| NOTE TO READER : I just found out that Melissa passed away a few days ago. My heart is heavy as I write this on December 31, 2013. Once I find out where people can send cards or make a donation in her name, I will let you know. Below is her last blog I received from her in August.God bless you Melissa. You were and will always be an incredible inspiration to the lives you have touched. I will miss you deeply.
UPDATE: Amanda Grasser, Melissa’s dearest friend is holding a memorial service for her in downtown Denver on Jan 26th. If you would like to know more please email Amanda at [email protected].___________________________________ 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: |
“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.
AUG
About the Author: