As second semester started, I once again felt intense pressure to excel. I proved to myself in first semester that if I tried, I could do really well. In first semester I had physics, chemistry, psychology, economics, and biology, and I got an A or A+ in all of them. This combined with my stress over my higher weight made second semester difficult. One silver lining was getting hired as a campus tour guide despite only being in first year. I was inspired by the tour guide who showed me McMaster, and wanted to share my story and help high school students who were nervous about university. I greatly enjoyed doing this.
In second semester I was still seeing my therapist once per week, and the dietitian, nurse practitioner, and psychiatrist occasionally. I volunteered, gave tours, and took math, chemistry, biology, psychology and economics. I was more perfectionistic and had a lot of breakdowns. I wanted to use the academic accommodations I had, but felt bad about using them. I was terrified of not doing well in math, and struggling with a bad professor. Fortunately, I was able to find a good tutor.
In terms of recovery, I was making some progress but not as much as in first semester. I’d started eating more and was almost weight restored, but psychologically I was far from recovered. I didn’t exercise as much because I felt consumed by school, like I didn’t have time for it. I rarely ate with others and was still particular about what I could and couldn’t eat. Treats and junk food still scared me. I was still horribly self critical as well. However, I felt as though since I looked better I should “be better”. I felt like everyone expected me to just get on with my life as I was “done with the eating disorder”. I had a smaller meal plan, so I made my own breakfast and lunch, but usually got dinner from the cafeteria. Though I felt way better and made a lot of progress, I wasn’t “cured” at all.
The semester was even more stressful because I needed to start looking at off-campus housing options. Initially, I looked with two of my roommates and their friend, but that didn’t work out. They told me that we were looking for different things, so I couldn’t live with them anymore. This deeply hurt me and strained our relationship. I stressed about figuring out where to live, but was luckily messaged by one of my friends from high school who was in second year at McMaster. His parents were buying a student house just off campus, and he had an extra room that I could live in. I used to be good friends with him, and knew a few of the others who were going to be living in the house, so I agreed to move in.
As first semester came to a close, I had to move all of my things out of residence. I was sad to move out and move back home, but grateful for the experiences I had there. In first year I fell in love with the subject psychology, and decided to major in biology and psychology. Fortunately, I was accepted into this program. I knew that it required two organic chemistry courses, and knew that organic chemistry was a very tough subject. I was also scared of not being in school in the summer. I believed that if I wasn’t in school, I’d be more prone to falling into the traps of my eating disorder. So, I signed up to do organic chemistry in summer school.
My treatment at the eating disorders clinic was supposed to continue, but I found out that the psychologist I had been working with was moving back to Toronto. This saddened me, but I was grateful I had the opportunity to work with her. I was eligible to take part in group treatment focused on body image, and I jumped at the opportunity. I was scared to do group treatment, but desperately wanted to improve my body image. I also had a strong desire to work at Starbucks again. Starbucks typically doesn’t hire people to work only in the summer, but I reached out to Starbucks stores in my area to see if they could use me. I was fortunate that I got hired at a different Starbucks in Burlington part time as a barista.
The summer was challenging, but I liked being busy. I juggled summer school and working, but barely had any time to spend with friends or family. Organic chemistry was extremely hard and fast paced, and I was terrified of not doing well. I enjoyed working, but continued to struggle with my body image. The group I was in was helpful, but I was avoiding a lot of the more difficult aspects for me. I avoided wearing a bathing suit or wearing shorts, as I still felt uncomfortable in my body. I spent most of my time stressing about organic chemistry, and felt very down when I didn’t do as well as I’d hoped to on the midterms. I was consumed with anxiety and depression. By some miracle, I ended up getting an A in the first course and an A+ in the second course. In the second course my exam ended up being worth 70% of my grade! It’s also important to note that organic chemistry is notoriously hard at McMaster. Many students opt to take it at different universities where it is supposedly easier.
I had a few weeks off in August before moving into my student house and starting second year. I’d applied to be a Welcome Week representative, but unfortunately didn’t make it. This made me very upset, but I knew it was extremely competitive.
A Poem that was published on NEDIC’s website in 2016 that I wrote:
Poetic Madness: She’s Still Fighting
She looks into her father’s eyes
Words emerge between inconsolable cries
“I do not want to live”.
This pain and this misery is no joke.
Yet to most, misunderstanding is what it seems to invoke.
So let me start at the beginning, of a most certain spiral downwards.
A girl who looked in the mirror and saw fat everywhere.
And this fat, it was her fault. She took the blame.
And so restriction and self-loathing is what she became.
It started out harmless, no hot chocolate, no juice.
Yet it continued on, and on until barely anything was left.
So once she had some spare time, weight loss became her lifeline.
Numb the pains of imperfection? Check.
Numb the fears of university? Check.
Numb the perpetual anxiety and thoughts of self-hatred? Check.
And you thought this was all about vanity.
The summer proved to be dangerous,
as she met a boy that liked her
A shock, something that hadn’t happened before
“Well then”, her mind wondered,
He must like me because I’m now fit and thin
So the illness became stronger.
“You look good” they commented
On her thinner, toned body,
A few weeks left of summer
Until school was at war with her new hobby.
Terrified she moved away,
Studied food and nutrition,
Where the words of eating healthy were implanted in her mind and twisted.
She couldn’t stand the feeling
Of her stomach feeling full
So she ate less and less, and rules overcame her head,
No carbs, no sweets, no sugary drinks
As she compared the calories in bread.
Portion, portion, portion,
Don’t gain the fat you hated
And this was her fear
That she would hate herself again
Because she was never good enough.
Exercising, restricting and studying became her mantra.
But all the while she was disintegrating.
Crippled with anxiety she barely slept.
She no longer felt hunger, and avoided feeling full at all costs.
Study, study, as she tried to perfect her notes, her coursework.
Anything less than perfect was a fail.
Meanwhile, as she walked down the halls
She began to notice creaking in her bones. The creaks of frailness. Yet to her these were a testament of her fortitude.
Going to bed one night she thought her heart might stop, the beat was so weak.
But slowly, depression crept in
When the hunger highs no longer allowed her to thrive
She spiralled into darkness.
Couldn’t concentrate in class
Couldn’t last.
On her own she went to see a dietitian.
Who promoted the restriction
Psychologists were booked up
So she went off campus anyways
Because she couldn’t escape her sadness
She wanted to turn to alcohol to drown the pain away
But resisted.
Before she knew it, all she wanted was to leave
To get out of that jail
To go somewhere else
She lost interest in everything
Depression robbed her of her will to continue.
Her dad whisked her home, moved her back
She thought everything would be better
But oh, mental illness came along, it was packed.
She went to a university to party for Halloween
and her friends saw the massacre of their once jovial companion
As she looked and lived like a skeleton
Avoiding food at all cost, and drinking to numb the pain
She looked in the mirror and thought she was going to die.
Her friend drove her home
And began to weep
Because she had been through it as well
And couldn’t bare to see it happen to someone she loved so much.
She begged her to eat
She returned home, and madness ensued.
For the voice that criticized food attacked her at another angle.
“You’re a failure
You dropped out of school
Would your old self have ever done that? Not a chance.
You used to be smart, athletic and involved.
And now you’re nothing.
That scholarship and everything you worked so hard for,
Gone.
Because you’re a stupid loser. You jeopardized the one thing that defined you: School.
Without school, you are nothing. Without the smart label, you’re nothing”.
The girl couldn’t take these voices. The food, the failure. She wanted it to stop. She begged for it to stop. A trip to the doctors and a prescription, promised to interrupt them. In about 6 weeks.
But she couldn’t wait six weeks, she was in such despair. The voices tormented her day and night she couldn’t concentrate on anything. All she wanted to do was sleep for this was the only reprieve she received.
Her father took a week off work to watch her
But by Wednesday, she couldn’t imagine going farther.
“Dad, I just don’t want to continue”
Imagine
Hearing those words from your child’s lips
A child you held as a baby, and did your best to raise
Tell you she wants it to all end.
They drove to the hospital.
Where she waited for assessment.
Doctors came to talk to her.
But she wasn’t deemed fit for inpatient care.
All because she didn’t have a specific suicide plan.
Her cries for help were unanswered.
And so began two months of living like a zombie, accompanying her Dad to work and helping him out.
Therapy did nothing.
Drugs had serious side effects.
She slept a lot more
Was pulled out of the house by her friends
Her mood so unstable.
She left a note for her mom
“When I go to sleep, I don’t want to wake up”
For sleep was a break from all the madness.
By January she knew she had to get better, books taught her so.
She did some self-help, and improved a little.
With online courses she rebuilt academic confidence,
she was still unsure if she could survive university.
Where to go, what to do?
She was still very sick at her new job.
As a volunteer as well.
She hated her thin body but couldn’t find a way out.
Only did improvements begin
in the end of August 2015.
Still at her lowest weight,
but determined to get help at the eating disorders clinic.
She had to redirect her fate.
She took a leap of faith and began university,
still struggling.
Still restrictive.
But she had to fight back and realize school was more important than the number on the scale. Fight the voices telling her to stop gaining weight.
She would have enormous hunger signals in class, when she’d get so hungry she could barely concentrate. She made sure to nourish herself before her labs.
She fought every voice that told her she wasn’t good enough, she wasn’t smart enough, she wasn’t thin enough.
And she still fights. For you can’t see the war going on in her head.
Oh, but rest assured, it’s there.
Has it improved?
Significantly.
But it’s still there.
And she’s still fighting.
And always will.
Because in the end
She wants to live.
A Mind Warrior 