Powerful

Childhood

Her parents got divorced when she was 2 years old.  She never remembers them together, only that their divorce was a long court battle.  Her mother received full custody.

“I always remember my mom and dad being separate.  They each had their own apartments and I saw my dad every other weekend”

Her and her brother, who was 2 years younger, were very close with each other.  She always felt like her mother was dealing with her own problems and now, as a Psych Major, she sees the signs.  Her mother would lash out at her and her brother.  She recognizes that she was emotionally abused when she was younger and because of that, she felt like she couldn’t talk to her mother.  

At the same time, she didn’t feel like she could talk to her father either.  They didn’t see him often and they didn’t bond when she was younger.  He’d support them financially or provide them with nice toys or electronics but wouldn’t support them emotionally.

“I feel like I couldn’t go to my mom or dad so that’s when I turned to my eating disorder”

Eating Disorder

Through the ages of 7 until 10, she remembers having a distorted view of her body but her eating disorder behaviors began at age 12 or 13.  Her cycle was restrict, binge, purge and that went on through Middle School and throughout High School.  She struggled with depression and anxiety.

“Eating disorders are based in secrecy so I didn’t tell anyone.  I was so embarrassed.  I’d use my behaviors at school, at my friend’s houses.  I just tried to normalize it like this is just how I eat my food.”

She would go on pro ana or pro bulimia websites to try to affirm what she was doing what normal, that she was like all these people online even though deep down, she knew what she was going through wasn’t healthy.  She knew that people in her life knew something was off because she’d go to the bathroom after she would eat and she had a list of good foods and bad food.  Her preferences went beyond being a picky eater to excluding entire food groups.

At 16 years old, she told her mom she was struggling with an eating disorder.  They went to her primary care physician who referred her to different treatment centers.  Her mom told her

“I really don’t have time for you to be having these problems.  I’m a single mom.  When are you going to go to treatment, you’re in school.”

That moment shut her down.  She had reached out for help and hadn’t been taken seriously.  She believes some of that came from her mother’s Mexican heritage.  She’s found that in the community of people of color, they don’t understand mental illness, they don’t believe they exist.  After that moment, she stopped talking about her eating disorder.

College

Her first two years, she lived in the dorm at UIC.  This was much more difficult having an eating disorder because she had to share a bathroom and eat in a cafeteria with other students.  

Her sophomore, she was living in a single room but shared a bathroom with other girls in her cluster.  She became much more isolated.  She stopped going to class, but spent time reading the course work and studying by herself which led her to getting straight at but at the same time, she stopped hanging out with friends, stopped going to school events and her eating disorder was getting worse.  She’d purchase groceries and panic at what she had bought, throw them away, then pull them out of the garbage and binge.

“One day I remember I went to go eat with one of my cluster mates at the cafeteria and came home and purged.  I was so tired, physically and emotionally, from dealing with my eating disorder.  I went into my cluster mate’s room and told her what I was going through.  I think I have an eating problem, I didn’t call it an eating disorder”

Her friend was very supported which helped her not only feel less alone but it validated her struggles.  Her friend suggested she tell her parents so she tried to tell her mom again.  She expressed that she had a feeling it was getting worse and it was hard to concentrate on anything else.  Her mother thought it was a phase and was surprised she was still struggling.

“I don’t think it’s a phase.  I’ve tried over and over to conqueror my eating disorder on my own and I can’t do it”

She didn’t want to tell her dad.  She rarely saw him so she wanted to keep all of those moments happy and didn’t want to disappoint him.  The next time she saw him, she began to cry and he asked what was going on and she told him everything.  He said he had no idea but her step mother thought something was wrong.

“It’s so secretive but it’s also a cry for help.  Like ‘I can’t tell you what I want to tell you with my words, so let me tell you with my body’.  That’s was what my eating disorder was to me”

Her mother was getting on board with her treatment.  Her dad and stepmom were very supportive and weren’t going to let her go without treatment.  She had to change her PCP because of a change in insurance.  She told him everything and was officially diagnosed with bulimia.

Her PCP was supposed to find a treatment center to recommend to her, but wasn’t very helpful so she began searching on her own which was difficult because she had HMO which greatly limited where she could go.  Even though it was difficult, she felt powerful that she was taking this step.

“I wouldn’t admit I had a problem, but deep down I knew I was struggling which was why I was advocating for myself”

Beginning Treatment

She found a treatment center she was interested in.  They not only worked with eating disorders but also depressing and anxiety.  She went there for a consultation with her dad and she was so scared.  After she told her PCP, she felt the need to communicate better because now her doctor knows.  Her consultation lasted for an hour and the intake coordinator asked her about the frequency of her behavior, how often she thinks about food, does she have good and bad food and a multitude of other questions.  

Eventually it was recommended that she receive IOP, Intensive Outpatient Treatment which was 9 hours a week of group counseling plus a dietician and therapies once a week, so 11 hours total.  She felt overwhelmed.  She was a full time student and wasn’t sure how she would be able to keep up on everything, but her insurance wouldn’t cover anything less than that.  Her mother also believed it was too much.  Eventually, after thinking about it, she decided to do what they recommended.

“My first day I went there was New Years Eve 2014.  I had to go during the day because it was a holiday.  I was so scared.  I think my dad dropped me off, I didn’t know what to expect.  It was like group therapy.  I get there and I see all these other people and my eating disorder kicks in.  I start comparing myself like ‘that person looks worse, I shouldn’t be here’”.

The session consisted of 1 hour working on a skill, 1 hour of a meal and 1 hour processing.  After her first day, she wasn’t 100% sold on it, but was still going to continue.  She decided today was the last day she was going to binge as well so after her session she went to the store with her mother and bought some food.   She then sat in her bed at them all.

“I felt horrible afterward, but I just wanted it to be like a last hoorah.  I felt so empty inside I wanted to fill that up”

The next time she went to therapy, she hears stories from others.  “It was so different because an eating disorder makes it feel like you’re on your own.  You don’t really think that other people are struggling with what you are”

She slowly began getting into treatment and began feeling as though it was helping her.  She continued going to treatment through her 2nd semester as well as taking on a part-time job on campus.  She found it was really hard to manage.  There was an option to go to an on campus department to let them know if you are struggling with any type of mental illness and then you’d be able to take time out of class, have extended due dates, etc.. At the time, she was still embarrassed of what she was going through and didn’t want to tell anyone.  “ This eating disorder has taken so much time from me, I didn’t want it to take any more time from me”

Summer 2014

By this time, only 3 friends knew what she was going through and she wouldn’t tell anyone that she was heading to treatment.  She’d tell them she was going to the library or make up an excuse.  Her grades weren’t as good because she was so busy.

“To be honest, I feel like the first few months of treatment are so hard because they’re trying to make you refrain from using your behaviors and the reason you’re using behaviors is because you’re dealing with emotions, depression or anxiety.  When they stripped my behaviors, I was dealing with my depression and anxiety, I know those were bad coping methods, but I had nothing.  I felt like they stripped me of that, it was like my armor, I didn’t know how to deal with raw emotions.  They do teach you new skills but the first few months were really difficult.”

Junior year

Her junior year, she moved into an apartment with 2 roommates.

“It felt like I was living again.  I wasn’t so concentrated on food or my body, I had more brain space to concentrate on my school, my hobbies my art…that is living.  It just felt so great”

She began her junior year of college working part time and going to therapy which was comfortable for her.  She decided to travel somewhere on spring break by herself.   She felt as though she needed to do something on her own since she had come so far.  

Spring Break 2015

She decided to stay in the country and a friend recommended a city they thought she would enjoy.  He thought she would like it and described is as a mini Chicago, it’s small with lots to see!  He also had some friends there that he said she could hang out with if she wanted.  She booked her flight, found an Air B&B and was ready to go!  She contacted these friends of his and looking back she felt like she shouldn’t have been so trusting of people she didn’t know.

“I don’t think anyone would want to do wrong to me because I don’t want to do wrong to someone, but that’s not always true”

She arrived in town and met up with the guy she was corresponding with.  He just returned from Israel and they hung out together.  The next few days she went thrifting, tried new food, met new friend and didn’t feel trapped by her eating disorder.  She was experiencing new things.

She met her friend who she was going to stay with after her Air B&B expired, however he had changed his plans and didn’t tell her.  She didn’t want to hang out with him anymore and she walked him out of the Air B&B.  Outside, he ran into one of his friends who hung out with her after her first friend left.  She was crying, wondering where she was going to stay for the night and he had offered to help her figure it out.  After a while they began kissing, which she was fine with and consented to.  

Eventually he pushed her into the bedroom onto the bed.  Looking back at that moment, she remembers so many things she wanted to do differently, but at the time she froze.  He got on top of her and she kept saying no, but he wouldn’t stop.

She didn’t know what to do.  She said no but he didn’t listen to her.

She remembers looking at him and he looked like he knew he was doing something wrong.  He eventually just stopped, got off and left.

“I don’t’ know if I want to believe this or this is the truth, but he knew he did something wrong.  I don’t know if I just tell myself this.  I don’t want to try to defend him, but I want to believe that he isn’t that malicious and evil.  I want to believe he is a real person with real emotions and real feelings, but I don’t know.”

She took a shower and was in shock.  She called her friend, who is now currently her boyfriend, and told him everything that happened.  He told her to go to the airport to switch flights if she could or get a new flight, just come home.  She barely slept, but instead of sleeping in the bedroom she slept on the couch.   She didn’t want to admit what happened so she didn’t call it rape, just like at first she didn’t call her eating disorder what it truly was.  The next morning she packed up her things and headed to the airport.

The airline wouldn’t change her flight so she spent $400 on a new one.  She called her best friend and told her everything, again not calling it rape.  She said she froze and didn’t know what to do.  Her friend supported her, just like she supported her with her eating disorder.  This friend validated everything she was feeling.

“I feel like other survivors, they don’t get to leave the area they were assaulted in.  It just felt so good not to be anywhere near there.  I felt so much safer, I know he doesn’t live he, he lives miles and miles away”

Her mother picked up her from the airport asking why she came home early.  She just told her she became bored and wanted to come home.  She didn’t want to tell her she had spent so much money on a new ticket.  When she was dropped off at her apartment in Pilsen, she just wanted to be alone.  Being an introvert, that is how she gains her energy back.  She began to unpack in her room trying not to think about what happened on her trip.

She was still seeing her therapist weekly and wanted to share this with her but had to wait 4 days until their next visit.  She had to deal with this on her own which was extremely difficult, she was having trouble processing it.  

“I felt like I needed someone to tell me you’ve been assaulted.  You’re right, someone did do something to you.  I felt like I needed someone to say that because I couldn’t admit that on my own”

She tried to act normal at her summer job and her summer school classes.  When her therapy session finally came, she told her therapist what happened.  She was immediately supportive saying ‘yes, that was sexual assault, you didn’t consent’.  She made sure to emphasize that he was the one in the wrong, not the other way around.

They began working through that and it took many sessions.  She was asked if she wanted to pursue anything legally.

“I just felt like I have so many conflicting thoughts about prisons and how prison and mass incarceration works.  I really don’t think going through a trial, even if he would be charged and the likelihood of being charged is very slim, I don’t think that would bring me any relief.  What I really want would be for him to admit what he did was wrong and give me an apology”

After her assault, her therapist was watching for any signs of her eating disorder behavior to re-appear.  She began restricting much more and the dietician saw her weight go down every week they met.  She asked if she was following her meal plan and she said she hadn’t be following it because restricting made her feel in control again.

“When he did that to me, I felt like he took all that control away from me.  I wanted to be in complete control of my body again”

May 2016

They recommended she return to IOP.  She knows that recovery is not a straight path, there will be ups and downs and sometimes relapse “but when I looked at my recovery, I didn’t want that, I didn’t want to go back to IOP”

She was reluctant to return but her therapist thought it would be helpful, so she went back to 11 hours a week.  When her school started again, she told their disability center she had a mental illness and the school was very accommodating.  Her deadlines were extended, she was able to miss class if she needed to.  She wished she did this the first time she was in IOP because she was able to focus even more on her treatment.

In her group sessions, they focused on supporting her through her meals which was helping her not be as strict when she was eating.  Her group focused a lot on sexual assault.

“I didn’t really think how much this stuff overlaps, eating disorders, sexual assault, PTSD, which I didn’t even really think about.  I just felt like I have a long laundry list of problems and other people probably don’t have that.”

There were other sexual assault survivors in her group and that helped her feel less alone.  She felt supported and was able to relate to the other members of the group.  After a month of IOP she was ready for outpatient again.  She felt empowered after finding that group community.

Currently, she isn’t restricting as much as she once was.  She does feel more powerful now and what has occurred in her life has made her stronger even though it brought her down for several months.

“I feel like I can conqueror a lot of things.  I feel a lot more powerful.”

Triggers

She has flashbacks when she tries to go to sleep.  Before bed, when she’s laying in the dark it feel very familiar to the night she was assaulted.  She confided in her current boyfriend a lot to help work through these triggers.

“You don’t realize how much people are talking about bodies and food until you have an eating disorder, it’s the same with sexual assault.”

After her assault, she didn’t realize how much rape permeates our society, from discussions to TV.  She has trouble hearing those stories because they trigger her. In her Sociology class, professors know how to navigate difficult topics they discuss including gender, sexual assault, AIDS and many more.  Students however, don’t always know how to do that.  They are curious and want to ask questions, but don’t always phrase things the best way.  She missed 3 days of her Sociology class when they were discussing assault.  Her professor was very supportive and gave her an alternate assignment.

She used to check her perpetrators Instagram a lot.  She wanted to see a sign that this somehow impacted his life how it impacted hers.  She knew it wasn’t healthy, but she felt the need to.  About 2 weeks after returning, she realized that was something that triggered her so she stopped.

Getting through triggers

On her trip, everyone would skateboard, including her perpetrator.  One way she gained her power back was to learn to skateboard.  It was always something she was interested in and she was determined to  not let  him take that away from her.  Her current boyfriend bought her a skateboard.  She learned how to skateboard and has removed the negativity from the activity!  She uses the activity to focus because when she’s skating, her brain is only focused on that.  It’s something she is very dedicated to.

One thing she uses to ground herself is play dough.  She has a little container in all of her bags and at school.  It’s something she uses, something physical to keep her in the present moment.  She also sketches and colors.  Doing something with her hands helps keep her focused.

Also, yoga really helped me connect to my body again. I feel like my body and I separated after my rape and yoga helped me build back that relationship.

Advice

“Let your emotions and feeling and experiences are valid.  If you feel like you need support don’t be ashamed to reach out for support, there are a lot of other people who have experiences similar to yours”