Body Image Activist, Eating Disorders mamaVISION

Those of you who have been around a while, know Shelly Guillory. Shelly was featured in the HBO documentary THIN, by Lauren Greenfield, and she has been a regular contributor to this blog. I am happy to post this update on Shelley and the status of her recovery.

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Two years ago I started on
my journey of “real” recovery, not that fake, pretend recovery,
where I thought I was fooling everyone ( in reality everyone knew I
was faking and everyone could see through my bullshit).

No, this time was the
real deal. 

So I was off, full of giddiness and excitement because
I was going to make my life right. A day later the giddiness and excitement
faded. I had no idea what to do with myself.  Food was still on
my mind and it seemed like battling my ED thoughts was much harder than
just giving in and doing what they told me to do.  It had been
one day and I was already tired.  I had THE worst anxiety of my
life and felt out of control. I felt like a failure for trying to recover.
I wasn’t sure I deserved recovery. I had to keep reminding myself
that I had made the choice to recover and I wasn’t going too
back down. 

When I gave up my drugs and
my ED, I was very unprepared for what crept into my life.  I was
diagnosed with OCD, panic disorder, and agoraphobia.  I have wanted
to give up nearly everyday the past two years.  My OCD is existential,
so there are days when I am completely terrified of everyone and everything.
Literally. 

Things don’t look real to me.

People I know and trust
seem weird.

I have days when I can’t leave the house and panic attacks
come one right after the other.

I have many days when I wonder if having
an ED was easier than facing all this shit.

But this is real.

This is
what I was running from with my ED and unless I face it head on, it
will always be lurking around to pop in at the most inconvenient time.
I need to deal with it now or I have no chance of living the meaningful
life I so desperately seek. There are days when I crumble to the floor
and cry.  Crying for everything I have lost and everything I want
to gain. Crying because this is way harder than I could possibly have
imagined.  Crying because the thoughts are still there and I cannot
run. Crying because sometimes it gets to be too much and no one understands.
Crying because I want to go back to my ED so bad and I cannot.

When
I am done crying, I stand up and keep going.      

There really isn’t an outline
for recovery. No clear, definitive way to beat an ED.  I am the
kind of person who wants a straightforward, clearly defined plan of
action. Problem is, there isn’t one. Damn, I had to figure this out
for myself. The most important thing I had to do is eat. Ok, I am doing
that, but was I prepared for the anxiety and the fight that my ED would
put up. Um, no. So I kept going no matter how hard it got.  I kept
eating and I found ways that work to battle back against my ED. 
So my plan of action was just to talk back to my ED. To get mad at it,
to laugh at it. I distracted myself.

I reached out and asked for help.

I recited positive affirmations constantly.

I listened to relaxation
tapes.

I took deep breathes. (I still do all these things)

I surrounded
myself with people who have “normal” eating habits. I watched them
eat (but not that crazy, obsessive let me watch people while I don’t
eat a thing). I was doing research. I watched them enjoy the food and
they didn’t feel guilty.  I wanted to be like that.  

I have had lapses where I dabbled
with restricting just to see what it was like because yes, I missed
it. Nothing major.  A day or two, a week.  Every time, I was
reminded that I don’t miss it.  I don’t want to go there ever
again.  I am trying to find out who I am and what I want from life
and every time I have a major relapse I lose more and more of myself
and I am farther away from living a meaningful life. I have fought everyday
minute of everyday for the past two years. I am still fighting and will
probably have to fight for a very long time.  

The good news…My fight has
been worth it.

I am more comfortable around food and two years later,
I am enjoying food and the guilt has started to subside.  I still
don’t fully know who I am, what I want, what to do with my life and
so on, but I feel like I am becoming an entirely different person. One
that I might actually like. Many things I thought I wanted when I was
sick might not be what I want now. People I avoided when I was sick
are now an important part of my life. I am learning to trust people
more, and relationships that I thought were beyond repair are now an
important part of who I am.  My mom told me the other day how happy
she was to have me back.

Now, I laugh more than I cry.   

I am venturing out more, trying
to learn new things. I started a dance class that I love. I am writing
more. I go for walks and instead of thinking of how many calories I
have burned, I am looking around and just taking it all in.  I
have read an embarrassingly high number of self help books.  I
play outside with my dog. I chat with my husband more.  

I am scared to be on this recovery
journey. I know where anorexia would lead me, but the journey of recovery
is different.  I don’t where I am going or how I am going to
get there. Perhaps I will never now and this question will remain unanswered,
but my life is whatever I want to make it.  It is terrifying for
me to not know, but every once in awhile, I find myself getting excited.
I can do what ever I want. I have a chance to start it all over. So
I try to embrace the unknown, to sit with it and not run. To be ok with
it.

  I have found more meaning in life in two years of recovery than
I did from 11 years of being sick.

It will always be an uphill
battle. I think it gets easier.  I am so much more ok than I was
2 years ago. So in four years I have to be more ok than I am now.  

It gets overwhelming, sometimes
it seems pointless to keep moving forward, but I just have to keep going. 
Recovery is not easy (in fact I think it is easier to be sick, but living
is much more satisfying than dying), but I will not give up. 

My
hope is that you don’t either.
It’s worth it
- Shelly

Past posts about Shelly and Thin:

THIN Women

Shelly Speaks

Polly Rests

(Shelly and Polly met while filming THIN and remained dear friends until Polly took her own life).

We are going to keep rolling with Shelly, from the HBO documentary THIN, because I can see you are all relating quite well. This dialogue is good for Shelly and for all of you.

I want to highlight the paragraph below because it strikes at the core of what I believe is a major issue for many of the girls of this community. My hope for each and every one of you, is you can reach the place Shelly has achieved, the place where I live as well, because this is a place of peace and contentment beyond compare:

“I guess I was scared to really look at my life because I was afraid that I wouldn’t like the person I was growing up to be.  Actually, honestly, I guess I was more afraid that people wouldn’t like the person I was.  So I hid behind an eating disorder and a raging addiction so I would have an excuse for why people didn’t like me.  I always had some disorder or dysfunction in my life to blame.  And now, since I am I am recovery I don’t have those things to fall back on and if people don’t like me or what I do, I know have to realize that it is their choice and I don’t have to take responsibility for them or their feelings.”

If you take away anything from Shelly’s statement it’s to live your life for you.

The take away from me is to pound this mantra into your head – life is not about making people like you.

On to Shelly’s thoughts for the day;

So finding out who I am has become the priority in my recovery.  Trading in the identity I have lived with for so long for an identity that more accurately reflects who I am is daunting.  Sometimes I wonder where I fit in this huge, scary world.  While in the throes of my disorder I knew I fit in the world of eating disorders and I was comfortable there.  I could relate to people who were struggling and I am sad to say I shared tips and thinspiration.  I fed off the energy that others with ED had and often I became competitive with others.  Every part of my day revolved around my eating disorder.  Everything I did during the day was focused on how to get thinner and keep myself sick. 

Now, here is where the difficult and fearful part of my recovery comes into play.  When I finally resigned to the fact that I would give up my eating disorder, my addiction, and any other self-destructive coping mechanism I was left with 24 hours day to fill with things to do.  I felt lost, confused, and extremely afraid. What was I going to do?  I had no idea.  When I voiced this concern to others they would tell me that I could do anything I wanted.  I tried to believe them but deep down I was frightened and didn’t know if I could really play this whole recovery game.  But I decided I would at least try it.  I felt like there was no harm in trying and if I didn’t like it then I could always go back to my disease(s). 

I have to be honest… at first I didn’t like it.  But I didn’t dislike it as much as I disliked being consumed with negative thoughts all day long.  Negative thoughts did come and they still do, but I treat them differently.  I don’t listen to what they tell me.  I just notice them and let them go.  Accepting them and being aware was the first part of my recovery.  When the thoughts told me that I shouldn’t eat that french fry…I ate more than one.  It was difficult, but as I became more and more aware the thoughts became less and less powerful.  I kept fighting and I made a commitment to not give up until I tried my absolute hardest for at least a year (I usually don’t like putting time frames on things but I did this time to keep myself going.) 

It was so difficult that sometimes I would pace up and down my hallway because I was so anxious.  I was trying to find things to do.  I read, I knitted, I walked outside, I cried, I cleaned,  I made my meals and then when my husband came home from work I spent time with him. The most important thing I did (and am still doing), however, was to look deep within myself.  I started to figure out how I liked to spend my time, what my morals and values are, what makes me happy, what pisses me off, what stresses me out, how to handle it, etc. 

It was overwhelming because in ten years I had not let myself look at things.  For the past ten years I was merely surviving and I realize now that my ED and my addiction were merely distracting me from doing anything, especially finding out who I was. I guess I was scared to really look at my life because I was afraid that I wouldn’t like the person I was growing up to be.  Actually, honestly, I guess I was more afraid that people wouldn’t like the person I was.  So I hid behind an eating disorder and a raging addiction so I would have an excuse for why people didn’t like me.  I always had some disorder or dysfunction in my life to blame.  And now, since I am I am recovery I don’t have those things to fall back on and if people don’t like me or what I do, I know have to realize that it is their choice and I don’t have to take responsibility for them or their feelings. 

Slowly, it is staring to get a little easier and I am grateful I didn’t give up. I am now trying to find a job.  The nursing field is stressful and because I am now just starting to take care of myself I don’t feel I am ready to take care of people in that environment just yet.  Plus, I might go back to school because I am healthy to do so.  I guess I feel like I CAN really do anything I want to do.  I hate to admit when I am wrong, but I guess everyone was right…again!

To those of you who are fighting don’t give up no matter how hard it gets…you have already made the commitment to at least start to fight.  For those of you contemplating recovery my hope is that you try before it is too late. 

Nowadays I go to bed so tired and drained.  And it is not because I haven’t eaten or purged all day…It is because I working my ass (not literally) off to get better.

-Shelly

Shelly Guillory from the HBO documentary THIN is ready to have her say.

Since the death of her friend Polly Williams, she has decided to come out fighting. Fighting against eating disorders, and the media that fuels them. Here is an update from Shelly sent to me via email;

So I haven’t been around much on the internet and there is a simple reason for this.  I am getting better.  It is easy to say but extremely hard to do.  As a therapist once told me ,(and I laughed at this and totally used this phrase in a mocking tone on more than one occasion)…”it’s simple, but I am not saying it’s easy.”

Little did I know she would be right. 

I cannot say why I decided to get better, but a few months ago something just “clicked”.  In AA they say a person has a spiritual awakening, but because I don’t like that term and I was never like Moses and saw a burning bush, I am just going to go with my Clicking Theory.  I had hit an all time low.  I was depressed, anxious, malnourished, and I was addicted to benzodiazipines.  I realized I had to do something or I would die.  Honestly, I really thought death was the only way I was going to get over this, I almost welcomed it.  But deep down inside I knew I didn’t want to die, but I deeply believed I couldn’t get better.  I kept telling myself over and over again, “you have tried and you have failed everytime.”  But had I really tried?  Had I really surrendered and given recovery every ounce of energy I had?  The answer again was simple…No, I had not.

Shelly one year after treatment at Renfrew, image source: Lauren Greenfield

So in September 2008, I surrendered and it was quite possibly the scariest thing I had ever done.  I realized I had to put aside my preoccupation with weight, food, body image, thinness and everything else that comes along with an eating disorder, once and for all.  I was terrified because I knew without all those distractions I would be force to feel.  Feelings I had not allowed myself to feel in so long were powerful.  I felt uncomfortable because I had not felt anything for so long.  The amount of anxiety I felt scared me and I several times I thought about quitting, turning back to starving and purging.  But I knew I couldn’t.  This was my time and I knew something greater than myself would get me through it.  My confidence was shaky and many times I didn’t believe I could do it, but I just kept telling myself over and over again that I could no matter what I really believed.  The power of positive self-talk has sustained me in my recovery. 

I ate and I gained weight and I sobered up (6 months clean).  The concept was simple, but the process wasn’t easy.  I cannot say this enough, I was scared out of my mind…sometimes paralyzed by fear.  Even today I still have a lot of fear and anxiety.  Recovery is a slow process and because I am impatient it has made the process slightly harder.  But I realized I would rather feel uncomfortable for a little while than to not feel at all. 

A change is happening in me and I welcome it this time instead of pushing it away.  This is the first time I have allowed it to hapen.  I am slowly finding out who I am, what I like, what I don’t like, who I want to be and so on…although scary, it feel awesome and It feels real.

So I write to tell you it is possible.  I was one who wasn’t supposed to make it. I am going to prove those who doubted me wrong.  And it is going to feel good.  And I win in the situation.  Recovery to me means living the life I want, to not be weighed down by unnecessary worries and irrational thoughts.  It means not putting unrealistic expectations on myself and not feeling like a failure when I don’t meet them.  It means improved relationships with the people I love and care about.  It means I can reach out, tell my story and give people hope.  It means I can truly be the person that I am.

I don’t want to overwhelm you guys with my thoughts and my dreams and hopes.  But I will continue to write because hopefully it not only give you hope, but it will also remind me of what I am working for and what I want to attain.

The freedom I feel from not actively engaging in Ed behaviors has provided me with opportunities that I never even noticed before. I will speak out and I will advocate because I know my story needs to be told.

My hope for you today is to at least have one minute, one hour, or even a few hours where you can step back, take a look a look at who you really are and experience peace and serenity.  It may materialize into something greater and more powerful than you thought possible.

Until next time…

Shelly

In memory of Polly.

Many of you remember Polly from the HBO documentary THIN by Lauren Greenfield.

Image Source for all photos: Lauren Greenfield, THIN

Polly passed away on Friday evening. Please send your prayers to her friends and family. Take a moment to reflect upon the courage it took for Polly to let it all fly on THIN. I’m nothing next to this one, she was something, talk about guts.

“Dieting has always been a huge part of my life. I remember all the things that are signs of eating disorders being taught by my family; cut my food into really small pieces, and chew very slowly and take your time, and drink water in between so your stomach fills up faster. I was counting calories and fat by the time I was 11.

I had diet pills packed in my lunch in elementary school. When I was ten years old, my mother and my aunt paid me $100 each to lose 10 pounds. It wasn’t until recently I pulled out a photo album that I was like, Oh my Gosh. I really wasn’t fat. I’ve had a distorted view of myself  pretty much most of my life.

- Polly, THIN documentary, read more here.

Polly’s obituary from her local paper

Polly’s caring bridge site

“Having a feeding tube is a status symbol, it shows you are a true anorexic.”

“My mom taught me this chew and spit game with candy, we really had fun doing this together.”

These are just a few of the shocking comments made by the women and young girls profiled in THIN, a must-see documentary by Lauren Greenfield.

This film is so raw, so real, that you need to psych yourself up to watch it. During the middle of the show, my husband paused the tape, looked to me and said “Do you have a totally nervous feeling watching this?” We both nodded yes, took a deep breath and kept watching.

The nervous feeling came from watching the reality of how far the girls had slipped away from reality about their bodies. Their demenor and state of mind was numbing, and so very, very sad.

THIN was criticized by NEDA for not showing a balanced view of recovery from eating disorders.

“We felt that her lens needed a wider, more balanced focus and should have also included stories of those responding to treatment successfully,” stated Lynn Grefe, CEO of NEDA. While we know that there are many challenges and setbacks along the road, with treatment most people do get well and there is hope.

This film was a documentary. The very meaning of a documentary is that its real. When Greenfield selected and asked permission to shoot these women’s stories, she didn’t exactly have the right to include a clause in their contract that they had to come out of treatment free of their ED demons. It was a roll of the dice, and the film showed the reality of what transpired during their treatment.

The film ends with an update on each of the women profiled in the documentary, all of whom were still struggling with their eating disorders, some relapsed, but all carry on.

Wondering how the women of Thin are doing today?

Here is some information I dug up on the THIN blogs and forums

Brittany, (shown above) was the young girl that seemed to have the longest, uphill battle due to her mother’s own issues with eating disorders.

Polly, was the tough one, she sure kept the film interesting. I liked her spunk and ability to be herself. Her blog shows she is still going strong.

Shelley, as of November still struggling deeply with her disorder.

Post film interview with Shelly, Polly, and Alisa

I don’t believe anyone ever completely recovers from an eating disorder, this powerful disease leaves scars so deep that become a part of you.

That is not to say your can’t recover and do something positive with the experience…..afterall, look at me.

-mamaVISION