Real + Raw – Reflections on Addiction

One of my intentions of this blog is to be authentic. To share my personal experiences to be of service to others. Sometimes that might trend on light-hearted, practical tools + considerations… other times, I might focus on the shadow side, the struggles in hopes that they offer just as valuable insight. Figuring it out as I go.

This post is one I wrote on December 4, 2018, about 5 weeks before departure and have (somewhat anxiously) decided to share now.

TL;DR: A reflection of battling an eating disorder, and observing how it stems from fear of being out of control (which is also a common theme I’m engaging with on this trip). A look back on my upbringing so as to notice patterns + behaviors, their origins, and ways to utilize environmental change as a positive vessel of personal transformation.

December 4, 2018 at 11:16 a.m. – Irvine, CA

Lots of changes underway! Now I’m at my mom’s, finally unpacked and grounding down for a moment before taking off. It’s all starting to hit me that this is actually happening. It doesn’t seem real – almost like this is someone else’s story, not mine. This feeling vaguely reminds me of being in shock, to be honest. As though I’m a witness to someone else’s paradigm, which certainly couldn’t be mine (but, of course, is).

I’ve been a planner for as long as I can remember. Through my various relationships, I’ve been taught it’s okay to arrive a little late, it’s okay to not do everything for everyone all the time, it’s okay to not plan everything to a T… you may even be less disappointed or lower expectations, thus able to enjoy the moment more.

My challenges / struggle with control could be chalked up to my Capricorn organizational behaviors, as well as seeing many things as black or white. My preemptive desire to understand how to navigate myself in a situation causes me anxiety, compounded by the fact that I’m inherently a people pleaser.

» I have an early memory of an appointment with a pediatrician who complimented me and my mom on my great behavior, and how she doesn’t see many kids like this – this soothed my developing ego like you wouldn’t believe!

I know I’m not alone in this, but I’m working through being okay with the grey area, the unplanned + unfiltered side of life. Emphasis on ‘working through.’ I’m nowhere near where I’d like my spirit to be.

As I intend to be candid and raw in sharing my experiences and story, I think it’s important to spend a moment on my backstory… and it feels appropriate to do so while I’m sitting alone in my mom’s house.

A competitive swimmer from age 8, I got a crash course in discipline and work ethic. As school became more demanding, especially upon moving to manicured Irvine, CA from the outdoorsy East Coast, I mastered time management. There was no other option but to meticulously organize my day, what with always being on the honor roll, maintaining a social life, doing volunteer work, and swimming up to 15 hours a week – mind you this was all in middle school. 

By the time I was 14 and about to head to high school, I dreaded swim practices. Shooting pains plagued my right shoulder on a regular basis, and before I knew it, doctor appointments and physical therapy also squeezed into my tight agenda.

It wasn’t all bad, though, as I made some of my best friends while swimming on Nova, and even had a couple (relatively) innocent relationships with boys on the team. I just loathed, and I’m sure many swimmers can relate, jumping in the frigid pool knowing full well that a rigorous, two-hour workout followed.

At this point, I intuitively knew something had to change. Fearful of the disappointment that would come by admitting this awareness to my mom, I put it off as long as I could. And then, one day, while we were pulling into our garage after practice, I blurted it out, “I’m thinking of quitting and wondering if that would be okay?” It was one of the most challenging things to do – becoming a quitter.

Surprisingly, Mary (my mom) was supportive. She recognized that it was ultimately my decision to make, and if I was so unhappy then who was she to force me to do anything? Shocked, I felt an immense weight lift off my shoulders, and for the first time in …ever?... I felt free.

With plans to just take the summer off and get a feel for some tween ‘normalcy,’ I was stoked! Without swim practices, I now got to stack my schedule with babysitting, family vacations, days lounging with friends, and, of course, summer reading. 

It also involved eating. A lot. 

As a competitive swimmer, I want to say you burn at least 1,000 calories during a practice (dryland included), therefore you need to eat. Read: you get to eat! I grew accustomed to eating a lot (think about a single breakfast consisting of 1-2 bagels, yogurt, a banana, etc.), and up to this point, food meant fuel.

I’d like to also mention, up to about 12 years old or so, I didn’t care much about how my body looked. It wasn’t until I sprouted up to be taller than everyone else (certainly all the cute boys), with boobs before the rest of the girls, hips rapidly filling in my now-size-6 jeans, and shoulders only getting broader with swimming.  

Middle school is an awkward and transformational time, and was compounded by my move to an area of the world hyper-aware of fitting in and looking beautiful.

With all that said, I decided to quit swimming at the end of 8th grade, but continued to eat like a swimmer. Now, I don’t know if I actually gained weight because of this change, or if it was just that phase of life… but I felt massive. 

I began to hate my body. My physical angst manifested in ways around me that I can only now see: I was angrier, sadder, felt like the victim in a lot of ways, sought attention from outside sources – constantly seeking an escape from it all.

I’m not sure how, why, or what inspired me, but one time, after eating some ice cream, I had a thought: “What would it be like if I threw up this ice cream? What if I didn’t have to eat it?” Heading into the bathroom with a jovial curiosity, I stuck two fingers down my throat and, a few gags later, the ice cream came right back out. Fascinating!

I discovered a secret that day: I can continue to eat as I please, but when I eat too much of something, or if I eat something bad, I don’t have to digest it! Hooray! This is where the thread started to unravel.

Now, being 28 and with another 14 years of life experience, I see this as a pivotal moment that shaped the course of my life. I’ll spend another time diving into this further, but I believe our soul/spirit has a life plan before we come into our body. This plan is a negotiation with self and god (or whatever you’d like to label it: universe, Shakti, etc.) about the lessons that we’ll have to learn in this iteration of our spirit.

For me, I believe I negotiated addiction into my life plan. And bulimia was the first taste of it (no pun intended).

Funny enough, it was in this chapter of my life that I first stepped onto my yoga mat. Of course, I’m inherently grateful that the ancient practice of yoga appeared in my life at such a ripe age… but that was not the yoga I was initially connected to. No, the yoga I wanted was the kind that would make me skinny and flexible, while still offering a rigorous workout in place of swimming.

Bless mother Mary and her practicality as she caravanned me around to numerous yoga studios in 2004 to help me find a place to practice. She approached this research similar to how we landed on Nova (at the time, it was the top ranked club team in the country, breeding several Olympians, and gold medalists). One of the yoga studios we went to was named Dahn Yoga, located in a Korean shopping center in Irvine. 

Everyone there was dressed in white, and the instructor whom met with us one-on-one asked to do some energy work on me. Blanking on some of the specifics, I do remember him working on my abdomen area. He massaged it back and forth quite a bit and I drifted off into, what I now understand as, a meditative space. I felt out of body for the first time in my life! It was wild and I wanted more.

At least until the instructor asked my mom and I if I happened to have any digestive problems. As my face felt like it was burning up and my secret had been revealed, I denied that and Mary brushed past that nonsense, believing it to be too woo-woo. So we moved on and eventually landed at LA Fitness for the diversity of offerings, including yoga.

Side note: when you now type in Dahn Yoga to Google, the first item that pops up is “Dahn Yoga Cult.”

For better or worse, I went on to practice yoga at LA Fitness, as well as take some other classes, but I primarily became obsessed with the treadmill and calorie counting. These little numbers started to dictate my workouts, their intensity, and duration. Before I knew it, I was studying the calories on all the foods I was eating, meticulously measuring out my intake so that I could burn it off as soon as possible, or just throw it up.

My secret expanded and this element of control consumed my life force.

That winter of 2004/05 felt very cold. My fingers and toes were constantly numb. My hair began to thin. My weight would fluctuate 5-10lbs within a day or two, knowing this from the multiple weight check ins I’d do per day. Above all, I craved for the times when both of my parents were out of the house so I could binge and purge by myself; then chalk my lack of dinner up to an earlier time when no one was around (even if I was only alone for 30 minutes, I had to get that behavior in).

My mind revolved around eating, or lack thereof, around calories, around social situations where I’d have to pretend to eat or find a nearby bathroom to purge right after. I read blogs and books about eating disorders, often finding that the ones on recovery were some of the most triggering – laced with innovative ideas and their own secrets. Girl, Interrupted and White Oleander quickly became some of my favorite movies, as if their pain, their melancholy was my own.

There came a point where people caught on. First, my friends. Then my parents. I denied it at first, but once I saw the pain it caused my mom, the people pleaser in me couldn’t allow my actions to be the source of pain to her. I decided I wanted to get help.

Therapy, relapse, therapy, relapse, lies, truths, and relapse… this went on for quite some time. Approximately from 14-18 (the length of high school), I battled with an eating disorder and/or disordered eating. Drugs and alcohol were introduced during this time, but ED was my true addiction. Almost like a coat of armor, I would hear ED tell me that this addiction was the worst of all addictions, so good luck fighting this one.

It wasn’t until I had a total change of scenery at Boston University (and a shared dorm bathroom with minimal privacy), that I realized I couldn’t carry ED with me. It was too inhibiting of my life and it was better served as a thing of my past, my story. 

During this transition to college, I began to meet more people who shared a similar story or battled with some addiction, and they weren’t afraid to share, to tarnish a manicured appearance. There was a realness met in my new friends that inspired me to just be.

Change has proven to peel back layers – stripping myself down to what’s essential. It’s encouraged me to look at life from a new perspective, to determine what role I now wish to play.

And I’m ready for change! For 2019 to be a season of growth, expansion, and cutting out the bullshit. Once again, I’m ready to release addiction, just this time it’s an addiction to numbing through drinking and smoking, scrolling and over working. I’m ready to feel more alive, to be more present with life’s inherent highs and lows, and to establish behaviors that sustain me through it all.