Thinspiration - Not!

I am a recovered anorexic and I cannot begin to tell you how much that means to me.

It put me in prison for 5 years (or perhaps more if you count those initial stages). No, I don’t mean literally. Albeit a mental one, it was no different from being locked in physically and perhaps worse. No day, hour, minute or even second goes by without my obsessing over what I should not eat. I would drift off from conversations simply because I had to count the calories I had consumed that day. If I fell below target, I would be moody and lose interest in the conversation and pondered at length what I should not eat to make up for it.

It was difficult falling asleep at night because it was too painful to lie on either side or on my back; I would toss and turn trying to find a spot where it wouldn’t hurt so much from the bones coming into contact with the bed. I would look into the mirror and see my collarbone and ribs protruding so prominently, yet I did not see what was wrong. I would wake up each morning hating the day ahead because it spelt long hours of efforts not to eat; of trying to fight that hunger; of hanging on for that bit longer till the hunger passes by. I would feel unclean if I ate what I thought was too much; I grade the day according to how much food I consume – if I ate below 1,000 calories, that day was perfect! Sweet and rosy; although it gave me moments of fainting spells, it was simply worth it. I would feel light and clean and most importantly, thin.

I could think of nothing every day but food; not how gloriously blessed I am to be able to eat at will if I wanted to; not how wonderfully crunchy those French fries might have tasted if I would just bite into them; but how I could not, should not, must not eat. It was hell, it was torture and it was nothing short of a physical prison. I was constantly in a state where I felt I could tear my mind apart just so I could stop thinking about food. I hated myself. I wanted to die; I contemplated death; I was desperate to get to a place where I could just stop thinking about food. I got thinner and thinner and then very very terribly thin, falling below 40 kg (about 88 lb) at one point. I lost my period for a year. I was very very ill, falling so sick I had to admit myself to the hospital several times, and the doctors could not tell what was wrong with me. They say it was my lymph nodes (which for some reason became very swollen) and I had to go for several rounds of injections and consultations, and nobody really knew what was going on inside of me. I was alone in a foreign country. I had to go to school every day, go through those lectures and tutorials and eventually take exams. With my then body and mind, I was in no state to do so.

Fear gnawed increasingly at me. So I did my research, desperately 'googling' on the medical condition, anorexia nervosa (abbreviated as anorexia). Through the websites and books, it was obvious that I had it. Anorexia is not funny – it has been used very loosely to refer to the hordes of teenage girls trying to lose weight. That’s not what it is – it starts that way though; slowly but surely it begins as an innocent weight-losing grand scheme and develops to a full-blown psychiatric condition that eats you alive, and you won't even realise it till it's hit you.

My best friend (whom we shall call K) was the one who shook me up. It was as if I was lost in this world of food and self-imposed deprivation, losing touch of the world around me. K was and is and I know will always be my beloved dearest friend, without whom I would have literally died in the hands of this disease. K was the one who alerted me (after many, many, many failed attempts) that I had a problem and I need to first recognise it before I could walk out.

So it began, the long hours of conversations that K and I had. K told me I had to seek God, the Lord Jesus Christ in whom I could walk out of this valley of the shadow of death. I was then a Christian but a year away from home and the comfort of the home church had somewhat shaken my faith and I had drifted very far from Him. I no longer did my quiet time daily and I no longer leaned on Him each day nor trusted Him in each decision I make. I began to pray so hard each day; I told the Lord that I could not do this anymore, that everyday was a huge struggle and I felt I could never come out of this mental jail, that I was always thinking about food, that if I so much as ate a packet of potato chips, I would feel so dirty and guilty those thoughts could almost kill me. I prayed to God to bring me out of this; I told Him that I really needed His help and His Holy Spirit to get me out of this very dark place in which I was suffocating.

I would not say it happened overnight, but deliverance came. Praise the Lord: Months later, it came. Recovery was staggered and at times I would lapse into the ‘I need to eat less’ state but my dearest friend K would remind me that I should not go there again. I did not seek professional help nor took any medicine.

I want to give full credit to my Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, for healing me completely. It took a pretty long time and much heartache and literal pain, but I am very excited and pleased to tell the world that my Lord Jesus Christ healed me. To an unbeliever, it might sound strange – how can your God heal you just like that, without any medicine or psychiatric help? That is my Lord for you. Nothing is impossible with God. I did not believe, I must admit, that I could ever walk out of this. Time and again, I have doubted that God could help me. Yet time and again, despite my unbelief, the Lord Jesus has gently shown me that I was wrong.

So today, I want to shout and sing of His goodness, of His sovereignty and most of all of His Love. He loves you - and Jesus wants to heal you of any illness, any disease you thought it was impossible for Him to heal. If you are a believer but somehow had come across setbacks in your life, I want to share with you to Keep Knocking On His Door. It took me many months of constant knocking and seeking and seeking and knocking before deliverance came (think the parable of the widow who would never give up). The Lord loves you, so don’t you ever forget that.
:)

with blessings from above,

claire.