Life with Ed
my struggle with disordered eating
By Maggie Canty
I thought I was normal.
I woke up before daylight and ran eight miles. I ate fewer calories everyday, and counted every one of them. I ran another hour at the gym after class. I constantly looked at myself in the mirror, seeing only the little fat left on my tired body. My clothes sagged off my gaunt figure – hiding the sharp bones increasingly more protruding.
With each notch the scale went down, I felt a sick satisfaction that somehow, what I was doing was worth it.
And I thought I was normal.
An eating disorder never goes away. Nicknamed “Ed” by my dietician, my disorder has been with me since I was a sophomore in high school. He provides me with a sense of comfort. Ed is always there, and I can fall back on him whenever everyone else has failed me.
He’d kill me if I gave him the chance. And the sad thing is, I almost did.
I am one of the 24 million in this country, according to the Alliance for Eating Disorders Awareness, who suffer from disordered eating.
But I am lucky.
Many disordered eaters never recover. Nearly 50,000 will become so consumed by Ed and his impossible ideals that they will suffer their entire lives, until he finally cuts them short.
I had to choose between death by Ed or life without him.
And I chose to live.
But loosening his deathly grip is the hardest thing I have ever done.
Getting introduced to Ed
I can’t pinpoint exactly how it started.
I remember being self-conscience in middle school, becoming aware that I wasn’t skinny like the girls I saw on TV or read about in Teen People.
I was never fat, but that’s how I felt.
High school brought little change. My friends were growing apart, my family was fighting and school was getting harder.
My life felt out of my control.
But my body wasn’t.
It started as a simple diet. I was going to cut back on sugar and fat, and exercise more. I started running, eating more salads and drinking Diet Coke.
“It’s part of our culture to want to be thin,” said Susan MacQuiddy, a psychologist at the University Counseling Center, who has worked at the counseling center with eating disorders for 25 years. “A number of people use it as a coping device. It can start as a harmless diet.”
But my diet proved to be far from harmless.
I became obsessive about reading nutrition facts and ingredients, counting the grams of fat, carbs and sugar and adding them up in my head to make sure I never exceeded my daily quota - which became smaller and smaller as time went on.
The feedback I got was initially positive.
The “you look greats” or “you’ve lost weights” fueled my fire, and
as my pant size decreased, my hopes grew.
The model-thin body was no longer impossible. “One more pound,” I kept saying, and then I’ll stop.
But I couldn’t.
Instead of feeling freed by my new figure, I was becoming enslaved to it. My habits had become a strict routine that I had to abide by.
Each cookie or French fry I succumbed to left me guilt ridden. I worried that if I let these moments of weakness happen I would be fat again. And fat was evil, ugly and wrong.
Normal after school activities were replaced by solo runs. There was no time for shopping, sports or clubs; I had to work out.
Lunchtime was full of excuses about “eating a big breakfast” and became an hour to dread. I allotted myself nothing but salad and fat-free dressing during family dinners.
Which were usually followed by guilt and sit-ups in the basement for dessert.
Restaurants were out of the question. Just being around fast food made me nervous, afraid I would falter and give in to my hunger.
I became consumed by my “diet,” and the inability to break my routine left me isolated and alone.
But that didn’t matter.
I always had Ed.
Entering Ed’s world
My drastic weight loss did not go unnoticed.
Many chalked it up to growing out of my “baby fat” or blamed it on the running, which most assumed was a healthy change.
“She’s just more active,” my mom thought, afraid to consider anything else.
But I hadn’t just lost weight.
My friends had grown frustrated with my obsession with weight, my elusive behavior after school and secrecy around meals.
Even when I found the time for them, my body was so weak from the lack of fuel that I found little energy to do much more than hang out.
“Once they get started, eating disorders can take on a life of their own,” said Chris Bauchman, a registered dietician specializing in eating disorders at Hartshorn Health Services. “Sufferers have disproportionate thoughts about food, weight and body. They isolate themselves and miss out on life.”
Many of my friends gave-up.
It didn’t bother me. With Ed, I had all the company I needed.
When confronted about my eating habits or my exercise obsession, I would grow uncomfortable and annoyed.
I was in denial.
“Coming to terms with the issue is often the hardest part,” Bauchman said. “Denial is usually really strong, and most can’t recover without help.”
“My friends don’t know what it’s like to be fat,” I told myself. “They just don’t want me to look better than them. This is normal for a girl like me. My life is better this way.”
Thoughts like this would plague my mind, keeping my diet on track.
But my diet had become my life and this track was leading me deeper and deeper into a hole.
And I would need serious help getting out.
Acknowledging Ed
On the last day of school before summer, my best friend Laura and I always went to the “beach” - a nearby lake surrounded by sand. It was a place to celebrate the end of school, relax, tan and sink our teeth into the freedom that the upcoming summer had finally offered.
But this year was different.
I was a sophomore, 5-foot-6 and 100 pounds, down from my previous weight of 135.
I looked awful.
Sporting a purple bikini and a huge smile, I followed Laura into the icy cold water, feeling attractive in my new figure.
Until one comment made me reevaluate my entire lifestyle.
“Don’t you just wanna give some girls a chocolate bar?”
Innocently whispered from a group of giggling girls behind me, the words struck me like a slap in the face.
I looked down and saw my body as it really was for the first time since I met Ed. My extra small suit sagged off my pale skin. My bones, sharp and sore from sitting on them all day, were protruding out from every gangly angle. My hair had thinned, my eye sockets were deep and shadowed and my body had eaten away my former C cups to the size of a training bra.
I was undernourished and it showed.
At Wendy’s on the way home, I ordered a kids meal, the first fast food I had eaten in a year.
I picked at the food the entire ride home, tearing apart French fries and chicken nuggets into little pieces, allowing my growling stomach tiny bites to quiet down.
I knew I was sick. But I didn’t know how to get better.
Ed’s damage is done
Driven by the comment at the lake, I decided for the first time I might need help.
“Mom, I think something is wrong. I’m really skinny,” I casually said that evening.
On the inside, I was screaming in desperation, muffled by Ed’s hand smothering my mouth.
A doctor’s exam revealed that my extreme dieting had slowed my metabolism, lowered my blood pressure and weakened my heart. My body had lowered its estrogen production (I hadn’t had my period in a year) and I faced possible serious bone loss. I had lost fat padding on my butt and limbs and had almost no breasts.
My body was eating itself to stay alive.
“Our primary worry with people who suffer from disordered eating is the heart,” said Dr. Mary Higgens, a physician at Heartshorn Health Services who works with eating disorder patients. “Severe undernourishment can cause it to thin, and it may not regain its strength. There can also be fertility problems and bone loss.”
The reality of what I was doing began to sink in, and I knew it was time to change.
Walking away from Ed
After opening up to my mom, we decided together that professional help wasn’t necessary as long as I took the right steps to improve.
Under her careful watch, I began working more food into my diet.
“Recovery doesn’t happen over night,” Bauchman said. “You have to be willing to do the work and honor the fact that it’s a process. It’s a journey, and you’ve got to get back on the horse.”
At first, each meal was a struggle. I hated finishing things, and when I did, feelings of guilt would overtake me. I would compensate by running more or skipping meals when I wasn’t around my mom.
But over time, I began to make slow improvements. I noticed that when I ate more, I had more energy. I could go out, have fun and not constantly be thinking about food and weight.
I could be normal.
Encouraged by a teacher, I joined the cross-country team and discovered that often the more I ate, the better I performed.
The combination of my success as a runner and support from friends helped me see food for what it really is – fuel.
But my work was far from done.
Forever with Ed
The problem with having an eating disorder is that no matter how much improvement you make, you’re never completely over it.
“You can be 100 percent away from following your behavior, but still think about it,” MacQuiddy said. “It’s familiar to you. It’d be rare to never have the same feelings again.”
I’ve made Ed a home in my head, and he isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. But now I can choose whether or not to listen to him.
Which is harder then it might sound.
I relapsed my freshman year of college, using my eating disorder as a coping device for being away from home. Ed was a familiar face in a dorm full of strangers, and I found comfort in his routine ways.
But this time, I knew what I was doing. And I knew I needed help.
After professional counseling, doctor’s visits and meetings with a specialist dietician, I relearned how to eat. Again.
Like a spoon-fed baby, I ate up information and guidance on my disorder, and began applying it to my own life.
And the help I have received has been invaluable.
Ed spreads
My story is far from unique. Eating disorders are rampant on college campuses everywhere, with 90 percent of sufferers being between the ages of 12 and 25, according to the Alliance for Eating Disorders Awareness.
CSU is no exception.
A study done in 2000 found two-fifths of the 550 people seen in the University Counseling Center have suffered from some form of “disordered eating,” which includes anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, extreme dieting, restricting of foods, obsessive exercising and purging.
But there is help.
“CSU offers several ways to receive treatment, including working with a dietician, a psychotherapist and sometimes a group,” Higgins said. “I often prescribe anti-depressants to help with the obsessive behavior.”
And I am walking proof that recovery is real.
“I would really encourage you, if you have any concerns, to seek help, whether medical or psychological,” Higgins said. “We can do a lot of good. In some cases, we can save lives.”
Living Ed free
Since my relapse freshman year, I am the most recovered I have ever been and my love for eating hasn’t stopped growing. As a junior journalism major, I write a weekly food culture column for The Rocky Mountain Collegian and live the fullest I have since developing my disorder.
I cook, I bake and most importantly, I eat.
And when Ed tries to talk to me, I’m pretty good about telling him to shut up.