Dear Dr. Andy,
I sit here writing this paper on the sixth floor in the Wake Forest library. I often wonder how I got here. It was just five years ago that I had hit rock bottom. I was preoccupied with being the perfect student, having the perfect body, and trying to please everyone other than myself. I was trained to please everyone else and stuff my feelings deep down within me. However, that got me nowhere. In actuality, I ended up having to relearn how to view my life and myself.
The moment you took me into your office I started my road to my recovery. I remember you asking, “Eliza, what do you want in your life?” I replied, “I want the perfect house, family, and job. I want to be happy.” For the first time in a long time, I answered truthfully when you asked me how I felt. After you asked me this question, the tears began to run down my face and I was finally able to let it all out. Those tears had been yearning to fall out of my big brown eyes for too long. I was so scared of the future, but at the same time I was relieved to be getting the help I needed.
I remember eating my last lunch with my mom at one of my favorite restaurants, Rise, that afternoon before going to the hospital. We sat at the bar and I ordered a ham and cheese soufflé. I also remember packing my bag for the hospital that day with my mom. I was putting my razor in my bag and my mom just shook her head. “Eliza, you can’t take that sweetheart. They won’t allow you to have that in the hospital.” This was the beginning of the many rules to be learned and followed.
You drove us to the hospital. We walked across that massive bridge making our way towards the psychiatric unit. I stared at the doctors walking by with their stethoscopes dangling on their chests as they briskly moved from one patient to the next.
I remember that moment of separation from my parents. I walked into B5 and watched the heavy door shut behind me; my parents disappeared. I sunk down in that chair in the main sitting area and waited. Heart pounding, the other patients walked out of music therapy and looked at me curiously. One girl came out of the room with a feeding tube, which was necessary to feed her frail body. She looked around, leaned in close, and whispered, “So, why are you here?” I remember answering, “I struggle with depression.” But that wasn’t just it. A few days later, I was put on the anorexic recovery program. The food blogs, the conversations after meals, and weight calculations took up most of my day. I remember having to leave the bathroom door a bit cracked and having to constantly make noise; I just kept counting or repeating my ABC’s, reassuring the milieu therapists that I wasn’t hurting myself behind the bathroom door. Every night I laid in that hospital bed at the end of the hall, the florescent overhead lights pierced my eyes as I tried to fall asleep. All I could think about was the video camera in the top corner of the room, staring down at me. I could hear the nurses through our open door hustling about and my roommate scratching her stress ball.
Who would have known I was going to end up there? How? I had the “perfect” family and life. I was gifted with many talents. But you see that was the problem. It just seemed too perfect to be true. Everything seemed to be perfect around me, but that wasn’t how I felt inside. I lived in the Dallas bubble, where everyone seemed to have the perfect family, body, car, job, and anything else one can imagine. I became the world’s best faker to fit in this perfect city called Dallas. I’d put that big smile on my face and continue on with my day, acting like everything was perfect. I was losing the real Eliza. I felt lost and hollow inside.
But when you pulled me into your office that first week of freshman year, I started to dig down into that hollow Eliza and pull the real, lively Eliza back. After struggling and suffering for a year and a half, I was ready to take on the challenge of finding myself again. The sassy Eliza started to reemerge. It took months in the hospital of being impatient, partial patient, and then finally intensive out patient in order to get where I am today. My mom, dad, brother, boyfriend, friends, and teachers held my hand through every stage. Angels became my spiritual refuge, so every day I carried a silver token of an angel in my pocket, serving as a constant reminder of the unconditional love that I had in my life. I was never going to achieve a perfect body in my eating disorder’s mind; nothing was ever good enough. I was never going to have the best grades and become the best athlete. But that is OK. Yes, my eating disorder still pesters me and so does the perfectionism voice, but I wouldn’t be here today at Wake Forest writing this paper if it weren’t for you pulling me out of school that hot Dallas day.
Even though my eating disorder’s voice was loud enough to make me perform destructive habits, I knew deep down that this was not the real Eliza; I wasn’t going to let these voices control me for the rest my life. Even in the very midst of the eating disorder, before I received your help, I told my mom, “I want the real Eliza back. I don’t know where she went, but I want her back.” I used the eating disorder as means of getting the help I desperately wished for. Once I started to receive professional help, I was able to slowly let go of the demons I held on for so long. Risking losing these demons was a scary idea, since they had been my companions for so long. But with time, I was able to see what a true companion looked like. I was able to see the beauty of life without an eating disorder and this is why I was ready to let it go. The eating disorder wanted to destroy my goals and visions for life, and I wasn’t about to let it do so.
There are extremely smart people here at Wake Forest. There are beautiful people here with near “perfect” bodies. But, I could drive myself crazy trying to be these other “perfect” people. The perfectionism “will keep [me] cramped and insane [my] whole life” if I let it (Lamott 28). So, I can’t let this perfectionism get the best of me. Why should I live my life all cramped up, trying to be someone better all the time? I just want to breathe and let go. The “clutter and mess show [me] that life is being lived,” so why not be messy and let go of doing everything “perfectly” (Lamott 28). It is the demon inside me preventing me from living freely. I want to strip the perfectionism out of me. Like Anne Lamott said, “you can still discover new treasures under all those piles, clean things up, edit things out, fix things, get a grip” (Lamott 29). Trying to control my life is exhausting. Lamott said, “tidiness makes me think of held breath, of suspended animation, while writing needs to breath and move” (Lamott 29). I’m trying to break free from perfectionism because it keeps me standing back, backing away from life (Lamott 30). I want to experience life in “a naked and immediate way” (Lamott 30). This is the time to let go and prove to myself the perfection of imperfection.
Through the struggle of the eating disorder, depression, anxiety, and perfectionism I can start to see that “big sloppy imperfect messes have value” (Lamott 30). Through my messes, I have started to find out who I really am.
I am so thankful that you took me to the hospital that day of freshman year. I never realized that eating disorders have the highest mortality rate of any mental illness, which is why I am so grateful I received treatment. Sadly, in North America, men and women are given the message at a young age that in order to be happy and successful, they must be thin and fit. It breaks my heart knowing that thousands of teenage girls starve themselves trying to attain what the fashion industry considers to be the “ideal” body figure. I want teenagers to realize that reaching this “ideal” body figure is actually unachievable. The figures we see on social media and in magazines aren’t real; many people don’t realize that these photos have been modified through touch ups and airbrushes, making the models look perfect. My goal is to reach those individuals struggling with eating disorders. My letter to you is the beginning of my voice being heard; there is something inside me that wants to let everything out. Even though the perfectionism and eating disorder like to squeeze me, limiting my breath, I will fight back against their grip and break free. I want to share my story with the world and this is the start.
Until later,
Eliza
“It’s the imperfections that make things beautiful.” –Unknown
Works Cited
“Eating Disorders; Causes, Symptoms, Signs & Treatment Help.” Eating Disorder Hope. NEDA, iaedp foundation, AED, EDC, 2016. Web. 2 Jan. 2016. <http://eatingdisorderhope.com>.
Lamott, Anne. Bird by Bird. First Anchor Book ed. New York City: Anchor Books, 1994. Print.
Silverman, Linda Krger. “Perfectionism.” Perfectionism. By Linda Kreger Silverman. Vol. 13. Denver: A B Academics, 1999. 216-25. Print.
Thompson, Colleen. “Society and Eating Disorders.” Mirror Mirror Eating Disorders. Ed. Dr. Lauren Muhlheim and Tabitha Farrar. N.p., 2014. Web. 1 Jan. 2016. <http://mobile.dudamobile.com>.