Tiffany Murphy
When a friend asked if I would help her with a non-profit that was dear to her heart, I immediately said yes. Little did I know how many lives eating disorders impact. The National Eating Disorder Association (NEDA) facilitates walks across the country, hoping to overcome the stigma while gathering a community and raising awareness of the startling number of lives eating disorders affect every year.
Here’s the story of Hayley Grainger
Like many mental health challenges, eating disorders thrive in isolation in feeling alone, like you’re the only one - which is an excellent breeding ground for shame feeling like, “there is something wrong with me because of this.” So for any of the 28 million Americans who will experience an eating disorder at some point in their lives, these walks are a chance to make them, along with their families, feel just a little less alone. And maybe a little bit more seen. More supported. More valued.
At least that’s how I feel.
Having spent 10 plus years of my life battling an eating disorder, I know those feelings of loneliness, shame and even hopelessness. And I know the severity: someone dies every 52 minutes from an eating disorder according to NEDA, making it the second most deadly mental health disorder next to opioid use disorder. The effects are serious and eating disorders can impact anyone.
I count myself lucky to have sensitive parents, who noticed the changes early and prompted intervention - and I was privileged to have the support of a therapist, nutritionist, eating disorder specialist - you name it. But even with this incredible support, I found myself living in a hospital due to complications of anorexia nervosa and bulimia before I had even finished middle school. From there, high school continued on as a balancing act teetering between healthy enough to do everything I wanted to and too sick to participate.
I was determined to keep my weight up enough to demonstrate to my health care providers and family that I was healthy enough to go to college independently, and I did.
But it was really hard.
That greater independence I craved only gave my eating disorder more autonomy. By the end of my sophomore year, I was so tired of fighting and knew that something needed to change. At this point, besides the weight loss, amenorrhea, thinning hair and irreversible bone loss, an EKG showed bradycardia and cardiac arrhythmia the effects of anorexia and bulimia had slowly taken a toll on my body causing my heart to begin showing the effects. Because of this health liability, the only care that was available to me was a residential facility.
After handing in my cell phone and having my belongings searched for any other contraband items, I spent the next few months, well, eating (with the alternative option being fed through a tube), and putting in some of the most challenging work I’ll ever do. I would have never chosen to spend my sophomore summer on a couple acres of land in Pennsylvania, but it was the environment I needed to make any lasting changes in my life.
And it was absolutely worth it.
I feel so privileged to stand on the other side of this and say that recovery is possible. To those brave people fighting today: there is so much to life beyond your eating disorder. Your value and worth have nothing to do with the size of your body or a number on a scale. You are not alone. You possess incredible strength and you are enough in every way.
When I think about my experience, I see one that speaks to both severity and privilege. I can’t help but wonder about the people who don’t have parents who notice. Or the people that go through traumatic experiences. Or the people from underrepresented groups. Or the people going through it alone.
Everyone deserves to recover from their eating disorder everyone deserves access to care and support and that is why this NEDA Walk exists. This walk is a chance to honor those strong folks and their families. This walk is an opportunity to raise our voices, share our stories, and spread awareness. To say that we are more than our eating disorders and to remind people fighting that they are too.
There are a dozen walks happening across the country from Iowa City to San Francisco. At those walks you can find a community of hope. To learn more about eating disorders and get help please visit nationaleatingdisorders.org.