The danger here is that unlike photoshopped models, fitness stars tell you that what they have is real, and that you could—no, you should—achieve it, too I was always “the thin one.” I spent more than a decade wavering between being underweight and being anorexic. Naturally, people just assumed that my body type was slender and somewhat frail. “You look like a model,” people would tell me. More than once, a stranger approached me on the street or in a cafe to ask if I was a ballerina. (Perhaps it is only in New York City that someone would a) care if they...
Medication and Eating Disorders: An “Anti” View
A diabetic isn’t considered weak for taking insulin. Why am I looked down on for taking medication to help my mind function? The right to take psychiatric medication — without having to justify it — ranks high on the anti-stigma agenda. There is a long way to go in achieving true mental health parity, but the frequency with which I see this particular plug leads me to believe that we’re making headway. So now I ask that same community of mental health advocates to expand your open-mindedness in yet another direction: my right NOT to take medication. Getting On the Medication I began...
Read MoreThe Medication Game
I have a longer piece in the works about my thoughts on psychiatric medication. The delay is due to the fact that I have a lot of thoughts on this topic, and I’m trying to pare them down from well over 2,000 words. While editing continues on that front, I thought I’d share a prologue of sorts. The following is a journal entry I’d written months ago and just recently stumbled upon again. I would say the timing is uncanny, given the other post I’m working on, but it’s not really a coincidence when the dice seems to be weighted on this genre of thoughts. The bias regarding medication here...
Read MoreOrlando: the Latest Gun Massacre
For Those Affected by the Orlando Tragedy The news coming out of Orlando this week is heartrending. I imagine I’m with many of you when I say that I feel profoundly sad, as well as fearful of and incensed by the repeated mass gun violence across the United States. I have wanted to post something in response, but I’m realizing I don’t have the psychic energy to do so. When this unfolded, I was in the midst of writing an emotionally heavy post about the Stanford rape survivor, so I have to admit, I’m burned out. I realized, though, that it’s okay to bracket off some of that...
Read MoreYes, Recovery Really Does Get Better
Pushing Through the Final Phases of Recovery I haven’t written in a while, you might have noticed. I relapsed, and I was too ashamed to admit it here. It was a quick, steep backslide, and the trigger was very specific: I weighed myself. I went home for Christmas and encountered a scale. I thought I could handle the number. I couldn’t. I freaked out. My nutritionist dissected my meal plan in order to show me I wasn’t eating excessive amounts. We discussed the natural fluctuation in weight that bodies undergo. We even discussed weight loss and how it’s not necessarily eating disordered for...
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I'm a writer, a mental health activist, and a 20-something in recovery from an eating disorder. This blog chronicles my journey through the middle ground toward full recovery.
