Recovery Is Now
One Friday, about four weeks into residential treatment, I had a particularly bad day. In a moment of distress and vulnerability, I slipped up and used a behavior, which ended up costing me dearly in that very strict, “merit-based” treatment structure. My roommate and another friend rallied around me. That night, the three of us skipped the mandatory family group and camped out in our bedroom, hiding like truant teenagers from the counselors who came around to check that everyone was at the group. We sat on the floor between our beds and played cards, gossiping about our...
Read MoreThe Middle Ground: What No One Tells You About Recovery
I have over 2,300 photos on my phone. It’s completely overloaded. I haven’t been able to upgrade the software in months because it is too full of photos. (At least a third of which are probably my cat…) I suppose I’m like many other millennials when it comes to the photo obsession. Or maybe it’s just that I land solidly in the visual learner category. Regardless, these photos are the way that I recall my day to day life. To a casual onlooker, many of them probably seem mundane — the picture of me and my cousin on the roof of my building, or the selfie of me at...
Read MoreMore Than Weight Had Been Lost: One Year Post-Residential
I sat in the waiting area clutching the hospital gown I had been given, waiting for one of the nurses to call my name. A shoeless girl shuffled by wheeling a pole with an IV bag dangling from the top. A long tube protruded from the IV bag, snaked down the pole, and disappeared into her nose. What am I doing here? One year ago today I was admitted into a residential treatment center in Philadelphia. Emotionally, I was already drained from battling just to get to the facility. I had been told more than two weeks earlier that I wasn’t making enough progress in the day treatment program and...
Read MoreOne Year in Recovery
Today marks one year since I left work and began treatment for my eating disorder. I was so in the dark when it all began. I had been told that patients usually stay in partial hospitalization treatment (the level at which I started) for four to six weeks, and I remember marveling that in just a few weeks I might be rid of this thing that had plagued me for more than a decade. Eleven months later, when I finally did leave treatment, it was quite apparent that I’d had no idea what I was walking into on Dec. 11, 2013. I didn’t know that after seven-and-a-half weeks in PHP I would...
Read MoreAcceptance: The Only Way Out Is Through
“Len says one steady pull more ought to do it. He says the best way out is always through. And I agree to that, or in so far As that I can see no way out but through…” — Robert Frost, “A Servant to Servants” I’ve written a lot of topical pieces here so far, most of which allude to my own story in some way or another. But I suppose it’s time to throw in something entirely anecdotal—my moment of acceptance. Acceptance at the Prison Door One month into partial hospitalization treatment, my team told me that 25 hours per week just wasn’t going to cut it. If I was going to kick this...
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