Path to Happiness

I’m one month into treatment. I had a great support team at home and in the Center. I thought I was doing well. I seemed happy. After an incident with a rude care tech and one of my good friends, my therapist brought to my attention in a therapy session that I was care taking. In other words I was trying to fix my problems by putting mine aside and trying to fix other’s problems. I had spent a month not even addressing my own problem. I guess I just cared about these girls so much that I wanted their problems to go away. No one, especially these girls, deserve to have to go through the pain and struggles that an eating disorder brings. I wouldn’t say it was time wasted, but that wasn’t why I was there.

After this therapy session, I went to a class called Relationship Skills. That day we were doing an exercise where one person sat at the front of the room, facing everyone, and everyone would give you compliments. I was the last one in and I was not expecting this kind of exercise. This was one of the hardest things for me, to sit there and have people tell me good things about myself. I broke down. How could these amazing girls see these good things in me that I couldn’t see myself? It is definitely frustrating. In that moment I saw everything I was struggling with and I had a flood of emotions, emotions I hadn’t felt in so long.

This was such a good step for me. And now that I could feel emotions I would work on the one thing that would impact my recovery more than anything—I would start trying to find my faith again. The Center gave us the option of going to a different church each Sunday. I decided I would try these different churches and see which best fit me. I knew I couldn’t do this on my own so I prayed, each and every night. I was feeling good going to church. I knew I was on the right track but nothing was really giving me the satisfaction I was looking for.

It was the week before family week—a weekend where you’re family gets to come up and they go to therapy with you and go to therapy sessions on their own sessions to better help support you—and I was playing Nertz with two friends. I got this amazing feeling inside me. I got a distinct feeling inside me that I needed to go back to the LDS church. That feeling was so real. I immediately went to the Book of Mormon my mom had sent with me and began reading it. I had this want to learn more about the church I had grown up in. This was the right decision for me.  From that moment, I just had this constant feeling of joy and happiness. This was undoubtedly the Holy Ghost. My Heavenly Father was looking out for me and was answering my prayers.

From that day I made every effort to build a relationship with my Heavenly Father. I told my family everything that had happened, about me falling away from the LDS church and finding my way back, and I began working on my repentance process.

My recovery was completely different now. Having my religion behind me gave me reason to be alive and to work towards a happy life and an eating disorder was neither of those things. I had to choose which was more important. I spent another month and a half at the Center for Change, working towards getting rid of the remains of my eating disorder.

The three months I spent there were the most memorable thing of my life. I made so many friends there and it literally saved my life. I had suffered so long that I had no idea life could be a happy, enjoyable thing. I now have a good relation with food. I love being me. I am so blessed and have so much to be grateful for. I still have those days where my body image isn’t the best, but it’s not something I constantly have to live with. I can think about something other than food, calories, working out, and if I’m gaining weight. I feel so free. I can say that I am happy to be alive and nothing will change that anymore.

In my next post I want to talk about my life post treatment and some views I have about society that have completely changed. Thanks for everyone that’s following :)