A True Story About Answered Prayers

It was about a year ago that my prayers were answered in a most unexpected way.

I was out for a run with a new friend--someone I didn't know very well but whom I hoped to get to know better--when totally out of the blue, she said, "Did I ever tell you that I went to counseling for an eating disorder a few years ago?"

"No!" I said, surprised and concerned. "Are you okay now?"

"Oh yes," she said, "but that was such a difficult time in my life.  When I look back now, it's hard to believe that person was even me."

As we jogged along on the Highline Canal trail, she talked for probably ten minutes about the nightmare of living with binge-eating disorder.  She talked about waking up in the morning or the middle of the night thinking about food, feeling swallowed up by perfectionism and the fear that she would never be enough, grazing on junkfood all day and yet still feeling empty, eating in secret because she was ashamed, knowing she had a problem but not sure how to fix it.

I listened to her, but I didn't say much.  My friend has since told me that she thought I was so silent because I was confused by what she was telling me, because I just didn't get it.  What she didn't know then was that I was quiet because my heart was pounding and a lump had gathered in my throat.

There's no way my friend could've known that she was describing me and my life.  There's no way she could've known that I had been yearning, for several years, to be delivered from a struggle with food and body image that felt all-consuming.

When she was done talking, she said, "I know this sounds crazy.  Most people just don't get it.  But through counseling and prayer and a lot of hard work, my life is so different now.  I don't struggle with food issues at all."

I was silent for a moment, and then I took a deep breath and said, "It doesn't sound crazy.  And I do get it.  In fact, everything that you just described...it's what I am living with right now."

It was one of the first times I allowed myself to talk aloud about my problem.  I had talked to Ryan, my sisters, and a few of my closest friends about my struggles--but I felt so ashamed, and I think I tried to tone down just how truly desperate I felt, even when I was talking to them.  "I should be able to fix this," I always told myself.  "I should have the willpower.  I should have the faith."  But no matter how many resolutions I made and how many lofty goals I set, I didn't change.

I felt trapped.  I felt discouraged.  To be honest, and it hurts to even write this, I felt worthless.  And so so alone.

I finally realized that my own willpower was not going to be enough to deliver me.  And that's when I turned to God in earnest.  Every moment of every day, I asked Him, "What should I do, Father?  What should I do?"  These words were sometimes audible, but most often, they were deep within my heart.

He was always, always listening--but for months, He let me grapple with my question.  I had to come to a place of total humility and reliance on Him.  And then He gave me my answer.  On a run with a friend whom I barely knew.

As we continued jogging along the dirt path, she told me about her experience in counseling.  She told me there was hope.  She told me about a book that she had used in her therapy called Intuitive Eating, and by the time I got home from running errands later that day, she had ordered me a copy from Amazon.

This was just the beginning of my journey.  I read the book, and I loved the principles that it taught, but I wasn't quite sure how to implement them.  I thought about them on and off for months, sharing insights with Ryan as they came to me, occasionally discussing my progress with that same friend who had been an answer to my prayers.  But the change was slow.  A seed had been planted, but I wasn't totally ready to change.

And then in September, with support from my sisters, Ryan, and my dad, I started counseling.  I Googled "intuitive eating counselors, Denver" and found a counseling center that focused on eating disorders.  I spoke on the phone with a therapist who had overcome her own food and body-image battles several decades before, and I felt good about it, so I moved forward.  I did one-on-one counseling with her for six months, first once a week and then twice a month.  I also attended a weekly group lead by another counselor about dealing with stress in healthy ways.  And now, I am doing a four-week "narrative therapy" group with yet another counselor at the office.  She is encouraging me to write my story, and it has been so helpful and eye-opening.

I am amazed by the impact all three of these counselors have had on my life.  They've each contributed in their own way to my journey and my recovery.  I sometimes think about the countless hours that they have sacrificed for their education, and the countless hours they spend listening to other people's problems (sounds so draining to me!), and I feel so grateful to them.  They will never know how they've blessed my life.

As for me...I am so much happier than I was a year ago.  Incomparably happier.  I now relate to what my friend said on the running path--looking back, it's hard to believe that lost, hopeless person was even me.  Though I am not yet totally "free" of my eating disorder (and yes, I've realized over the course of my therapy that this truly was an eating disorder, not just "struggles with food" as I used to describe it), I am well on my way to living a healthy, balanced life.

I feel hope, and I feel happy, and I feel very, very grateful.

I've grown so much and learned so much from this struggle.  More than anything, I've learned that the wise words of Spencer W. Kimball, one of the leaders of my church, are true: "God does nothing by chance, but always by design as a loving father...God does notice us, and He watches over us, but it is usually through another person that He meets our needs."

God worked through my friend when He inspired her to open up to me during our jog just over a year ago.  Looking back, I find it remarkable that she randomly shared something so personal with someone whom she didn't know very well.  She has since become one of my closest friends, and I've asked her if she had any suspicion of what I was going through when she brought up the conversation.  Maybe I had said something in passing that alerted her to my struggle?  But she claims that she had no idea what I was going through when she started talking that day on the running path.  I know God prompted her to share, and I know that He knew I needed her friendship in my life.

God worked through my family as I slowly opened up to them over the course of several years.  He encouraged Ryan, who witnessed more of my eating disorder behaviors than anyone, to just keep loving me, being patient with me, and telling me of my beauty and value.  He inspired my sisters to be a listening ear for me whenever I was actually willing to share.  And He inspired my dad to talk to me about the option of going to counseling when I did not want to talk to anyone about it and constantly pushed him away.  I am overwhelmed with gratitude for my family, especially because I know that most people in the world do not have so much loving support.  I try not to feel guilty about that and instead commit to loving and supporting anyone who may need it throughout my life.  I want to bless others as I have been blessed.  

God worked through my counselors to guide me and give me tools on my journey to recovery.  I think sometimes there's a belief amongst religious people that if we just have enough faith, we should be able to power through anything difficult in our lives.  If we just read scripture more and pray more, we shouldn't need the help of counselors or other professionals.  But just as God inspires doctors to help heal our physical bodies, I believe He can inspire counselors to help heal our minds and hearts.  I have felt Him in every step of this journey, both as I've knelt in prayer and as I've sat in a session with my counselor.  God's power isn't limited to certain activities or places--I believe He can and does work through every method as He mercifully reaches out to bless His children.

And now, I hope and pray that God can work through me.  He has always loved me, even when I didn't love myself.  To Him, I am precious.  Every one of us is precious.  If sharing my story can help anyone else who has struggled as I have, I will do it.  I want to be a resource to anyone who struggles with any sort of pain in this life.  I want everyone to know just how valuable and loved they are.

I thank God for hearing my prayers.  I thank Him for loving me and being mindful of me.  And, most of all, I thank Him for sending His Son to redeem me and to set me free.  No amount of willpower, no well-planned goals--even spiritual goals such as scripture study and prayer--will be enough to deliver me from my own humanity.  I need Him.  And, miraculously and mercifully, He is always willing to reach out and answer me, through various methods and various people, and often in the most unexpected ways.
 

What I've Gained Since High School

I started this blog post over a year ago, but I never got the courage to publish it.  I just couldn't bring myself to post something so honest and revealing.  Though I haven't lost a pound in the year since this post was originally written, I have found a lot of peace with myself, through praying, reading, writing, and going to counseling--and even though it is still scary for me to publish this, I hope that by sharing some of my journey, I can help other women who struggle with this issue as I do.  

What I’ve Gained Since High School

Last night, I went to the baby shower of an old friend.  While I was getting ready, a nagging worry kept popping into my head: “What will everyone think when they see how much weight I’ve gained since high school?”  The familiar ache, dread, and embarrassment stung in my chest, as I picked out the longest sweater in my closest, an effort to hide what cannot be hidden.

See, I’ve gained a lot of weight since high school.  Sixty pounds to be exact.  Sixty pounds that weigh on my heart and my mind like a ton.  I am always aware of it, always worrying about it.  Now that I live in my hometown again, I worry about whom I will run into who knew me in my former life—my “skinny life”—and what they will think when they see me.

“Man, she’s really let herself go!”  

“Wow, she has gained a lot of weight.”

“I never thought that Rachel would let herself get fat.”

Just thinking about it makes me want to cry.

Though I am a very open person, this is not something that I often talk about.  I have never blogged about it, and I honestly can’t believe I am blogging about it now.  It’s one thing to blog about my struggle with infertility, which is not my fault and everyone knows that.  It’s another thing to blog about my struggle with weight gain.  It feels like such a personal failure, and somehow I think, “Maybe if I don’t say anything, no one will notice.”

But how could they not notice?  Of course they notice.  

As human beings, we are always sizing each other up, comparing.  Who has gained and who has lost.  But I’ve been thinking today that while it’s easy to see when people have gained weight, it’s not so easy to see what else they have gained along the way. The most important gains and losses in life are not visible.  

And the more I thought about that, the more determined I became that I am done being ashamed of what I’ve gained in the last ten years.  Because I’ve gained a lot more than just sixty pounds.

     I gained a deep love and respect for persons with disabilities as I worked three summers at an Easter Seals camp in the mountains of Colorado.

     I gained a closer relationship with my Heavenly Father as I took care of my mother who was dying from breast cancer and then had to tell her goodbye.

     I gained a college degree in a field that I love.  During my five years as a teacher, I taught 600 teenagers how to read more critically and write more analytically.  I gained invaluable knowledge and skills that I will use for the rest of my life.

     I gained a husband whom I love more than anyone on the planet.  He makes me happy, and I make him happy, and he loves me unconditionally, +60 pounds and all.

     I gained immense gratitude for my family, my health, my opportunities, my warm shower, and my washing machine as I lived in an orphanage for persons with disabilities in El Salvador.  I gained relationships with the beautiful children there that have continued to bless my life as I’ve visited them almost every year since.

     I gained incredibly meaningful, life-long friendships--first in my college years at BYU and then in our dental school years in Buffalo, New York. 

 

     I gained strength, faith, and empathy as I endured years of fertility treatments and adoption disappointments.  And then--miraculously and mercifully--I gained a son.  A precious perfect little boy whom I waited for and hoped for and fought for.  

The most important gains and losses in life cannot be measured by your pants size or gauged by the quick glance of an outsider. And it is that knowledge that helps me realize that I don’t need to be embarrassed anymore. 

Because a number on the scale will never be able to quantify everything that I have gained since high school.

So, I went to see a counselor...

A few weeks ago, I mentioned on this blog that I went to see a counselor and that I would eventually write more about my experience.  It felt a little embarrassing to admit that, but I don't know why.  There is no shame in admitting that I don't know everything, and I'm not perfect, and someone outside of my friends and family had information that has helped me. 

I wrote a little bit about my experience with counseling for an article for The Power of Moms, which was published yesterday.  For the article, I simplified the explanation of why I went to counseling.  I said that I wanted to learn more about healthy ways to deal with stress, and that is true, but what I didn't get into on their website was the fact that the counselor that I went to see specializes in eating disorders.

For the past ten years, I have dealt with stress through food--both undereating and overeating.  The year that my mom was dying, I barely ate at all and ran between 5-8 miles a day.  I remember actually having the conscious thought that I couldn't keep my mom from dying, but I could control the amount of food that I put into my mouth and the number of miles I ran every day.  This pattern of using food as a means of coping with stress and negative emotions has continued in the ten years since, but during my years of infertility and adoption stress, it went to the other extreme.  I remember coming home from fertility appointments and thinking, "Well, if I can't have a baby, I am going to have a brownie (or the entire pan) instead."  The year when we had the ectopic pregnancy and all of the failed adoptions was by far the most stressful year of my life, and I ate to comfort myself.  And then adjusting to being a stay-at-home mom with a baby who rarely stopped crying in a city where I didn't have any friends yet made things even worse.

I don't have any of the "major" eating disorders like anorexia or bulimia, but I just feel like I've had a dysfunctional relationship with food for the past ten years, and I have tried to overcome it on my own, but it has never worked.  So that's why, with lots of prayer and the support of my sisters, my dad, Ryan, and several trusted friends whom I truly believe God brought into my life, I decided to go talk to a counselor about it.

It has been a really good experience.  It's definitely awkward (I kind of hate talking about myself so much--it feels selfish and one-sided), but I have learned a lot, and, most importantly, it has helped.  I don't feel controlled by food or my emotions anymore, and I just feel so much happier in general. I've let go of a lot of my perfectionism, which has definitely fed this problem. In addition to one-on-one counseling, I also attended a ten-week therapy group where we discussed Dialectical Behavorial Therapy (DBT), which is basically just healthy ways of dealing with stress.  (It's like Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, if you've heard of that.)  My article on The Power of Moms shares one of the strategies that I learned in the DBT group that is simple and has helped me a lot.  So check it out if you're interested.

In the coming weeks, I will write more on this blog about some of the specific things I've learned and insights I gained, but for now I thought I would just put this out there.  I don't think I am the only woman on the planet who struggles with this problem, and if it helps even one person to know that she is not alone in this struggle, then I am willing to open up about it. There have been a lot of times in the past ten years when I have felt very alone in this struggle--ashamed, weak, hopeless--but I don't feel that way anymore, and I don't want others to feel that way either.  None of us is perfect.  We all struggle with things.  I want people to know that they can talk about the things that are difficult for them and the things that matter to them.  That's what life is all about.