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Anorexia: Taking the U-Turn on a Dead-end
Road
December 10, 2007 By Racheal Krugh I have to admit, when I first read the question from
Survey Sez, “I'm anorexic because…” I was thinking, “Seriously? You have
got to be kidding me.” As random as the question was, it still intrigued me. I
read the answers
to the question, and I have to admit some were quite humorous. In fact, I
was asked at work what I was laughing at and advised to pass it along.
However, it was the answers like the following that led me to write this
article.
Talk about being hit with a ton of bricks. Their
words lay heavy on my heart. They say, “Once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic.” But if
you've stopped drinking, are you still an alcoholic? If you say “yes,” you
are basically stating two things: 1) Someone with an addiction is destined
to live in constant danger of falling off the wagon (so to speak) against
their own will; 2) The Word of God contradicts itself. We all know the
latter isn't true, and that God has the power to change someone with an
addiction and empower them to live a victorious life. I know of people who
have been completely delivered from drugs and alcohol, and they'd tell you
they aren't recovering from anything but a bellyache from the pizza they had
late last night because God completely took that desire away. Hi, I'm Racheal, and . . . I decided to write this article because for most of my
adult life I have been anorexic and truly believe that God is taking me
through the healing process. It wasn't until I reached the point of
desperation for a closer walk with God that He revealed to me what I needed
to do. Anorexia is looked at as being worldly, and not a disease,
mainly because you desire to be skinny. Webster states “Anorexia is a
serious disorder in eating behavior primarily of young women in their teens
and early twenties that is characterized especially by a pathological fear
of weight gain leading to faulty eating patterns, malnutrition, and usually
excessive weight loss.” Anyone with an eating disorder (i.e. anorexia, bulimia,
and binge eating) knows that it is not a diet, like most of the general
public would believe. A diet is a program to get healthier, while people
with eating disorders perceive losing weight and controlling their food
intake as a technique to conceal pain, anger, fear, or other troubling
emotions. Yet you lose more than just weight when you are anorexic. You
lose your sense of trusting in friends for fear you will be judged, the
ability to relax, and the ability to just enjoy life. . . . I'm Anorexic I was diagnosed as an anorexic at the age of 22, trying to
fill a void in my life that only God could fill. I had been raised in church
and was filled with the Holy Ghost when I was 8 years old. When I was
diagnosed, I was not in church, as I had walked away from God at 19 thinking
there was something more for me. I felt that being skinny was the only thing I had and was
a way for me to deal with the stress of everyday life. Everyone deals with
stress differently. I felt like I had no control over anything in my life
but the food I was eating. By voluntary starvation and diet pills, I
started losing weight. I believed that my ability to survive and be loved in
this world would be judged by my ability to starve. The problem with this
mindset is I don't have any more friends because I'm thin, I'm not a better
role model to the girls in the youth group because I'm thin, I'm not smarter
because I'm thin, and I don't love myself more because I'm thin. I never thought of anorexia as being a disease, therefore,
I never really asked God to heal me of it until recently. My perception of
what anorexia was isn't true. I thought all women were obsessed with their
body and what they looked like or how much they weighed. I mean, isn't it
normal to want to look your best? It seems anytime women get together all they talk about is
dieting, food, feeling fat, and how that third donut they just ate will
spend a lifetime on the hips. I never could relate to those conversations,
hence the void in my life continued to grow deeper and deeper. I had to keep
up the charade that I was fine, when, in fact, I really wasn't. Admitting
something was wrong would be admitting I am weak, and who likes to admit
they're weak? I never confided in family or friends for fear I would be
judged or rejected. Would people really care if I admitted to them that I
was anorexic and needed help, or would it just be juicy gossip? It was a
maze I couldn't escape. The Ignorant Experts Today I am 32 years old, 5 feet 3 inches tall, and weigh
98 pounds. (Depending on what purse I use for the day, I can weigh up to
104 pounds.) I have to laugh when people remark, “Oh, you're so tiny you
make me sick” because all the while I'm thinking, “Is that supposed to be a
compliment?” If so, then I am confused. I have heard everything from “Go
eat a cheeseburger” to “Hey, make sure you eat something high in calories,
like a whole cake and some ice cream.” It gets tiresome when you are always
asked in a sarcastic tone, “Are you losing more weight?” or “No wonder you
don't have children yet, girl, you have no meat on your bones.” I've learned that you never receive true guidance from
unproductive people. Everyone wants to give advice on how to deal with this
issue or that issue, but they seem to be the ones who never succeed at
anything and couldn't take their own advice in an emergency. Moreover, I
have learned that the advice they try to give is just plain ignorance. Not
ignorance as in stupidity, but ignorance in that they just do not understand
the situation. Today, the Healing Begins It wasn't until recently that God started healing me of
this mind-debilitating disease. It was an illness I had this past summer that allowed me
to realize that this life I'm living is not about me, and never has been. I
felt my walk with God was lacking something. I was praying, reading, and
yes, even fasting. I was desperate and I felt I had hit a wall. My prayer is
always for God “to use this empty vessel.” But my vessel was not empty. As I
prayed that prayer one night, the Lord spoke to me and revealed to me that
my anorexia was in the way. In order for me to truly mean what I prayed, I
needed to let God heal me. The healing process began with that first step of
humility. I couldn't actually allow God to take over unless I became humble
and lay aside the fear of rejection, hurt, and admitting my weakness. It is a journey I will have to continue (and am prepared
to do so) to discover the true me that has been hidden under an eating
disorder for so long. How God sees me is so different from the images we
all see on the covers of magazines or in Hollywood. I have to surrender all
control to God and totally devote myself to Him. I am not going to have to
do this alone though. I have a wonderful support system--a mile of family
and close friends to help me out. Throughout all of my struggles with anorexia, I have
always had comfort in knowing that my husband is going to love me no matter
what. (My husband has always been supportive and has been my rock in this
whole fiasco. I came back to church a year after I was married and today I
can ecstatically say that we are serving the Lord together!) I now have the liberty of knowing that true love is not
earned by having a perfect body and a perfectly organized life. I know that
true love and security come from a relationship with God. God is filling
the void in my life that I strived so long to fill on my own because I
finally allowed Him to do it. His love and acceptance meets my needs and
gives me the strength I need to enjoy and appreciate every day of my life.
This walk with God is a journey, one with many twist and turns, joy and
pain, good days and bad days, but it is never a dead-end road. © 2007, Racheal Krugh --------- Racheal Krugh is a marketing specialist in the
health care industry. She and her husband, Jeff, have been happily married
for 9½ years and attend First Apostolic Church in Toledo, OH . Together
they help lead Sunday school, youth, and young marrieds. Racheal never has
any free time, but, if she did, she always wondered what it would be like to
sit in her car with a hair dryer pretending she's clocking motorists for
speeding tickets. |
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