Eating Disorders

As promised, we’re going back to eating disorders/body issues!

I have said before that I’ve struggled with an eating disorder since I was about thirteen and that I have entered a mostly stable recovery this year. In an effort to keep up with my recovery, I helped out with an eating disorder study on my campus a few weeks ago. I had to pick out pictures that either helped or hindered my recovery process and talk about why I thought that was. I went back, deep into the depths of my mothers Facebook to find pictures of me and I had a surprisingly strong reaction to this one.

It’s a candid of me from a family vacation probably ten years ago in Boston. We had gone out to dinner and were walking back to our hotel when we found these light poles outside a Starbucks that made sounds when you touched them. Connor, Erin, and I ran through them, back and forth, to make different sounds and play tag.

My young, smiling self that ran and played on the sidewalk with her family was so full of hope about what kind of grown-up she would be. She wasn’t tired from standing and had probably had plenty of ice-cream for dessert that night. Looking into her smiling face, I knew I needed to be better for her. I wanted to be the woman I thought I would be when I was a girl so I’m doing this for her – for Morgan the Happy and Beautiful and Strong. I’m trying to find her in myself and I know she’s there because she’s smiling at me from this picture and I’m going to recover for her.