Athletes and Eating Disorders: Invisible Victories by Whitney Ladd Post

Victorious Plan

One of the greatest things about sports is that it provides incredible structure.  You are contained by the present workout, the training plan, the coach’s constant evaluation of you.  You are held in a construct that tells you how to act and what is valued and what you need to do next.  If you fail or fall short, effort and hard work are always there to hold your hand and pick you back up.  In the world of athletics, trying harder, focusing more, and performing are the pathways to reward.  So many of life’s little messes, setbacks and failures can be addressed with an improvement plan.  Without realizing it, I found this profoundly comforting and recreated such “plans” even when not in competitive athletics.

For many many years in life this is how I would pick myself up – with a plan.  A try-harder plan.  There was the weight to be lost or the fashion to improve, the job to get better at, the side project to complete, the social life to beef up, the fun activity to organize.  I believed sadness or disappointment could be alleviated by a flutter of activity meant to improve myself and my life. 

These “reaction plans” of mine involved two main things.  One, it meant a lot of effort and gearing myself up, discipline and follow through.  Two, it made the assumption that I was in control – that my effort was the missing ingredient to happiness and success at all times and that just isn’t true.   But the more I lived reacting to life’s lows with a plan, the more I reinforced the belief that it was merely a lack of effort on my part that had caused the low.

Now that I live a life that is more grounded, organized and satisfying I still have times where I feel sad or overwhelmed.  I still want to come up with a plan to get myself out of it.  But I have found that one form of a plan is to trust that what I am feeling will change, that this feeling or state is not a jail cell, but something passing through.  I can plan my escape or just be more accepting of my feelings and know that much of the time they are transient.  I don’t have to muscle my way to the other side of every normal dip in life. 

So sometimes the victorious plan involves action, taking concrete steps, and involves a big effort on my part.  But I have learned that despite my years of training in athletics that believes a vigorous, effortful plan is always the answer,  that there is a plan B of waiting it out, and that is just as victorious.  

 

Looking Back

So this week I launched a website for an organization I've been building for two years.  The organization is called The Eating For Life Alliance and is focused on providing educational resources on the treatment and prevention of eating disorders to colleges.  The work is in many ways a response to my own experience of having an eating disorder when I was in college.  In addition to over 60 pages of information on topics such as the transition to college, athletes and eating disorders, how to help a friend, there is a section written by women in recovery on what it was like to have an eating disorder in college.  I wrote one of them and wanted to share it with you here.  

What was it like having bulimia in college?

It wasn’t like my eating disorder came totally out of the blue. There had been the high school guidance counselor who pulled me aside and asked if everything was OK with my eating. She perhaps had seen me running around the school’s lengthy perimeter - over and over and over again. Or perhaps she noticed that I never went to lunch - something I deemed indulgent and a waste of time (also then I didn’t have to worry about there not being friends to sit with). But I was clueless at the time and told her earnestly that I was fine. Then there was the summer of standing for many long minutes in the bathroom stall after a meal that felt too big - trying to gear myself up to get rid of it.

But somehow when that first care package arrived my freshman year it seemed like a really good idea to eat the whole thing at once, and since I was so weight conscious it seemed that there was no choice but to do what I had heard other women do - go to the bathroom and get rid of it. It was a terrible experience! I was scared…this was what people called eating disorders. I promptly made an appointment at the counseling office at the school the very next day. A kind woman met with me for the requisite eight sessions. She did not understand eating disorders and looked at me with compassion and confusion. Her counsel did not help. Despite my intense fear of the behavior - I couldn’t seem to stop. I always did it reluctantly, always dreading the whole thing. But there was a lot going on at home - my parents were headed for divorce, my mom was recovering from breast cancer, and I was ill equipped to deal with my feelings. Bulimia became my tormentor and my friend at the same time.

Life in college was a pretty narrow experience for me. I was passionately dedicated to a sport that empowered me and also colluded with my eating disorder, as exercise became a large part of how I managed my binges and my weight. Looking back I gave up opportunities to join clubs, go abroad, involve myself with new activities. People I am still friends with tell me I was hard to get to know, friendly but stand off-ish. I focused on managing my sport, my shame, my secret, my weight, my anxiety, my sadness, and my loneliness. I kept thinking I would stop - but I never could. I thought people wouldn’t like me or trust me if they knew about it, and so I hid my disorder. And when I graduated - despite the million attempts to stop - I took my disorder along with it’s shame, anxiety, and depression.

To the college students who are still struggling:
Bulimia was for me a terrible way to go through life and it lasted for almost two decades. It was not a solution. I was trying so hard to feel OK and to feel pretty in my body, and I never did. I always felt like my tightly wrapped exterior was about to unravel. And it only got worse. The sense of secrecy and shame compounded over time and really altered and took away from my relationships, dreams and ambitions, and daily happiness. And from what I have seen and experienced, it is really hard to get better without outside help. If there are people out there who have done it, I haven’t met them. To a young person struggling in college today, I would say seek help. If you think bulimia is not a big deal - if you think it is something you can do casually and not have it affect your mental, emotional, physical health - you are not correct. Bulimia is not OK and you deserve to be free of it. I would say seek help and don’t stop until you get the right help. Talk to folks at your school, talk to your parents if you can. There are many resources available today, and there is a difference between help and the right help. Keep looking until you find what you need and let others assist you. You are worth it.

By Whitney Post