sophomore year of high school. Freshman year was an exciting and fulfilling year. I have happy memories of spending time with friends baking chocolate chip cookies on snow days, listening to Taylor Swift’s first album on repeat, and trying on prom dresses just to have a photoshoot in the dressing rooms at Macy’s. In the fall of my freshman year, I made the varsity soccer team. Even though I sat on the bench the entire season, I felt proud of making the team. On the team, I stood in the shadow of my older sister, the team’s goalkeeper who was destined to play at the college level, but in the spring, I found my own way to shine. I tried out for the track team, and in that season I set a record 1-mile time for my high school and made it to the state championships. I felt immense pride and self-worth, two feelings that I had never felt so strongly until that point.

I began feeling self-conscious starting in 6th grade when I started to compare myself to the other girls in school and determined that I didn’t measure up. I was not pretty or popular enough. To hide that I did not have a flat stomach, I would pull down on my polo shirt. Looking in the mirror, I’d press on my nose wishing it would be smaller. At home, my family revolved around soccer. Soccer became the yardstick by which I  measured my own worth. My dad was born and raised in England and raised us kids with his love and passion for soccer. However, while my brother and sister made the A teams at our soccer club, I made the C team. While my brother and sister played with aggression, I ducked when I was supposed to head the ball. At the end of my freshman year, I faced the decision of whether to join the soccer or cross country team in the fall. It felt like an immense decision to me at the time given the influence that soccer had on my family and the success that I’d found in track. As I later learned in my college psychology classes, adolescence is a time of identity development. During this time, I was trying to figure out who I was. I thought I needed labels like varsity athlete, track star- and later the eating disorder- to know who I was and see my worth. I chose to follow in my family’s footsteps and play soccer for the upcoming fall season.

The school year ended and I shifted from the athletic spotlight and spending time with friends to spending long and lonely days at home. Around that time, I picked up a glossy Us Weekly magazine and read an article about Britney Spears’ weight loss and diet. The article portrayed Britney as beautiful, blonde, smiling, and successful. I began counting calories and restricting what I ate. The mental obsession and behaviors occupied my time during those summer days. When I went back to school in the fall, I felt crushed as I watched the girls’ cross country team have an undefeated season. The team of girls that I’d once been a part of became a close-knit circle of friends while I counted down the minutes of each soccer game. To cope with feelings of disappointment, regret, shame and loneliness, I retreated further into my eating disorder. I received praise and recognition for my weight loss from other girls at school, which gave me a feeling of accomplishment. These behaviors filled in the holes of my self-worth and numbed the painful emotions that I was feeling. I didn’t realize that I had developed an eating disorder at the time. I was losing weight and it was the only thing that made me feel good about myself. My family became increasingly aware and worried about the changes they’d seen in me and my mom brought me to see a therapist. This therapist was the first person to tell me that I had an eating disorder. I was in denial. I thought that since I ate three meals a day, I couldn’t have an eating disorder. I still experienced denial when I entered the hospital and then residential treatment for the first time that January of sophomore year.

In treatment, my therapist explained to me that eating disorders were all about the “shtuff” beneath the behaviors. I learned that my “shtuff” included difficult feelings that I did not communicate or didn’t have the skills to cope with, as well as clinical depression and low self-esteem. In treatment, I discovered the book “Life Without Ed” by Jenni Schaefer. This book introduced me to the idea of externalizing the eating disorder as a different entity. Separating my voice from the eating disorder’s voice was a helpful skill that I’ve used throughout my recovery. I learned that my and the eating disorder’s values, goals and dreams did not align. I had to work hard to identify the eating disorder’s voice, uncover my voice, and do the opposite of what the eating disorder said. When I left treatment the first time, I felt confident and was determined to leave the eating disorder in my past. That spring, I rejoined the track team but found that I couldn’t run as fast as I used to. Track meets gave me immense anxiety and fueled feelings of inadequacy and failure. No longer the track star, I slipped back into eating disorder behaviors as a way to cope with painful feelings and as a way to reclaim some sense of identity.

Throughout the rest of high school, I cycled through periods of relapse. I missed a lot of high school, making it impossible to make and keep friendships. I always felt like I was on the outskirts of friend groups, on the outside looking in.  By senior year, I was excited for the fresh start that college would bring. I set my sights on going to a large college somewhere warmer. I was accepted at North Carolina State University and moved into my new dorm. My college roommate and her best friend from high school had enrolled at NC State. Given their close bond, I once again felt on the outside. When loneliness crept in, so too did the eating disorder voice. I relapsed and returned home before the semester was over. Back in residential treatment, I began applying to local and smaller schools. One day while in treatment, I received a call from a student at Lesley University saying that I had been accepted to the college and that they’d like to offer me a scholarship. Just from the phone call, I felt a sense of belonging that I had been craving for years. I started at Lesley University that spring semester.

Several things began working for me at Lesley University. First, I developed a close friendship with my roommate. We studied and explored the city together. Second, the university was located in close proximity to my treatment team. I could take the train to see my therapist and could walk to my nutritionist’s office. The college was also in a city that I was familiar with and that felt like a second home, and I stayed connected with my family for added support. When I relapsed during my sophomore year of college, I felt for the first time that I had something to lose. When I relapsed in high school, it was a means to escape reality. But with a semester of college under my belt, I knew that I wanted to graduate with my degree in Psychology. Given the history of my eating disorder pulling me away from my life, it was clear that my eating disorder stood in the way of that goal. The eating disorder had also strained my relationships with my mother and my sister to a point where continuing with the eating disorder behaviors felt like it could fracture these relationships for good. I realized how important these two relationships were to me and I needed to fight to keep my mother and sister in my life. When I left residential treatment for the last time, I knew that I could not have the life I wanted and the eating disorder, but I was still filled with doubt. As I moved back in on campus, a little voice whispered to me: just do the next right thing. Each day, I focused on doing the next right thing. At first, I focused on making the right choices with each snack and each meal and put my faith in my treatment team. Meanwhile, I started a mental health awareness club on campus and became president of the club. As I stayed in recovery longer, I was able to make progress towards my degree and graduation got closer and closer. My goals were no longer interrupted by the eating disorder. I started dating and fell in love for the first time. I remember when I hit one year in recovery. Me and my therapist both cried happy tears, and I felt the start of something new. After graduating college, I joined an AmeriCorps program working in a middle school in Florida for a year. I then moved back to Massachusetts and worked as a paraprofessional. Through these two experiences, I found a passion for working supporting students’ mental health and working in education. I got my Master’s degree in school counseling and have worked in higher education and high school settings since.

I sit here now writing my story holding my baby girl who is just 3 months old. When I was struggling with the eating disorder, I read recovery stories and listened to recovery speakers. I took notes, searching for the secret to recovery. The stories seemed to always have a clear beginning, middle and then poof- recovery! As I write and reflect on my story, I want to mention that my recovery process has not been linear. Since leaving treatment for the last time, I have had periods where I’ve needed extra support from therapists, friends, and family. I have and still  struggle at times with body image. In a culture that values thinness, it’s impossible to escape the messaging from TV, movies, ads, and celebrities- that to be thin is to be happy, beautiful and successful. My lived experience tells me that this is a big ugly lie. I have never felt more free and happy than when the eating disorder has felt like a distant memory in my life. However, it is challenging to constantly fight the cultural narrative when we are inundated by media. It’s important for me to get space from media and reconnect to my truth. Especially now, with my baby girl in my arms, I feel called more now than ever to defy diet culture and be a healthy role model for her. I’ve come to recognize situations that trigger old eating disorder thoughts: when I am not using my voice to communicate my feelings and needs, when I feel lonely, and when I feel disconnected from meaning and purpose in my life. When these triggers arise, I’ve had to challenge the eating disorder voice when it resurfaces, seek out extra support, and return home to my voice, my values and my goals.