Had you asked me 20 years ago what was driving my eating disorder, I likely would have said what most people think eating disorders are about – the desire to be thin. Throughout my experience, however, I started to understand the truth. Eating disorders typically have nothing to do with wanting to be thin after all. It took years of hard work and dedication to understand my eating disorder in a truthful way. Through treatment and recovery, I started to understand that the smaller I got, the easier it was to disappear and the less nourishment my brain received, the easier it was to not feel anything but hunger.
When I was 19 years old, I entered my inpatient stay at The Renfrew Center of Philadelphia where they decided, much to my surprise, that my recovery would be best treated on a “trauma track.” I wondered what any of this had to do with trauma and I questioned, what trauma are we even talking about? My father had died a few years earlier from a very long battle with cancer but to my knowledge that was in the past and had nothing to do with my anorexia. It turns out, it had everything to do with it.
During my time at Renfrew, I worked around the clock with a team of therapists who seemed to know something that I did not know at all. It was not until one day when I was asked, “How would you feel if someone told you that you look like a cancer patient?” that I started to see things more clearly. It was a breakthrough moment for me. The unhealthy but honest answer to that question was: euphoric. I would feel proud, happy, victorious. I would feel connected to my dad. This was the start of my healing.
There was a lot of work that lay ahead and 20 years later the work is not yet complete, but I am showing up for it. The road to my recovery consists of understanding my trauma, remembering my father, allowing myself to feel the emotions that come with his memory, and finding my place in this world without him. It is not easy and everyday remains a challenge, but what I know now is that there is still a life worth living without my dad and it is one worth waking up to everyday.
Shirley Goldman began her journey to recovery at the age of 19 at The Renfrew Center of Philadelphia. Now at 39 years old she lives in New York with her husband and three beautiful boys that make every day worth fighting for.
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