Hi friends :) Nice to meet you all :)
My name is Gracie and I am a sixteen year old girl who loves smiling, helping others, working out, spirituality, yoga, and life overall.
Here's the story of how who I am today, came to be from who I was in the past, a place that seems like it never really existed.
I was diagnosed back in September of 2013 with Anorexia Nervosa, a mental disorder that affects everyone who has it differently, but in general can be categorized and summarized with the following characteristics: obsession with food and body image, feelings of low self-worth, compulsive exercise and extremely low body weight. Dating back to sixth grade, I can still remember my compulsive and obsessive behaviors around exercise. It didn't start around food until I was in eighth grade, two years later, and the physical symptoms did not rear their heads until my freshman year of high school.
I made it through the first two weeks of my freshman year before having to stop attending school due to the life-threatening condition my heart and body were in. I had originally planned on going to a treatment facility for my eating disorder, but they refused to admit me because my heart rate was too low, and instead I was admitted inpatient into Children's Hospital of Philadelphia for about six weeks time. I was under 24-hour surveillance by nurses and doctors and was not allowed to move out of bed, in fact, I had to go to the bathroom in a bedpan for the first two weeks of residency. I ate six meals a day here, all of which went against my strict ethically-chosen vegan diet of five years. I cried during each meal and developed extreme OCD here, as well as bad lying tendencies. I hid food from my meals when staff was not looking and struggled to exercise when staff left my room for a moment.
After successfully gaining back the minimum health requirements for discharge at CHOP, I went inpatient to a treatment facility whose name I will not share here for privacy concerns and respect of those who have been here as well. I stayed at this center for all of three days because the care was not helping- it was actually causing my mental and physical health to decline. i began loosing weight because the staff forgot to give me my three daily snacks each of the three days I was there, and they yelled at me along with the other patients as well. Many of the other patients were twenty-fifty years older than me in age and suffered from drug and alcohol abuse as well as an eating disorder. It was sad. It made me sad. It was not a centered place, not mentally, not physically, not emotionally. I did not feel safe here. My mother took me out of here, and this marks the start of the path of home-based family treatment.
Home-based treatment is basically the Maudsley Method approach of healing and treating loved ones with eating disorders. My mom and step dad and my brother watched me 24/7 while I was at home. After my step dad and mom split, i was relieved. he was a bully. he verbally abused us for too long. It was time to get the family back together. My mom made all my meals for me and I had to eat everything I was given. I was allowed to do yoga for 30 minutes per day. I cried a lot and felt guilty. But, I was healing. And that mattered more.
After almost a year of weekly doctor's visits, monthly blood tests, and bi-weekly therapy and physiologist sessions, relapse, and lessons I've come to learn, I can say that I have fully recovered from my eating disorder. I have learned so much about how strong I am, and God never fails to remind me of that with daily struggles I face as well.
I would never change my past. I would never change anything about it. I am so happy that I am who I am in this present moment. My past made me this way. My hard past- all of the winds, all of the rain, all of the tumbling and scraping and falling- all of that has shaped me into the smooth and beautiful stone that I know and accept myself as today. We get beat up not because we deserve it- but so that when the light does shine down on us, we can reflect it back into the universe and absorb it deep into our hearts. It is so hard to see the beauty and benefits of a long and treacherous climb up the side of a mountain, but when you reach that peak, you see the beauty of it all. You see the beauty of internal and external struggle. You see the beauty of healing. You see the beauty of yourself.
If you have any questions you have for me about anything, please contact me via e-mail at
volleyballindolphin29@gmail.com
My name is Gracie and I am a sixteen year old girl who loves smiling, helping others, working out, spirituality, yoga, and life overall.
summer yoga days :)
Here's the story of how who I am today, came to be from who I was in the past, a place that seems like it never really existed.
I was diagnosed back in September of 2013 with Anorexia Nervosa, a mental disorder that affects everyone who has it differently, but in general can be categorized and summarized with the following characteristics: obsession with food and body image, feelings of low self-worth, compulsive exercise and extremely low body weight. Dating back to sixth grade, I can still remember my compulsive and obsessive behaviors around exercise. It didn't start around food until I was in eighth grade, two years later, and the physical symptoms did not rear their heads until my freshman year of high school.
I made it through the first two weeks of my freshman year before having to stop attending school due to the life-threatening condition my heart and body were in. I had originally planned on going to a treatment facility for my eating disorder, but they refused to admit me because my heart rate was too low, and instead I was admitted inpatient into Children's Hospital of Philadelphia for about six weeks time. I was under 24-hour surveillance by nurses and doctors and was not allowed to move out of bed, in fact, I had to go to the bathroom in a bedpan for the first two weeks of residency. I ate six meals a day here, all of which went against my strict ethically-chosen vegan diet of five years. I cried during each meal and developed extreme OCD here, as well as bad lying tendencies. I hid food from my meals when staff was not looking and struggled to exercise when staff left my room for a moment.
After successfully gaining back the minimum health requirements for discharge at CHOP, I went inpatient to a treatment facility whose name I will not share here for privacy concerns and respect of those who have been here as well. I stayed at this center for all of three days because the care was not helping- it was actually causing my mental and physical health to decline. i began loosing weight because the staff forgot to give me my three daily snacks each of the three days I was there, and they yelled at me along with the other patients as well. Many of the other patients were twenty-fifty years older than me in age and suffered from drug and alcohol abuse as well as an eating disorder. It was sad. It made me sad. It was not a centered place, not mentally, not physically, not emotionally. I did not feel safe here. My mother took me out of here, and this marks the start of the path of home-based family treatment.
Home-based treatment is basically the Maudsley Method approach of healing and treating loved ones with eating disorders. My mom and step dad and my brother watched me 24/7 while I was at home. After my step dad and mom split, i was relieved. he was a bully. he verbally abused us for too long. It was time to get the family back together. My mom made all my meals for me and I had to eat everything I was given. I was allowed to do yoga for 30 minutes per day. I cried a lot and felt guilty. But, I was healing. And that mattered more.
After almost a year of weekly doctor's visits, monthly blood tests, and bi-weekly therapy and physiologist sessions, relapse, and lessons I've come to learn, I can say that I have fully recovered from my eating disorder. I have learned so much about how strong I am, and God never fails to remind me of that with daily struggles I face as well.
I would never change my past. I would never change anything about it. I am so happy that I am who I am in this present moment. My past made me this way. My hard past- all of the winds, all of the rain, all of the tumbling and scraping and falling- all of that has shaped me into the smooth and beautiful stone that I know and accept myself as today. We get beat up not because we deserve it- but so that when the light does shine down on us, we can reflect it back into the universe and absorb it deep into our hearts. It is so hard to see the beauty and benefits of a long and treacherous climb up the side of a mountain, but when you reach that peak, you see the beauty of it all. You see the beauty of internal and external struggle. You see the beauty of healing. You see the beauty of yourself.
If you have any questions you have for me about anything, please contact me via e-mail at
volleyballindolphin29@gmail.com
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