Grandmothers can be free of their eating disorder, too
I am a 64-year-old grandmother enjoying freedom from a long-term eating disorder. I was told from an early age that I was fat, and I did not deserve to eat. I started my first organized group diet around the age of eight. The diet company provided the foods I was allowed to eat and the quantities. They weighed me and announced the amount of weight I had lost or gained in frontof the whole group. I felt humiliated. I lost weight, but the comments about my size kept coming from my dad and my friends, and I continued constant restriction of food.
I wanted approval that I was worthy of love especially from my dad but that never came. By the time I was a teenager I had developed anorexia nervosa. My parents did not believe the diagnosiseven though I had been hospitalized. Most of my adult life I hid my illness from everyone. Iappeared to behave like everyone else – trying the newest diet, talking about how fat I was, participating in the diet culture of the world. Everyone was on a diet, so I did not look out of place.
I became obsessed with losing weight. I cut out fat, I cut out carbs, I cut out meals. I started working out to lose more weight. I felt good. I got positive reinforcement from my family. “Look at Deb, if she can lose the weight, anyone can. It just takes determination.” What they did not know was the extent I was going to lose the weight. Some time in my 50s, after my husband and daughter had left and I was alone with my thoughts and excessive behaviors, I realized I needed help. But 50-year-olds do not have anorexia. It was hard to admit.
I was too fat and too old to have anorexia (or at least this was my thought process). However, this started the rounds in therapy and treatment centers and near-death experiences from not eating enough and working out. I became obsessed with the gym and running because food restriction no longer worked. I would go to treatment and improve, except I hated to gain weight, and would resume eating disorder behaviors within weeks of getting home. This continued for 11 years of outpatient therapy and six treatment center stays of months at a time.
My employer was extremely good to me — I was a highly successful accountant despite my anorexia. Now, I have finally found recovery. I have reached a place where I do not fear food and what it does to my body. I have had to give up my internalized fatphobia and accept that this is where my body wants to be. It has never been easy, but I fight the thoughts every day and push through the fears of being fat and keep going.
I have been out of treatment for three years now. I made major changes in my life and left my hometown and my great job, to avoid the situation that triggered and encouraged my eating disorder behaviors. I loved my job, but I was a workaholic. I moved 2000 miles to be near my daughter and her family. These past three years have not been easy and there have been slips, but now I am free from the constant battle with food and weight.
The best encouragement I can give to anybody – it does not matter how long you have been sick, or how old you are — you can recover. Recovery is possible for all people of all ages and stages in life. I have a better life – I can enjoy my grandchildren and not fear going out with friends because of thinking about what I can eat with them. I no longer think about the calories and the amount of working out I need to do. There’s freedom in recovery. It is available for everyone.
World Eating Disorders Action Day
World Eating Disorders Action Day is taking place across the world on June 2, 2020. For the 5th year running, this grassroots campaign brings together ALL OF YOU from more than 50 countries and over 250 organizations around the globe to increase awareness about EDs and evidence-based treatment. EDs are life threatening, brain-based disorders, with genetic linkages and metabolic factors. They are also possible to treat, especially when identified and treated EARLY.
Join us in sharing the information posted on this page, and the stories we share! We welcome stories of up to 800 words – that help to break stigma by sharing your experiences, and particularly how you have been impacted by, and are coping with the challenges of, COVID19. Also, keep checking the website www.worldeatingdisordersday.org for news of events.
To submit your story for this blog, write to: worldeatingdisorderday@gmail.com and june@junealexander.com
Remember to #StaySafe #StayHome and #ShareYourStory
Debbie Lesko is an eating disorder survivor. She battled an eating disorder for 57 years before finding recovery. She currently runs a page called Diets Don’t Work that is committed to tearing down the lies that diet culture and diets promote. She is passionate about eating disorder prevention and hopes that with with her work she can prevent others from going down the dangerous path of an eating disorder.