My Identity

TW: Binge eating, eating disorder, depression, anxiety, religion, severe depressive episode, suicide ideation.

Dear Reader,

The other day my chiropractor asked me a question about gratitude.  It's one that comes up for many as we approach the holiday season. Interesting fact- the word holiday comes from an Old English word hāligdæg- holy day.  Anyway, I digress... she asked me if I wanted to know how to be more grateful. 

A priest had been in to get adjusted and she had asked him how we become more grateful.  His answer was to imagine everyone you love and everything you enjoy gone, then you will experience gratitude.

I don't have to imagine.  All I need to do is remember...  

I began treatment for an eating disorder in April of 2020.  As I started to heal, I no longer wanted to binge.  On the most basic level, I had been using food to numb emotions I had never learned how to label and deal with in a helpful way.  Without the familiar shame and guilt that would come after binging, I got to experience all my emotions and they felt like they were attacking me.  I thought my marriage was over.  I felt like I had ruined our children's lives.  The pandemic had forced my career to be placed on hold and the things that I had been throwing myself into for the last five years felt like it had been flushed down the toilet.  The promise of financial security I had been working toward was gone. The isolation of the initial shut down had made my "managed" depression and anxiety sky rocket.  

A year ago when I had my first my severe depressive episode.  Two weeks later, still weak from the first one, I had a second one.  These episodes caused me so much mental, emotional, physical and spiritual pain, I thought that death would be a relief.  

I was put on an anti depressant that made things a little better.  It's hard to know what healthy feels like when you've been suffering for so long.

I discovered that religion had wrapped itself into my eating disorder and I found myself not being able to separate the two.  As a preacher's kid, church had become part of my identity.  Now, it was hurting me.  I couldn't make the progress I needed to make with my eating disorder while I attended religious services, so I forced myself to take a break.  

In July of 2021, I went to a treatment center for 45 days.  I left behind all the roles I played and every identity that I had believed about myself.  I was away from everything familiar and was stripped of every tool I had been using to cope.  I had thought the decision to go and leaving would be the hardest part, but the return back to reality proved to be a new kind of difficult.

Losing my mental health was a different kind of loss for me.  It stripped me of every identity I valued and forced me to examine who I was and the how and why behind each belief.  I have a new sense of gratitude that is a gift from healing.

This Thanksgiving is filled with a sense of peace, joy and hope that I couldn't find last year.  I've worked hard to get here and have a lot of help along the way.

On the eve of a holiday in which many Americans give thanks, let us hold space for the possibility that the lack of gratitude you feel may be because you are struggling with mental health.  

Compassion and kindness go further than criticism and judgement ever will.

If you or someone you know is struggling, there is help.  Click this link if you need help finding a licensed therapist or psychologist.  If you are having thoughts of suicide, call 911 or the suicide hotline at (800) 273-8255.  Tell a trusted loved one that you are struggling.  It can feel frightening to ask for help, to be vulnerable, but you are worthy of a beautiful, amazing life.  

I share my story so that others may be inspired to have hope, get help, and live life to the fullest.  Healed people heal people.  Hurt people hurt people.  May we all be healers.