Journey to Recovery

hi

i’m emma i wish i could come on here

today and tell you all that i’m a

survivor

i survived with the disease with the

highest mortality rate of any other

mental illness

however the truth is i am a fighter

i am a fighter because every day is

still a battle against my own mind and

the voice is trying to bring me down

today i would like to give you an

understanding of eating disorders and

mental illnesses using my story

a story of pain tears fear denial

acceptance and finally recovery a story

that is far from over but that i have

chosen to make public because i want to

be able to help those who struggle like

i do

so here goes my story i grew up in a

loving family with both of my parents

and my two siblings

i loved sports i supporting running

swimming triathlon rugby

flag football i mean basically

everything however

since a very young age i felt a huge

pressure to succeed

there was a voice inside my head telling

me i wasn’t good enough

that i wasn’t worth it my parents

constantly told me that i was a very

negative person

i mean i had everything i needed to be

happy i was healthy

had a few friends i was a good student

but to me

it was just never good enough quickly i

began struggling with anxiety

sports were very important to me they

allowed me to release all of my stress

and anxiety nevertheless food quickly

became another coping mechanism

i was only six years old when i started

binging i would secretly go to the

kitchen

hide food and raise my clothes and run

back to my room

i remember the couple of times i was

caught i broke down and begged them all

to tell my parents

i wasn’t eating because i was hungry i

was eating because

for a few minutes it gave me a sense of

relief i was able to breathe again

but afterwards i always felt so much

worse

when i turned eight my family and i

moved to panama and i arrived here

at the met in a new school i really

struggled to make friends

so instead i focused on what i knew well

and made me feel safe

sports as i got older sports became a

huge part of my identity

and slowly i started feeling like i

belonged now my sister and i are only

one year apart

so as she started getting older i

started comparing myself to her

more and more i’ve always had this

feeling like she was better than me and

to tell you the truth it really scared

me

so i started to push myself more and

more

i got into competitive sports and

quickly sports were no longer fun but

instead caused me so much stress and

anxiety i remember getting sick to my

stomach before

every swimming competition and i begged

my parents not to come

now you might be wondering why would i

want my parents to be there

why would i want them to cheer for me

like everyone else

the truth is i will scare them with

teammate fail

i wanted to be the perfect child the

best swimmer out there

because at the end of the day the only

thing i wanted was to make them proud

fast forward to 2017 i was training

twice a day while at the same time

school started getting more challenging

i would come home exhausted from

training and then i have to start

working

i was taking on way too much and soon

enough the voices inside my head became

so loud and the pressure had been taking

on just burst

i started binging and purging and

exercising whenever i had the chance

now i know how hard it must be to

understand like

why would somebody purposely make

themselves throw up most of you guys

probably think it’s gross

but the truth is binging and purging is

an addiction

it’s as if i was numb to the world and

purging was the only thing that made me

feel something

i think that the best way to describe it

is that resisting the urge to purge when

you have an eating disorder

is like resisting the urge to use drugs

for a drug addict

it’s so exhausting both mentally and

physically and some days you just don’t

have the strength to fight the urge

so instead i isolated myself kept on

pushing and i told myself i could do it

i told myself that i had it under

control

my teachers and coaches were all proud

of me i was really good at pretending

everything was okay

but after a few months my parents

started noticing my secretive behavior

they started noticing me rushing

straight to the bathroom after dinner

taking hour long showers my hair falling

out and the huge bags underneath my eyes

so one night they sat me down and

confronted me about everything

as they spoke to me i couldn’t even look

at them i was so ashamed of myself i

wanted nothing more than to disappear

i will never forget that that night was

the first time i thought about killing

myself

the voices told me that i had failed and

that i was nothing more than a

disappointment

as time passed i stopped purging however

my relationship with food didn’t get any

better

i felt guilty after every meal and would

only allow myself to eat if i was going

to train afterwards

in may of 2018 i qualified to become a

part of panama’s national triathlon team

however due to all of the training and

my adequate diet i enjoyed myself

i had a stress fracture in my right leg

and suddenly i could no longer exercise

i identified as an athlete and to be

told i could no longer exercise

really scared me that same month one of

my best friends moved away

and i was really lonely on top of that i

was terrified for the next two years of

high school i would soon have to face

that summer things got bad my depression

completely depleted my appetite and

suddenly starving myself became so easy

i seemed to have a perfect life or at

least that’s what i wanted everyone to

see

because it’s easier that way it was

easier to fake a smell than having to

face all of my emotions and the pain i

was truly feeling

in september i was finally given

permission to exercise again

however i quickly realized i was not as

good as i used to be

i tried convincing myself i was simply

out of shape

but the truth was i was slowly

deteriorating

i was struggling to keep up with basic

training and i remember once in a while

thinking

it’s been two days maybe i should eat

something

but the voices inside my head quickly

told me that i was fine because i had it

under control

on october 8th i woke up early to go to

training

i was extremely light-headed and i could

barely feel my legs

as i got ready to jump onto my bike my

coach took me aside

and this is when he told me the words i

will never forget

he told me that i was not okay that i

had been brainwashed and that he refused

to train an anorexic girl

hearing those words absolutely broke me

the coach once believed in me

had completely lost hope in me and i was

heartbroken

i was crying so much i could barely

breathe and i remember thinking my

entire world was falling apart

sports had always been such a huge part

of my life and once they were taken away

from me i felt like a huge purpose of my

life had been ripped away as well

at this point i had control over nothing

in my life other than school

and food and this is when things got bad

for the upcoming months things got worse

day after day

i was completely depressed and it was

becoming so much harder to get out of

bed in the morning

starving myself had become a

subconscious coping mechanism which i

used instead of having to feel

all the pain i was truly in by this

point my parents started becoming more

controlling

but that’s the thing about eating

disorders they’re all about being in

control

i like to think of my eating disorder as

a toxic friend

a friend who always finds me when i’m

alone comforts me and cares for me when

truly she just wants me dead

my eating disorder constantly fed me

lies and without realizing it i became

completely obsessive

the dinner table became a battlefield a

constant battle between not eating and

causing yet another argument

my pens shouting crying and my brother

running upstairs to hide from the

screams

i hated what i was doing to my family

but i couldn’t stop

the voices were telling me that i didn’t

deserve to stop

i know this must sound so silly and you

guys must be wondering why didn’t she

just eat

the answer is that i couldn’t eat

imagine having a million voices telling

you not to eat and screaming at you

if you do i was trapped and i didn’t

know what to do

i didn’t want to live like this but i

couldn’t eat

i couldn’t eat because that would mean

losing control and after having lost

control over

everything that mattered to me

controlling my food was the only thing

keeping me safe

by this point my life had absolutely no

meaning i no longer felt like a person

i had become a problem i was making my

family suffer

my friends no longer wanted to be around

me and the only thing keeping me company

was that voice inside my head

i had managed to isolate myself from

absolutely everybody i loved and slowly

day by day i was killing myself in

december i was finally diagnosed with

anorexia nervosa

i started seeing a team of doctors who

made it clear that i was not okay

i made them believe that i was willing

to get help but the truth is

i was convinced i wasn’t sick enough my

eating disorder was telling me i didn’t

deserve to get help and i hadn’t

finished making myself suffer

so i attended my appointments and

decided to play along with the treatment

program

i knew i needed to do things right

because i wanted my parents to be proud

of me

so i told the doctors exactly what they

wanted to hear

just like that i made everybody believe

i was actually getting better

however my weight was still dropping i

was so scared i couldn’t eat but i

needed to make them believe i was

getting weight

and so this is when i discovered that

one kilogram is equivalent to one liter

of water

i started drinking huge amounts of water

before every weighing just to make them

believe i was getting weight

and it worked just like that the number

on the scale went up

i had entered this vicious cycle in

which every time i had to get weight i

needed to drink more water for the

weight i had lost

i would drink up to five liters of water

and would end up in pain and unable to

move

but after all the normal scale went up

and everybody was proud of me

but at this point i wasn’t only fooling

my doctors i was fooling myself i was

miserable and nobody knew what to do

with me

i was constantly freezing my hair was

falling out in tongues

and my heart pains became so unbearable

i would stick my nails into my chest

just to distract me from the pain

but still i was convinced that my

doctors were trying to harm me

every time a step was taking forward to

help me i would do

everything in my power to break it down

i would throw my food away flush my

lunch down the toilet

go on secret runs and even go to the gym

after school

in march doctors told me that i had

gotten too weak and i needed to take

some time off from school

i refused i screamed at her and begged

her to change her mind

i told her that absolutely everything in

my life had been taken away from me

already

and the only thing i had left was school

but no matter how much i cried they

didn’t change their mind

so i spent the next two weeks in bed

eating five meals a day which my

parents supervised two weeks later i

seemed to be doing a bit better

i had gained some weight and my vitals

had improved my parents were proud of me

and i recall feeling like i was in

control again

however i remember coming back to school

for two weeks and realizing

nobody had noticed i’ve been gone nobody

came to grade me and my friends walked

past me as if i’d never left

i felt absolutely worthless realizing i

didn’t matter when my suicidal thoughts

come back and in just one month

i absolutely fell apart so in may i was

hospitalized

my heart rate was dangerously low and

there was barely anything left of me

i felt like a complete failure why

couldn’t i just be normal

why was i doing this to myself i didn’t

want to accept the reality

the reality that i was not okay that i

did not have it under control

i just wanted my life to end so i spent

the next few months on bed rest

supervised by a team of doctors and

nurses who might completely fooled

i mean i was a terrible patient i

screamed cried hid my food

exercised in the shower and even

disconnected my feeding tube

i mean at this point i was so depressed

i didn’t see my life getting any better

however the only thing keeping me going

was my family

they were the only ones who never once

gave up on me

and fought for my life when i could no

longer fight for myself

i had put them through so much and

that’s when i realized that the least i

could do was recover for them

i remember falling asleep and praying to

god that i would wake up the next

morning

because i just couldn’t stand the

thought of them having to deal with my

death anymore

in june i was taken straight from the

hospital to the airport and my family

and i traveled to cape town south africa

upon my arrival i was admitted straight

into an inpatient facility

specializing in depression anxiety

self-harm and eating disorders

i met so many other amazing teens who

actually understood what i was going

through

and nobody ever judged me for who i was

we attended daily therapy sessions and

workshops with specialized therapists

and i was given a new treatment team who

provided me with so much support

i remember in panama i was blamed for

having an eating disorder

as if it was something i would i had

chosen and was selfishly doing to myself

but my new doctors helped me realize

that this was not a choice

it was not my fault and that i was sick

after three weeks i was discharged and

went back home

the first two weeks were heavenly i

finally had energy again and i remember

feeling happiness for the first time in

years

however i had been trapped in a hospital

for so long that being back in the real

world was actually really scary

so unfortunately i allowed the voice to

come back into my head

and once again things quickly went

downhill

in only a few days i relapsed and i was

immediately readmitted into a kiso

the doctors then realized that the rules

of my anorexia went down much further

than they originally thought

this time things were so much harder i

had been a prisoner of my own mind for

so long that battling my thoughts every

day was a

constant battle however i had been given

the opportunity to experience

freedom and happiness and this time i

was sure of it i wanted to live

i completed four more weeks of inpatient

treatment which were by far some of the

most difficult weeks of my life

because i was forced to face all of the

emotions that i had been

bottling up for years i was so too weak

to take part in most of the activities

offered by the clinic

so once again i was put on bed rest but

i realized that i did not want to live

like this i did not want to be told that

i was too weak to walk around or play

soccer with my friends or even help

carry the groceries

i literally wasn’t allowed to do

anything apart from eating and resting

but feeling this useless actually made

me want to fight harder for my life

i didn’t know who i was anymore i had

completely lost touch with myself

but i wanted to give myself myself a

chance to live

and discover who emma truly was it has

now been over a year since i have come

back home and started my recovery

my road to recovery has not been a

steady one and i have been faced with so

many challenges along the way

however after a lifetime of battling my

own mind i no longer feel alone

mental illnesses are such a taboo topic

which are so looked down upon by society

i mean i have to admit myself i was

never educated upon the subject

for years i was miserable and i was

stuck in such a dark place

and i wish somebody would have told me

that i would be okay that i was not

crazy and i was not alone

up until recently i had never told

anyone that i struggled with mental

health issues

i remember my best friend telling me

that she knew i wasn’t anorexic because

she knew i would never do that to myself

but eating disorders are not a choice

mental illnesses are serious

life-threatening diseases which take 8

million lives every year

mental illnesses have no face and it is

often the people that you least expected

who are truly suffering

i wish i hadn’t let it get this bad i

wish i’d gotten help earlier and i

hadn’t wasted my teenage years putting

on a fake smile and hating myself

but that’s the problem of today’s

society you weren’t taken seriously

until you

physically look sick i was sick for

years and people only started showing

concern once there was barely anything

left of me

i was only admitted to the hospital once

i had lost over 20 kilos and my heart

was on the verge of failing

unfortunately people still

view physical health and mental health

in the same way and it can be so hard to

ask for help due to this stigma

myself i had always been too ashamed and

embarrassed of what people would think

of me

opening up is so scary but i have

realized there’s no point in trying to

hide my reality

the truth is yes i do suffer with

anxiety depression and anorexia

but after going through hell i have

chosen to live

chosen to get better and i am putting

absolutely all of my energy

into my recovery and i should not be

ashamed of that

i want to reach out to anyone who might

be struggling and say please keep

fighting and please accept help

you are so much stronger than you think

and i promise you

things will get better i have been given

a second chance at life and i am

so excited to discover everything my

future holds

thank you

you