"Was Running 100 Miles The Hardest Thing You've Ever Done?"
"Wow! Was running 100 miles the hardest thing you’ve ever done?”
This question is probably up there with asking how my recovery is going. It’s such an innocent question with so many ways to answer. If I say yes, that ends the conversation. Yes is also a lie.
Running 100 miles was not the hardest thing I’ve ever done. Recovering from an eating disorder that medically almost killed me was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.
All individuals who were in my life at that time, I have omitted any mention of the influence of others. Though I am not living in a vacuum, this is my life and my choices are my responsibility. We are past it, we’ve been forgiven. We have moved on. This will not be an attack on anyone, including myself.
This is my story.
I grew up in a family that cared about me. They still do and I care about them. I also always felt like there was something wrong with me. Growing up I knew I was weird. I was also a chubby kid. I was the one with a skinny, blonde best friend who I loved but also felt compared to. I didn’t do anything drastic to change my weight as a kid but knew I would somehow be better if I was thinner. Somehow that would make me a better daughter, sister, friend, athlete and, get this, a better Christian. Eating “too much” also made me a sinner. Again, I don’t think this was ever explicitly said to my face, but it was how I felt.
I took to basketball growing up, spending countless hours outside shooting hoops. I liked being alone and in my own head. At least when I was alone I wasn’t letting anyone down. I could be Lisa Leslie or Kobe Bryant or I could mess up and no one knew. Walking into a house full of people was also opening myself up to criticism and though “all siblings fight” and all parents nag…I am sensitive and I took it to heart. As a child I stowed away all the things I was told about my weight, about my laziness, about my habits and disregard for wanting to do things my mom did. I simply wasn’t super domestic. I didn’t want to sit still and sew or clean the bathroom on the weekends. My little sister did actually and to this day, she is much more domestic than I and even has her own side business. My mother is also very successful in her fashion boutique. I on the other hand live in athleisure, dabble in cooking because I eat like a Clydesdale and remember to sweep when I notice that the trails I run on have made their way to my house.
It’s not bad, it’s different. When I was younger I really didn’t want to be different. I wanted to somehow be the image of perfection that is never really fully described but looms in the back of the mind of every young girl. It’s a combination of society, gender roles and genetic predisposition. After a childhood of stowing away many different ways I could be better and improve myself, I decided to do something about it.
When I was 16 I decided to take on a project for my anatomy and physiology class. I would incorporate a weight lifting routine to try to increase my vertical jump for volleyball. Though I enjoyed shooting hoops more growing up, my best chance to play in college was as a volleyball player. This was also my excuse to finally “fix” my appearance and get rid of the weight I felt was holding me back both athletically and aesthetically. There were many things that went into this; too many to list here. Like I mentioned, I had been stowing away reasons to change my body since I was 8 years old. Every comment, opinion, advice, whether good natured or not, burrowed deep into my psyche. In those years I felt like I should introduce myself “Hi I’m Ellie, I’m ok but would be better if…” Until the anatomy project, I never found a good excuse to get extreme about it. This project (I’ll do a lot for grades) and some motivation tied into having my first boyfriend broke the camel’s back. I would improve myself or die trying.
So I did it. Well, I lost a bunch of weight and honestly cannot remember if I jumped higher. I doubt it because I spent that time starving and weak. I stopped menstruating pretty quick. My hair began to thin and I checked out emotionally. My only thoughts were about how to cut more out of my next meal without making it too obvious. When I finished the project I had no reason to anymore so it became harder to hide what I was doing. Somehow my parents caught on and during the summer I regained enough weight to play my senior year of sports and get recruited to play D2 volleyball. Though I gained enough weight back, I also became a master liar and manipulator. My parents took it upon themselves to control every aspect of my life. It was hell. They didn’t know what else to do at the time and I was a minor. My siblings became spies always watching me. For someone who enjoys having alone time to just be weird and be myself, this was terrible. I made it through my first year of college but decided not to play another year of volleyball and transferred to another school which was my dad’s “dream school” for it’s academics. I also had started losing weight again at the end of my freshman year so it was another summer of hell sneaking around, avoiding food, being hungry, and having my parents tell me they were controlling me because they loved me. There were other family dynamics at play during this which we have worked on through the past 10 years and thankfully we are at a good place.
I started college that fall and quickly went downhill. Away from the controlling home environment I was free to do whatever I wanted to myself. So I did and found myself in a car to the eating disorder unit in a mental hospital. I was there for a few weeks relearning how to eat and do some sort of therapy. I don't remember it being effective at all because all the problems in the home began again once I got home. I was alright for a year or so but the cycle repeated and I found myself back in that same unit a year later. You read that right. I went to a mental health ward twice.
Still feel like I’m a superhero? Glad I can finally dissolve those myths.
The second time sort of worked, but not in the way one would think. The second time enlightened me to my situation at home. I realized if I wanted to heal from this mental illness, I could not go back to living where I was. I knew I would die. It was a pretty close call at that point when I returned to the hospital the second time. I made a pact with myself that once I got out of the eating disorder unit I would make enough money to move out as soon as I could. Nothing else mattered at that point. Not finishing college or my future family or job. I knew that in order to be alive to have any chance of a future I needed to take matters into my own hands.
I was right. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.
Upon returning to my parent’s house after that second hospital stint, I had a plan but that didn’t really mean anything was easy. I still had to live in the same place while I was making enough money to move out. I also had to keep this plan from people because at that point the consensus was I needed to be controlled. If I let onto my plans they would have been trashed or made impossible. Because I couldn’t share this with anyone, I didn’t have help to figure it out. So I did it myself, through trial and error, which is how I live my life to this day. Though I do not wish to go through this again or for any young woman to experience this, it made me a problem solver. I will exercise all options before giving up because the effort matters and eventually I will solve the puzzle if I keep trying.
Eventually I made enough money, dropped the bomb that I was moving out and did it. I remember walking up the street in Ithaca, where I still live, jobless with student loans and only enough money for a few months of rent. I saw a guy smoking outside a 24H diner and asked if they were hiring. He said they were, for the night shift. I took it. Being poor had a way of changing my relationship to food. I couldn’t afford low calorie things. My free meal at the diner didn’t have a calorie count and I couldn’t really say no to it at that point. For the first few weeks I was still pretty rigid in my ways and did a good job of hiding the fact that I didn’t eat much. The restaurant was so busy that even getting a break didn’t usually happen. But slowly, painfully, I realized that no one was going to save me. I had to take care of myself. No one was watching me eat. I didn’t have to “perform” for anyone anymore. I was allowed to eat just for me for the first time in 4 years. Though it was scary and hard and I had no idea where to start, it was also the first time I let myself enjoy some food. I was just so tired of trying to fit into this notion of an ideal woman. I had failed at each thing I was supposed to do to become her. I had dropped out of college. I had no friends or family I could trust. Dating was out of the question. I didn’t know how to cook or have the energy to be domestic. I didn’t even have an apartment that could accommodate more than one person; it could barely do that. So I gave up. I threw everything I knew about the ideal woman into the air and let it go. I simply wanted to be happy and like myself again. It sounds like one day the switch flipped, but that is so not what happened. When you’re poor, most of your time is spent trying to make money, which takes a lot of attention. When you are struggling with an eating disorder, the attention that is left is thinking about food. A normal conversation in my head would go something like this:
“Ok I need to go to work”
“I am hungry, what can I eat that isn’t too much?”
“Wait, no we are not doing that anymore, what is a normal amount of food?”
"Ok, how can I cut a little out of this?”
“No Ellie you aren’t doing that anymore!"
“Ok I will have this. Is it enough? Is it too much? Gosh this is exhausting…”
“Time to go to work. I’ll deal with this later.”
This is a very, very, very simplified version of what went through my mind anytime food entered the picture. This is why therapy and seeing a dietician is so important. It’s hard to figure out what is normal for each individual body because, this might be shocking to some, every body is DIFFERENT. I did not see a therapist regularly, maybe 3-4 times during this first few years. I also did not see a dietician after leaving the hospital. It might have helped, it might not have. I might have recovered quicker, I might not have. Either option requires hard work. In my journey it took actively going against the actions I’d prefer to take. It meant sitting with my meal awkwardly adding extra calories to it, questioning if it was enough or too much. It meant being uncomfortably full and feeling “bad” about eating so much. One of my favorite mantras is “mood follows action”. I had to get going, to take the first step, to eat the meal and get into a routine, whether I liked it or felt sick or gross about myself, I took the first step. Sometimes I would backslide and not eat enough for a few days. But I suppose I eventually took enough steps forward that they outweighed the steps backward. This was when I found running.
No, I was not good. I did not start to train. I just liked the feeling of getting out of my own head. I liked feeling the wind on my face. I liked how I felt all day or night afterwards. I liked the notion of using my body to do something. I felt so weak for so long and it took a lot of effort to continue to eat and heal my body. Running reminded me what that nutrition was doing for me. I could move and feel good. It’s hard to know now looking back, but I think finding running was the final nail in the coffin for my eating disorder. Let me be clear, it took a really long time to get to where I am today and running is not a panacea. It is a reminder. It reminds me to take care of myself. It reminds me that I love the person I am. It brought me my community of people and it continually helps me discover more about myself.
My recovery has been anything but easy. I still have moments where I can feel the pull of how easy it would be to slip into old behaviors. Especially with the profession I find myself in, no one would bat an eye if I started to train more and eat healthier subconsciously cutting necessary calories out. The thing is, these days I recognize when I am having a bad day or week. I know what I need to do to stay on the right path for myself and my body. It is that recognition that makes me feel secure in my recovery. Usually I need sleep. Sometimes I need an extra sandwich. Nowadays I need a few days offline or to talk to a loved one. When I feel overwhelmed, restricting food isn’t in the conversation. It is simply not an option and the thought will not be entertained.
These days, my low moments can occur around niggles or injuries. I tend to get down on myself not for being stupid about training but I blame my stupidity for restricting my nutrition during crucial growing years. I essentially struggled with this through the later half of my puberty and brain development. Even though I know it isn’t true, I tell myself irrational, terrible, character criticizing things when I get injured or feel a niggle.
“Well Ellie, this is what you get for being a dumbass at age 16.”
I was a child. Not a superhero.
Before I finished college (3.95 GPA thank you very much) my greatest fear was that I was so severely undernourished when my brain was developing that I wasn’t sure I could learn anything anymore. That soon my brain would just not be able to keep up. I continually prove that false as I learn new skills everyday simply by looking things up and applying them, both in running and in my jobs. Recovery is so weird because I would get down on myself for having a mental illness and the old solution I’d use would be to punish myself and restrict more…mental illness does not make sense and it does not care about you. It is seeking order in a crazy place. It seeks control when life seems uncontrollable and chaotic. Mostly, it just wants to fit in and do the right thing without knowing what that is or understanding that it changes based on society, mood, time of day and any other thing that causes people to be irrational.
Today, I am a woman and still not a superhero. But I am trying my best. I feel at peace with my family and relationships. I do not feel out of control around food but more flexible and never turn down anything free. Best of all, I like myself. I like being with myself and by doing that I can give more of myself to others. I don’t share this story for sympathy or to provide a solution for anyone else. Just know, you’re not weird. You’re actually pretty cool and you will find your people and your thing and it will be great.
Running 100 miles was not the hardest thing I’ve ever done. But if it is the hardest thing you’ll ever do, be grateful for the blessed life you have. It’s the only one you’ve got.