Fearless Female Friday this week celebrates Melissa DeHart! Melissa is a 17 year survivor from anorexia and bulimia and has been blogging on the topic of eating disorders and related issues for over three years. Melissa’s writing brings us closer from a personal perspective of this disorder from the inside, out.
Melissa’s background is in television journalism and over the last four years, has dedicated her self to writing about the patient’s side to this often complicated world of eating disorders. She considers no topic off limits and sheds humor whenever she can!On a sunny, beautiful July afternoon in southern California, I sat on a couch, across my boss of five years, the doctor who gave me my first job as a writer and let me launch his company’s first blog on their website. I believed, he believed in me, but here I was seeing him mouth the words: “Meliss, we just don’t need you with the company anymore, we feel it’s time we move on and you move on.”
Although I could hear him, for an odd reason all I could concentrate on was a small spot on my skirt. I just stared at it and hoping by doing so, his words would just fall away unnoticed, or better yet, be a figment of my imagination, which wasn’t an option this time.
My heart was shattered, splintered, and felt beaten by the will of my own pride. “Did I hear him right?” “Did he just say what he said to me?” I questioned, but I walked out of his office calm, cool, and collected while inside it felt as if every single fiber of my being was being blown up. As I I handed him over my keys, my laptop, I felt my last five years of my life vanish. “Could this really be happening”, I asked myself?
Not two days after my 39th birthday did this eating disorder treatment center who at one time gave my life back, now seemingly was taking it away.
I sat in my car numb, “what do I do know?” I asked myself? I moved my whole life down here for this job. I was just planning on coming here as a patient in 2008, and who knew five years later I would be working up in Corporate with a very visible and fulfilling job. Suddenly I wasn’t Melissa DeHart Alumni Coordinator anymore. I was that same scarred, very sick girl from years ago who had no life, no hope, no purpose to offer this world.
“I of all people should be holding it together!”, I thought to myself. I mean that’s what I would have counseled another girl to do and did a thousand times before. Why was it so hard to practice what I preached? Especially now when I needed those supportive pick me up chats. the most? I’d say to “carry on and keep fighting, because you never know what life is going to throw your way.” “Especially in this financial market. You have to prepare yourself for anything that might come your way, to emotionally not to forget to pack your long winter coat, you may be in for one heck of a snow storm but you’ll make it out!” Or something along those lines…nothing worked. I felt rejected and it hurt, badly.
It seemed like I had lost all my tools, all my healthy coping mechanisms, all my confidence, all the incredible attitude I had built up over so many years. I found myself wanting to just get out of my car and run.
Where to, I had no idea but I wanted to run and run and run and run, to never look back until I got so far away from this moment I couldn’t feel it anymore.
Realistically, I knew I couldn’t do that, so being the addict that I am, I went into my familiar fight or flight mechanism, that I thought I had tamed and had in it’s cage. But when I found myself pulling into the first liquor store I saw, I knew I was out of control.
You see I had never truly moved away from the house that held all my vices. Anorexia, Bulimia, prescription pill abuse, I had simply moved rooms and in this particular period in my life it seemed the only vacant one left held a substance I hated and used only as a last resort, alcohol.
Don’t get me wrong. I have been 5 years clean of my Eating Disorder, and pill use, but recently found that if I needed to numb something out fast, vodka would do the trick. I hated booze, it has never been something I enjoyed, but it did become my escape door when times got rough.
I bought my 2 bottles of 35 proof Vodka home and poured half of one straight into a glass. I chugged it like water, hating every moment of it. It ripped through my throat like acid, and if felt as if my lungs had caught on fire. I poured myself more and more and more of the liquid poison until there was no more left to pour.
It is dark, I have no idea where I am. I realize I am all alone and hooked up to several machines. I have one IV holding fluid, another holding some sort of red liquid I can only imagine is blood. I am hooked up to a catheter, heart machines, and blood pressure cuffs. I catch a glimpse of myself in the glass window and I see a girl with a gash in here forehead and a black and blue face.
How did I get here? What happened? How is it that just a few days ago I was a girl on top of the world. A girl with dreams, aspirations, wearing high heels with an awesome attitude. A girl who wanted to inspire others, write a book, speak on behalf of young girls and women going through what I had just come to grips with, and work to initiate change within the world of Eating Disorders. A girl who wanted scales without numbers, clothes without sizes, and magazines that promoted health and happiness, not skin and bones.
What happened? I was so strong. I was a survivor for heavens sake not a victim.
I lied there alone until a doctor came in and explained I had OD’d on alcohol. He told me I had a .5 alcohol level in my bloodstream and under the circumstances anybody else would be dead.
All I could say was, “Dead?”
Here I had already escaped death by my own hand for nearly half my life, and now I was going to let one little job lay off seal the nail to my coffin? Forget that!
Once the doctor turned to leave my room, my thoughts were indignant. I was not going to let this knock me down. No way will I let people feel sorry for me either. I would rather them respect me more for pushing through this the pain of accepting change, to letting go and being open to what may be waiting for me on the other side of all of this mess I got myself into. One thing I do know, I am a warrior. I may lose some battles but I am determined to win the war.
To be continued……
Written by Melissa DeHart
Want to connect with Melissa? You can find her on Facebook here: https://www.facebook.com/MissMeliss.Fabulous