Pharma Doesn't Make You a Phony

I hope that no potential employers are reading this, because If you were to ask me how I got to a place where recovery was even an option for me, I would say a big contributor was drugs…  

(How about that for good intro hooks!)

No, not the kind they warn you about in health class….

When my doctor first recommended I take antidepressants the first time, I felt a little like this…

Cue the stereotypes!

           “Antidepressants?”

          

“Those are only for, like, crazy people though…”

“Aren’t those for people who are suicidal?”

“They just make people, and their emotions, fake…”

             While I didn’t have those exact thoughts, I did have extremely troubling thoughts surrounding the idea of taking a drug that would affect my brain chemistry.  After all, I was somebody who had negative opinions of antidepressants and agreed that America was a concerningly overprescribed nation during a class debate.  That is– until they helped me…  

When asked if I would be willing to go on antidepressants for the first time, it was only months after my Dad died.  On the doctor’s questionnaire that asks how many days you feel hopeless, fatigued, and better off dead– you know, the one that looks a little like this?  

I scored the maximum amount.  Life was too painful and hopeless.  I hated being alive. I found no enjoyment in anything anymore, and the only way I could get through the day was by distracting myself with whatever means possible to prevent myself from thinking about my new reality– life without my Dad and the trauma that now haunts me.   

It just so happened that during this time we were reading The Catcher in the Rye in english class–a book about a lonely and rebellious teenager named Holden Caulfield who is depressed and had previously endured the death of his younger brother (unfortunate similarities with such horrible timing).  In a class discussion, the question “Should Holden seek treatment and do you think medication would be beneficial?” was posed.  One of my classmates responded by using Holden’s all-too-famous word, saying “I think Holden taking medication would make him a phony...”  This is by no means a reflection of the student, but a reflection of society as a whole and its’ treatment towards mental health.  The words echoed in my head and undoubtedly added to the struggles I was having to take any steps to improve my mental health.

         
Eventually, I agreed to take medication, but was fearful of the effects it could have on me.  Not only the listed potential side effects that seem to go on forever, including: weight gain, anxiety, insomnia, nausea, tremors, and headaches, but I worried “would it make me fake?” Would it just cover up all of my emotions and cause me to be giddy and happy all of the time?  That was the last thing I wanted honestly as I felt a conflicting combination of not being ready nor wanting to be okay, but also not being able to go on as I was.  

Antidepressants fall into several different categories, all working in slightly different ways, but all with the purpose of treating disorders like anxiety, depression, and bipolar disorder to list a few.  The most commonly prescribed of these categories are referred to as SSRIs (Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors). They work by increasing levels of serotonin– a neurotransmitter responsible for stabilizing mood– in the brain.   Low serotonin levels are believed to be responsible for both anxiety and depression (along with many more disorders), therefore my doctor expected me to have a decrease in anxiety, which, in turn would allow me to work on coping and help the depression.  However, after a month of being on the prescription, my anxiety skyrocketed like never before as a side effect.  The simplest of things like deciding what to have for breakfast or thinking about the one commitment I had during the weekend left me with debilitating anxiety.

             

              So I stopped taking the pills.

             Since it had only been a short time of trying and I had been on such a low dose of the drug, nobody was overly concerned that I had stopped.  I wasn’t willing to try anything else afterwards fearing that I would have similar side effects.  But after a year without any improvement in my mental health and with a new primary care doctor, I started on a new medication after having panic attacks that lasted for days.  I’m talking blurry vision, palpitating heart beats, shortness of breath, nausea, and a general feeling that I would pass out or die constantly (super fun, right?).  Within a couple of months of being on the new drug, my general anxiety as well as my anxiety surrounding food had improved.  It was both a relief, and terrifying.  After all, I didn’t really know who I was without an eating disorder.  Anorexia has shaped my entire teenage life and most of my memories.  At first, the more I ate of the foods that had been previously off limits to me, the more I wanted to go back to the eating disorder… I didn’t know what this new future would lead to, whereas I had control with the eating disorder.  I actually wanted to regain some of the anxiety that I had been so comfortable with, going to show just how powerful eating disorders are when it comes to rationality and control.  

Unfortunately, pills aren’t magic, so where I wanted recovery to straight from point A to point B, it went more like this...  

While medicine can help you get to a place where working on recovery is possible, nobody really tells you that once you get there, there’s work that needs to be done to develop skills and mechanisms to keep up the positive growth.

It can be challenging to watch somebody transition mentally and emotionally as a result of taking medication.  It can be frustrating seeing somebody act in a way that you are not used to or are confused by.  Medication is supposed to change behavior, that is the whole purpose!  But it can still be hard to convince oneself that the individual taking the medication is still their same self instead of an artificial version induced by a drug.  I have been on both sides of the equation, both watching others act differently and also being that person.  There are days I would feel absolutely numb, days I would feel drunk on happiness, laughing at everything for no reason, days that I would feel so down that I don’t get off of the couch, and everything in between.  It takes a long time for your brain to figure out what the heck is going on!  As hard as it might be to watch somebody during this transitional stage, it is exponentially harder to be that person having to go through all of the frustrating effects.  That being said, it is crucial to allow somebody to be on a medication that they need without giving uninformed input because you may be a confused or frustrated.  The fact is, many people are not educated about how these types of drugs work, and this lack of understanding increases the stigma behind taking a pill that could potentially save somebody’s life.  

I think it’s also important to let others know that,  between side effects and unfamiliar changes, not everything that comes along with taking medication is sunshine and rainbows.  For a while I was on too high of a dosage and before I was able to put the puzzle pieces together, I started failing classes, lost all my motivation in running, and had all of my emotions sucked out of me.  I was frustrated with myself to the point of tears constantly and felt like I was no longer a capable person.  It sucked for many-a-reasons, but what made it that much harder was that I couldn’t explain to people that I was struggling in school and track because I was taking a tiny pill that hugely affected some portions of my life in order to work on improving other portions, a.k.a., my mental health–something much more important than getting good grades or running fast times…

It can be a long hard journey to find what works for you, but the good thing is, as long as you are on the correct medication, the benefits should eventually outweigh the drawbacks.  After starting on medication, I began talking to people again, I laughed with friends, I stopped feeling so impulsive and controlling, and I was able to relax.  Antidepressants are all about trial and error, so talk with your doctor until you find the correct medicine and dosage and talk to any family members that have had success or failure on a specific medication (that’s what I had to do) because there is something out there that can help you.  

In the end, if taking something or doing something that is safe helps you, by all means you 

should do it.  If wrapping an ankle makes you feel less pain– wrap it!  If drinking Emergen-C helps 

your cold feel better– drink it!  Taking a medication doesn’t mean you are any less “normal” or 

“messed up” than somebody who doesn’t take a medication.  We don’t think any less of people 

who take medication for high blood pressure so we shouldn’t about anybody taking any other 

medication that is just as necessary.  Some bodies don’t make enough insulin, others don’t make 

enough of certain neurotransmitters, and if we aren’t worried that taking insulin makes diabetics 

“fake” or “abnormal”, there’s no need to do so about any other type of medication.  At least, as far 

as I know, I’m no phony– I’m still Sara.

Does This Filter Make my Life Look Good?

By the looks of this photo, I guess you could say that my dog and I are “#Goals”.  I mean, just look at how photogenic we are!  

Sadly, it’s not the whole story...

Okay, fine.  The secret’s out.  Asha (my dog) didn’t reflexively lick my face upon lying down.  She first pawed my face repeatedly, then proceeded to become utterly disinterested in my presence before I practically forced her to lick my face to get the cute picture I was determined to capture (It’s not as weird as it sounds, I swear.  Actually on second thought….)  Photos show a brief screenshot in time, most of the time not an authentic screenshot either, rather an exceptional moment that can create an illusion of having a deceivingly good time.  With the expanding and evolving use of technology and social media, it is crucial that we are aware of these illusions–not only for our sake and sanity–but for those scrolling through the feeds as well.   In a world where one has to blatantly declare that their picture is not edited (#nofilter, am I right?) and our perceived self worth can be influenced by the number of likes we receive on a post, the only question one must ask before posting is “Does this make my life look good?”

That was a lot of heavy content and word vomit, so I’ll slow things down.   

My intent is not to say how much time people are spending on their screens now-a-days; how we’re “missing out on the 'real' world", or how the blue-light on our phone is destroying humanity.  Being somebody that checks my phone first thing in the morning and last thing right before bed, that would be hypocritical.  In our free time in between classes and meetings, or unwinding after a long day, why wouldn’t we scroll through social media?  Our feeds are full of people or topics that we choose to follow because we’re interested in them!  They’re full of beautiful people and inspirational captions, funny comments and replies, and the newest dramatic stories and subtweets.  It’s entertaining, it’s amusing, and–most of all–it’s simply not realistic…

Scrolling through vacation photos deciding which to post, we opt for the most attractive, tanned, swimsuit-clad versions of ourselves, laughing, while coincidentally placed in front of a beautiful sunset on the beach.  We choose the pristine mountain top view of wide-open land, captioning it “The Mountains are Calling, and I Must Go”.  After a night out with friends, it’s the picture perfect moment of everybody smiling joyously while embracing that we share.  It’s the “candid” photos that we pretend we had no idea was being taken, yet happen to be conveniently placed in front of the beautifully graffitied wall while wearing an outfit that looks straight out of a clothing catalog.  Nobody cares about the average sandwich you ate for lunch, but the gourmet coffee with the fun-foam-top aside a warm croissant? Awww, yeah! We announce the colleges we decide on, our engagement, the newest family puppy, where we are traveling to next, and the experience you had today that was “such a great time….”  We’re fed the notion that sharing the positive spreads positivity, so it seems we should be sharing these photos and moments that show us feeling confident and joyful.  But what we fail to acknowledge is that these examples make up about 99% of what we see online, but only represent about 5% of our true experiences, giving false illusions about our lives…

Where are the pictures and updates of us sitting in the airport waiting for our delayed flight?  Or the talk about sitting in the car for 20+ hours on a road trip?  After all, it’s a pretty big component of road trips.  Where are the pictures of us in our 7:45 class attire– the sweatpants that accompanied us to bed topped off with sloppy hair to match­?  Don’t worry, I’m not going to act like I’m an exception when it comes to the game of social media.  I enhance and tweak my photos to get my intended fairytale-esque quality.  I go outside on particularly beautiful evenings solely to catch the fluorescent sky and breathtaking tranquility of the dusk.  I don’t talk about how anticlimactic the trip to Washington D.C. actually was and how my parents threatened to find a flight home if us kids didn’t at least act like we were having fun.  No way!  I show the pictures of us in front of the monuments, smiling like everybody would expect!

            As humans, we tend not to share the ordinary, but the extraordinary. We want others to see our grand experiences, resulting in, well, everybody else feeling like crap… With the expansion of social media use comes an increasing number of studies attempting to determine the effect social media has on our well-being. A recent study from the University of Scheffield has shown that spending just one hour a day on social media reduces young people's satisfaction and happiness in life up to 14%[1]. The Guardian also recently posted an article giving evidence from a survey of nearly 1,500 individuals aged 14-24 regarding social media use and which forms of social media have the most negative impact on wellbeing. Based on fourteen different criteria, including "effect on sleep, anxiety, depression, loneliness, self-identity, bullying body image and fear of missing out [FOMO]" the survey revealed the apps that had the most negative effects were (...drumroll please!) Instagram and Snapchat[2]… Personally, this doesn’t surprise me, and I have had to delete both of these apps multiple times because of the negative effect they had on my well-being. Seeing vacation photo after vacation photo while going about our daily routine can make it seem like we are wasting our lives day-in and day-out while everybody else is out there “experiencing life” (whatever that means)…. Being bombarded with pictures of friends together can make us feel excluded, that we don’t spend enough time with friends, or that we don’t have as many friends (which, okay, fine, for me might be true, but that’s not the point). For somebody struggling with depression, this can lead to feeling even more isolated and alone, worsening the trap created by the brain of needing a way out of their pain, but having no means or motivation of doing so.  It’s nice to see quotes that say “Just Breathe” to remind the anxious mind to take a moment to relax, but seeing this alongside the accomplishments and experiences that others are posting about can make the brain go 1000 miles per hour, causing individuals to think about what they need to be doing, what they haven’t done, what they should have done, why they suddenly have a strange pain in their arm­­– oh god, it must be a heart attack!  Oh wait, it’s gone… Wait, it’s back… (But at least I know how to breathe, am I right?)  To the general public, seeing the beautiful, (most likely edited), photos of individuals with toned bodies and perfect poses to enhance their...“assets” can cause feelings of inadequacy and beliefs that we aren’t doing enough when it comes to our bodies or our health; that we’re not as beautiful or fit as everybody else nor ever will be.  To somebody with an eating disorder, these “perfect” bodies often become a goal body to attain, and then attempt to surpass, while food photos become a game of “who can eat better/healthier/less”…

Don’t get me wrong, social media isn’t total evil, there are really positive things that can come out of it as well!  For example, catching up with friends, informing yourself on news and information that you care about and makes you feel hopeful regarding the world, and watching good youtube videos.  After all, nothing calms me down like watching satisfying “Tasty” videos.  But even acknowledging all of these positives, the majority of what we see everyday is not benefiting our well-being, but rather leading to feelings of inadequacy and hopelessness.  My message throughout all of this is, that, what you post can have a negative effect on others, and you can’t predict whether your post about receiving an honorable scholarship or award might trigger somebody to feel as bad about themselves as you feel proud.  If you are somebody who struggles with the impulse of constantly checking your feeds despite knowing they make you feel crummy, try deleting the apps that are causing you angst and see how it affects your mental health.  It can be surprising to find out how little you miss the apps when you do this.

            Understanding how social media affects mental health is a very new concept that is just beginning to be studied. But by being conscious about what we post, what posts we look at, or if we even decide scroll through our feeds, we have the choice whether or not to make our mental health a priority or to become a statistic... It’s okay to feel happy, it’s okay to feel confident, but it’s not okay to gloat about or sugar-coat your life and experiences for the pure purpose of getting likes. Be real, and be honest with yourself about your experiences–not only for others’ sake–but for your own. Believe it or not, there is a lot of benefit from acknowledging the unpleasant and lackluster in life. It can be a breath of fresh air not to hold oneself accountable for taking an amazing photo or live each moment wondering if this was the perfect experience to share on facebook or tell your friends about next time you see them. People won’t unfollow you if you don’t share every croissant you eat, if you share an unedited photo of yourself, or if you don’t add every time you are with your friends to your snapstory, it will only benefit others… Think about it this way– humans are a lot like drinking water– we’re all the same on a molecular level, some are just choosing to be Fiji water with beautiful packaging while others are content with simply coming straight out of the tap. In a world where you have the choice, choose to be tap water– it’s cost free, and more importantly, there’s no damage being done to the world by the fancy plastic bottles. I’m choosing to be tap water, and low and behold, I’m still Sara.

[1]McDool, Emily and Powell, Philip and Roberts, Jennifer and Taylor, Karl, Social Media Use and Children's Wellbeing. IZA Discussion Paper No. 10412. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2886783.

[2]Campbell, Denis. "Popular Social Media Sites 'harm Young People's Mental Health'." The Guardian. Guardian News and Media, 18 May 2017. Web. 20 May 2017.

Don't Cry Over Filled Milk

 

 
Posting this is terrifying…

Like, I was driving home from Madison by myself on a mild March day not too soon after getting my license when mother nature decided to unleash a spontaneous snowstorm.  Before gathering awareness of the elements, I fish tailed off of the road.  After regaining control, I continued to drive at a measly 15 mph on the highway, but kept losing traction and decided it wasn’t worth it to keep going.  I pulled into a side road–fully prepared to sleep in my car for the night–just as an ambulance came roaring by with its sirens blaring soon followed by an oncoming car spinning completely off of the road.  The trip took three extra hours, but I eventually made it home crying tears of relief as I pulled into our driveway; feeling thankful that I was alive.  

Posting this is still scarier…

Once on a long run in the quiet countryside I was threatened to be shot at by a man inside of his house for no reason at all as I passed by.  I never saw him, and he didn’t follow through with the threat (thankfully), but my pace picked up drastically and I was paranoid of every car that came up behind me for the next 10 miles.  

Posting this is still scarier… (okay, maybe only in hindsight)

The thought of sharing this seven year account of my mental health was impossible even two months ago.  It was still a large open wound–bleeding and painful with every step.  Recently, though, in these first couple months of 2017 I have reached a place in which I am able to share this information.  The wound is still far from healed, but I have at least found a band-aid to reduce the danger and vulnerability of it.

Most of my life has been dictated by mental illness.  This is something I have never shared with people and have largely tried to deny to myself.  I’ve always been a proponent of breaking the stigma of mental illness, but I’ve never actively done anything to contribute to the cause, which is part of the reason behind my writing this; however, part of me also feels narcissistic in doing so.  After all, I’m an 18 year old who has grown up in the beautiful midwest with a great family and, in many ways, has been very fortunate and privileged.  Apart from the past couple of years, I haven’t experienced an overly challenging upbringing, I don’t have an inspirational miracle story, nor do I possess the enlightening words of the Dalai Lama.  So why should anybody read this?  Well, heck, I don’t know!  Maybe you’ll finish reading and think you just wasted a bunch of time, like when you look up that odd stomach pain you’ve been having on the internet, and before you know it you somehow ended up watching multiple “try not to laugh, I dare you” videos, put $70 worth of clothes you probably won’t buy into an online shopping cart, and are convinced you have appendicitis or should have been dead a week ago…  I’m just saying…   All I know is, that when I was younger, I needed to know that I wasn’t alone…  That somebody else was struggling like me who could tell me I wasn’t crazy…  I want to share my experience not only to be cathartic, but to give people another narrative to look to if they are going through similar struggles.  I hope to be that person I needed for so many years to say “you are not alone, you aren’t as crazy as you think you are, and it’s okay to not be okay.”

Alright, enough with the suspense and wonder as to what secrets Sara Brekke has kept hidden all this time…  Well, in sixth grade, at the way too young of age of 12, I was diagnosed with an eating disorder–anorexia nervosa to be specific.  A disease that causes its’ victims to have an extreme fear of gaining weight and intense anxiety over food (it’s much more complicated than that, but that’s my stereotypical answer for now).  Looking at my cousins who are this age today, I am nauseated to think that I was that young during the height of the illness.  What started as a conscious reduction of the amount I was eating in order to compensate for cross country ending led me to being in the doctor’s office only four months later and 20 pounds underweight with a resting heart rate of 32 beats per minute…  My fingers were purple with a lack of blood flow, I shivered in 70 degree weather with long sleeves on, my hair began to fall out, and I could see bones that most people don’t even know reside in their body.  I was in a very dangerous situation, being told multiple times that my heart was at risk of stopping and that inpatient care was in my future.  I was medically banned from all physical activity, leaving me on the sidelines in gym class and track, and my new routine consisted of seeing my primary care doctor, a nutritionist, and a therapist each week.  When asked why I missed so much school and why the school’s top distance runner couldn’t do track I would answer with “There’s something wrong with my heart,” which wasn’t entirely false, but also nowhere near the truth.  

Each day I came home from school, went to my bed, and cried.  I was depressed, but I was also angry at everybody and everything:  I was angry with my parents for making me go to the doctors in the first place, I was angry with the doctors for “purposefully wrecking my life” (that’s truly what I believed at the time), I was angry with my friends for not seeming like they cared about me;  but most of all, I was angry with myself and my brain….

For so long I wanted sympathy.  I wanted somebody to comfort me and tell me how sorry they were that I was going through this, but nobody ever reached out.  I believe that, in many ways, mental illness is as–or more–debilitating and painful than many physical ailments or illnesses.  From a young age I have felt as if my brain has been telling me that I’m not worthy of having a happy life.  The illness took away my capability of eating; one of the most basic human functions.  I mean, even babies can do that without anybody telling them how to...  What was the point of living if I was caused misery be something so natural?  Because nobody can see a cast, a bald head, or crutches; things that show visible signs of pain, our society treats mental illness like it may as well not even exist, and god forbid it be talked about.  After all, by now I should probably just get over it– I’m only looking for attention (I hoped you understood that was sarcasm)..  

Before going on, I would like to make some points clear about eating disorders.

-Eating disorders are not reserved for self conscious girls who strive to have a body like those in the magazines.  They affects all genders, races, and ages and don’t need to stem from a desire to be thin.  In fact, I became extremely self conscious of my thinness.  I feared being seen in a swimsuit or sports bra knowing that every vertebrae and rib in my body being visible made me appear more reptilian than human.  To hide my emaciated body, I have worn two pairs of pants and baggy longsleeves to hide my knobby elbows and jutting hipbones.  I did not develop anorexia because of the models in magazines.  I was confident with my body up until sixth grade and ate anything and everything–never giving a second thought about the appearance of my body.  While I do believe that society gives an incredibly detrimental message to young people, females especially, in what their body should look like, a full blown eating disorder for me was a combination of underlying mental illness and these societal ideals.

-There are multiple types of eating disorders, including anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, binge eating disorder, orthorexia, and eating disorders not otherwise specified (EDNOS), so it is almost impossible to assume somebody does or does not have an eating disorder based on their appearance.  Eating disorders don't require the sufferers to be under 80 pounds in order to be considered dangerous.  Every body has a different threshold as to how much stress and malnourishment it can handle before quitting.  You can be a healthy weight and still have an eating disorder just like you can be under or overweight and not have an eating disorder.  There is no direct correlation between body appearance and mental well being.  To give an example, during the early stages after diagnosis while I was restoring my weight, I appeared healthier, but cried for hours on end at home when my mom simply made me drink a glass of 2% milk or Ensure (true story).  

-Eating disorders are commonly a side effect of what else is going on in life, in my case, anxiety.  They are not a choice, and people cannot “catch” an eating disorder.  Anorexia has the highest mortality rate and one of the lowest recovery rates of any mental disorder.  It is a very serious disease that should be treated that way.  The cause of my anorexia was lifelong anxiety and depression, which suddenly manifested itself via an eating disorder.  This took me a long time to figure out and was the root of my frustration with the doctors and why treatment failed for me multiple times.  Even after my Dad died and my weight dwindled with the suffocating grief, during a routine check up at the same hospital my Dad should have been walking into every week for work, my Doctor asked me if I would be open to seeing a nutritionist and therapist for my eating disorder…  The eating disorder wasn’t my main concern at the time, the main concern was trying to convince myself that life was still worth living without my Dad...  

It’s control.  I could control and manipulate my body and what I put into it.  I saw changes, and could predict those changes.  Between the unpredictability of life and the anxiety that had controlled me for so many years, I wanted to take the wheel.  But I didn’t know that my life would crumble as a result…  Every thought and action became consumed by what I would, or moreso, wouldn’t eat.  I stopped spending time with friends because I wouldn’t have control over the food I would be eating outside of my home environment; the reason I am able to count on one hand how many sleepovers I had between sixth grade and sophomore year...  I missed out on the childhood and teenage experiences that I should have had: never having cake on my birthday, never ordering pizza with friends, fearing holidays revolving around food, and on top of that, my disorder dictated what my family was able and unable to do.  Even when you do everything in your abilities to take control of your environment, life has a way of saying “Mmmm, nice try...”.  What started as a confident and proud amount of me controlling my body spiraled into my disorder controlling my every action…

How does running play into this? After all, it’s not a huge shocker.  The typical story of the top runner believing they need to be thinner to run faster, right?  Not in my case...  I did not have an eating disorder because I ran.  In a large way, I ran because I had an eating disorder.  My love for running has always remained and the joy I get from challenging myself and seeing the world through running is something that will never end, but it would be dishonest of me not to say that for much of my career, running turned into a way to burn calories more than to become a better runner.   I now know that I was never running to my full potential because of my low body weight and refusal to fuel my body correctly both daily and before races.  My body wasn’t worried about getting faster and competing, hell, my body was conserving every ounce of energy I gave it just so I could survive.  I have been in denial of this, though…

Me? Na na na…

“I just really want to go for 5 mile runs as my premeet!”

“Yeah, I know we just did 4 miles of speed work and I ran this morning, but I could still really use a three mile cool down…”

Running was, and is, my therapy, but it also turned into a trap.  I ran because I was anxious because I hadn’t run, and I was anxious that I hadn’t run because I was anxious that I would gain weight and lose control of my body without running (try to figure that one out!)  Point is, running both helped and perpetuated my disordered thoughts, something I have been working on changing…

The thing about disordered thoughts is that the person experiencing them doesn’t know that they’re disordered!  That sounds like an obvious statement, but if that’s the case, why do we tell people with eating disorders that “they just need to eat more”? (Derp dee derp.  Huh, thanks for the suggestion, I never thought of that!)  To understand mental illness, one must understand that the brain does a superb job at making incredibly rational and intelligent people act like they got hit in the head with a coconut.  It’s also important to note that the longer somebody goes without being treated, the more and more irrational one becomes and the longer it takes to convince them of otherwise.  Looking back upon some of the beliefs I held about myself, I am only now able to be see how irrationally I was thinking.  

“Just eating a single MnM will make me gain weight and I then I can no longer consider myself ‘healthy’”

“Yes, I know the average person needs upwards of 1800 calories a day, and the average runner upwards of 2200+, but me? I’m not like everybody, (insert number lower than that here) should cut it…”

You cannot ration with somebody who thinks irrationally, you can only try to understand.  These thoughts and beliefs may not leave my mind completely, and I know that I still have a long way to go, but on my road-trip to recovery, I have at least started the engine and gotten on my way.  To reach my destination, I know I will run out of gas, probably blow a tire or two, have to ask a few people for directions, and cry and punch my steering wheel because WHY CAN’T ANYTHING JUST BE SIMPLE?...  Everybody has their challenges and struggles in this world.  It’s important to acknowledge these hardships so we can better our relationships with other people and with ourselves, but it’s even more important to be able to acknowledge these challenges and not view the individuals that may be struggling as lesser than or different than before.  I am still the same person I was at the beginning of this post despite you having this new information.  Knowledge changes.  Beliefs change.  Opinions change.  But in the end, I’m still Sara.