"Do you, or have you ever had an eating disorder?"
I was stood in the queue to the salad bar in the college canteen. I'd missed a few meals recently and been eating much less than normal even when I'd been at them, and I was starting to look unwell. I'd made every legitimate-sounding excuse under the sun, about how I wasn't that hungry, I'd had a late breakfast, I hadn't been feeling too well recently, blah blah blah. I was jumpy, agitated, frenetic - he wasn't taking the bait and I REALLY didn't want to eat anything for lunch that day. He was in front of me in the queue, but he turned to face me, shoulders square to mine, "Do you, or have you ever had an eating disorder?" People weren't usually so bold! No-one had ever just asked before. What was I supposed to say?! I hated lying, and to say 'no' would just be a blatant lie, not like just making excuses with at least a portion of truth to them. "Yes." I answered. Quietly, but securely, eyes narrowing as if to say, 'And there's nothing you can do about it.' I first suffered with an eating disorder when I was in secondary school, around age 15-16, then again for just a couple of weeks around my finals at university when I was 21, and then again towards the end of last year. I haven't told many people about this over the years; in some ways, it was something I hoped I could just leave behind completely, but in others, I guess not telling people also meant it would always be my secret to fall back on if I needed to. Well, no more! I have a story that I need to share; one of stubbornness and darkness and God's utter goodness. Here goes. My eating disorder has always come through in anorexic tendencies - restricting calories going in, and increasing calories burned through exercise going out. It has also generally been about feeling in control; counting and lowering the numbers of calories going in, taking off the numbers burned and then seeing the numbers on the scales get less each day. To me, it demonstrated a level of control over myself and my world that no-one else could have. No matter what was going on around me that I couldn't control, I could control this perfectly and that made me feel strong, even if it actually made me weaker (in body and in will). Around October and November last year I found myself, very suddenly, in a place of severely restricting what I was eating and a very strong sense of being able to do nothing to get out of that place. Where I was, I could get worse and worse and so I did, weighing less and less each day: getting closer and closer to the nothingness I wanted to be. I didn't want to die, and I guess I just ignored all the logic that told me that that was the only place what I was doing could lead if I continued - but I wanted to be nothing, to disappear, and to hide away. It made me stubborn in my relationship with God, and arrogantly proud in my relationship to others. I knew God hadn't left me, because I knew God never would, and yet I felt very sure that I could not perceive even the slightest of God's presence. I knew I was blocking God off, but I also knew that I didn't want God to make me better, and so I didn't want God! God's goodness means that God's desire is for my wholeness, and I didn't want that, so I couldn't want God at all. I couldn't pray - I felt like a liar or a hypocrite. I felt like there was only darkness around me through which I had no hope of seeing. No light. No future. No point. I felt abandoned, but that I had done it and I had to undo it but still couldn't. Mental illness is hard. There is very much a sense in which I was ill, and allowing the feelings of guilt over what I was doing consume me would probably have tipped me over the edge and I couldn't have got out of my bed. And yet there is also very much a sense in which no-one else could force me to put food in my mouth, chew and swallow, and if I was going to survive, at some point I had to accept that I would have to decide to do that. Still, knowing I had to in no way meant that I could. Not then. But it would come. I say it made me arrogantly proud. There is a point in not eating where you start to feel euphoric. Sure, sometimes the pain when you breathe or in your muscles or bones when you move override the elated feeling, but there was this point when my body was in starvation mode and I felt so fake-ly happy. I knew in some way that it wasn't real happiness, but I also didn't care! I felt like I could take on the world! Like I could do anything at all, AND I could do it better than anyone else, because I was doing it with nothing inside me! I was doing it all just from me, not like all of “them”, who depended on their precious food for energy and who gave in to their wants and hunger. Get me straight: I didn't want anyone else to not eat, and I envied them that they found it so easy to, but I also felt vainly and arrogantly proud that I was doing what none of them could. I hated what I had become. I no longer felt like I even had a relationship with God, and I didn't care about the people I loved or who loved me! I never doubted God was there and my faith was intact, but I couldn't feel it - I was going through the motions because of what I knew in my head, but my heart didn't care for anything anymore! I hated myself - I wasn't myself - and so I ignored myself. Instead, I focussed on what I had to do: restrict the numbers going in, and lose the numbers coming off. Through all of this time, thankfully, I was held in the prayers of others - for God's protection each day to keep me safe. Those people also stuck with me; they kept checking up on me, and getting me out of my room for meetings and just to chat; some who were further away video-called me every day just to talk and to be there with me. Those people demonstrated the love of the God I had made invisible. They taught me that God's love crossed the chasm even of what I was doing to myself, and that just like them, God very much still wanted to spend time with me and be there for me. Those people helped me to realise what wasn't on the table and what I hadn't been allowing myself to think and say. And also, the lies about the character of God that I had been telling myself. I had begun to feel guilty for not being good enough for God and for a changing sense of calling; I felt like I had failed and got it wrong and I was going to miss the plan! I know that this isn't God, and I know that I cannot know and plan out the future, and I know that life with God isn't about finding the most direct route to the "perfect" place but about living with God, trusting God and growing in God’s perfect love in the winding routes and adventures that we go on. God taught me that his love is greater. When I needed him most but pushed him away most, God was still there and refused to let me go. In the end, when I was so afraid - afraid of going too far, afraid of fighting back, afraid of being lost forever - God reached in and placed me at a church retreat weekend I had not booked to go on. That space became a place I could be held enough to begin the path towards recovery - God's rescuing hand on my shoulder every long and arduous step of the way since. The journey goes on! There's much more to share about this story and so much I want you all to know about the way God is so unnecessarily and wonderfully good, but this has been a good place to start. Thank you for taking the time to read it; it took a lot of time and thought and effort to write. Love, Rebekah
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AuthorI'm a recent Cambridge Theology graduate now studying for a Masters in Biblical Studies and blogging about all sorts of things! I'm interested in faith, Church, theology, social action, the great outdoors and being creative, and all of those things - along with many more - come through in my posts!
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