“You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I’ll rise.” ~ Maya Angelou
My life has always felt like a constant struggle. A fight to survive. But there is a reason that I have the words “still i rise “ tattooed on my arm, and why it’s a mantra that I repeat to myself daily. It’s because no matter what happens, and how many times I get knocked down, I know that I will continue to get back up and grow stronger with every set back. It is because of my resilience and determination to achieve total self-love that I am still here today to share my story with you.
When I was 16 I was officially diagnosed with Binge Eating Disorder, though I had been struggling with binge eating since the age of 13. I knew that I had a problem when it came to food. I was powerless to it. Food became my comfort, my drug, my life-line and my best friend all in one. Whenever I felt any kind of emotion, whatever it might have been, I turned to food as a way to cope with life. I binged in secret most of the time and felt anxiety when having to eat in front of people. I isolated myself from my friends and family in order to solely be alone with my food. It was a miserable existence that I lived. Always feeling stuffed, ashamed and guilty.
In January of the following year my symptoms began to change. Instead of eating all the time I began to restrict my diet and over exercise. I struggled with the idea of food being “good” or “bad”. Why couldn’t food just be food? Everything I ate had to be exactly measured and if I ate more than the serving size suggested, all hell would break loose in my mind. If I ate a cookie that meant an extra hour in the gym. I would work out at the gym for almost 2 hours, come home to “take a shower” and continue to workout in the bathroom while the water was running so no one could hear me. I felt run down and tired but I was so proud of myself. I was proud of my commitment to my diet and proud of the results I was seeing. In 5 months I had lost almost 75 pounds, but no one thought anything of it because I was overweight to begin with. I received compliments and admiration from my friends, family members and even my doctors. They told me to “keep up the good work” and said that I “look absolutely stunning”, but deep down I knew what I was doing to my body wasn’t right.
The year following my restrictive eating habits were a blur. I moved into college and that's when restriction became intertwined with bingeing. I would starve myself all day and binge all night. My entire day revolved around food. I spent hundreds of dollars over the course of 4 months on all kinds of takeout and often would steal snacks from my roommate when she was gone in order to fulfill my cravings. I had never been so disgusted with myself in my life. After my first semester away at college I made the decision to transfer schools and move back home. It was then that I decided I needed to get help. I found a therapist who made me realize my worth
and while for the first 6 months with her I was still sporadically bingeing/restricting, I felt like I was beginning to take the first steps towards recovery.
It has now been 11 months since I came home and decided to get help for myself. For the past 3 months I have been meeting with a nutritionist to discuss my eating habits where we created a set of meal guidelines for me to follow. I’m not on a diet, I’m just eating balanced meals and listening to my body. Through the support of my nutritionist, my therapist, my family and my friends, I am happy to report that for the past month and a half I have been binge and restriction free! I eat balanced, nutritious meals but don’t deprive myself of any kind of food! I remind myself that everything is good in moderation. I exercise when I feel like it rather than telling myself I need to go. Working out nowadays is a celebration of what my body can do rather than a punishment for eating. I’m more confident and feel better in control of my life!
This has been an extremely long and hard journey to get to this point and it’s not over yet! I still battle my eating disorder thoughts every single day, but what’s different now is how I react to it. I no longer let Binge Eating Disorder control my day-to-day activities. I will continue to fight and take back my life one day at a time. And even if I have a few setbacks and bumps along the way, I know I’ll be ok. Because “still I rise”. No matter what.
Rianna Carriere
@ofmouthandmind on instagram