A recent assignment by a McCallum Place tutor asked patients to think about “What is Natural”? Read below for a thought-provoking response:
“I tried living in this world of beauty that seemed to so extravagant and glamorous, trying to make my body perfect since I felt like my life was falling apart. I spent my days exercising constantly, counting calories, purging, and restricting my food. If this sounds like the glamorous life to you then you must be crazy, I would not wish this kind of life on my worst enemy. No matter what I could do no matter how much weight I lost I never felt beautiful. Trying to be model skinny led me to being depressed, deprived, starving, and hopeless. Wishing I could find a way out into the tunnel I was trapped in. This tunnel brought me to an eating disorder treatment center for being anorexic and bulimic, and every day I wake up reminding myself that I can never go back to that life I was living before. All the while I still see these women just as skinny as I used to be wishing I could go back to the life that once shielded me from my emotions and my life.”
We commend this patient’s bravery in sharing a part of her story!
