It is not common for a food blogger to talk about eating disorders, but the reality is that I have struggled with eating disorders my entire life. Even today, being someone who loves to cook and to eat, I always know that I am one step away from counting calories at such a low level that it is not possible to sustain or working out 3-4 times a day or becoming obsessed with running distance again so that my body burns more than I can consume. 

I am one of those that after every episode I am convinced that I am healed, that I am better. However, I have found that when I feel out of control, I struggle to find an element of my life that  I have power over, and for me that is often food and exercise. I have been able to hide my disorder behind being small, being a runner, or being obsessed with a healthy lifestyle, but the reality is that my body has hid one of my darkest secrets. 

Oh I have a broken heart, lets stop eating. Oh, you listened to a man kill himself on the phone, I am not hungry. Oh, your marriage is falling apart, workout more, you aren't attractive enough to make it work. Fuck you are getting a divorce, run more. You feel out of control, do whatever the fuck it is to find some control again. 

The first time I stopped eating I was in Junior High. It was a new school, my Mom had just gotten married and had my baby brother. I would love to blame all of these life factors on triggering my eating disorder, but for me that wasn't the case, I was just no longer hungry. I didn't think of myself as having an eating disorder, having low self esteem, body image issues, or power and control issues, all of the factors that are often attributed to eating disorders. I just no longer wanted to eat. I wasn't depressed in the typical sense and I was getting good grades and making friends. My relationship with food just went from being good to very, very bad. Sure, now I know it was so much more, but as a child I just stopped eating. 

My Mom would pack me lunch and I would throw them away or put them in my locker, to be forgotten for eternity. The school janitor found those lunches and called my Mom, causing a great deal of embarrassment and questioning. The only thing it taught me was to hide the fact that I wasn't hungry even better. I ate, but always the very minimum, just enough to stay under the radar and keep everyone happy. 

The second episode or at least the once I was called out on,  was when I was a new Dispatcher. I was working long hours, night shift, obviously dealing with a great deal of stress. I had recently gone through a break-up and handled my first officer involved shooting. Again, I found myself not hungry, however this time I was living alone and subsisting on soup was an easy thing to accomplish, as the number on the scale continued to decline. As the scale went down my confidence increased. I felt back in control of my life, only now realizing that this was just another way to compartmentalize my trauma. 

One of the Officers pulled me aside, honestly probably saving my life, and told me he noticed that I was losing a lot of weight. He continued to check on me daily, making sure I was eating, and doing it in such a way that I knew he was coming from a place of concern and not judgment. I have never told him thank you and I hope you are reading this blog because I owe you my life. 

My third episode took a different form and I was able to justify in different ways. I was living in So Cal, married, had the perfect life on the outside, was in the best shape of my life....surrounded by people who are more perfect and beautiful than the one next to them. My marriage was falling apart, we were living separate lives, and I had nothing but time on my hands. 

 I was going to the gym 2-3 times a day. I would wake up early and go to the gym before work, a gym that had me eating only oranges and chicken. My husband worked night shift and so I went to the gym again after work, always cooking him dinner, making sure it was on the table waiting for him when he came home....already in containers so he would never notice I never ate what I made. 

I had the perfect life from the outside looking in, but I was unhappy and felt like I was living a lie. I again found myself grasping for control, as my husband begged for a baby that I knew I couldn't give him. We no longer knew each other, our careers had taken over our lives, and we wanted such different things from life. He eventually caught on to my gym and eating habits as the scale declined, and honestly staged an intervention, which again probably saved my life. 

However, our divorce happened shortly after this event, and again my eating disorder reared its ugly head as I entered the dating scene for the first time in over 16 years. I didn't feel attractive and the stress of going through a divorce and running a Communications Center was consuming, so I started running....and running some more....and adding distance. I ran 8 half marathons during the year I was going through my divorce, telling myself I was dealing with the end of my marriage in a healthy way. I couldn't eat enough calories for the number of miles I was putting on my running shoes. And this time it was an injury that required me to check myself. 

I got heavily into food blogging at this time, replacing running for cooking and eating. I thought my relationship with food had finally got to a healthy place....but the reality is that when you struggle with food and control....you are never fully recovered. 

During Covid, I put on weight like many of us and I often thought of going back to my old ways. It has been hard to age and watch my body change, regardless of exercise and diet. It is hard not to fall back into old habits. The struggle is real when you feel out of control or you are dealing with heart break or you want to get that flat stomach back, not to fall back to that which feels comfortable. 

As I have written more and more over the last few months about the reality of women - domestic violence, being the other woman, Daddy issues, etc, I felt that it was important to address another skeleton in the closet, once that I continued to battle every single day. I know I am not alone in this battle and so I write this to support all of us who have struggled, continue to fight and to recover. Take it one day at a time and remind yourself that you got this, or if you need me to remind you reach out, because I expect you to do the same for me.