My name is Rebecca and I have a lot of passions. Of course I have everything you see on Middle Women, but I am also a philanthropic event planner geared toward promoting sustainability. I have a lot of wonderful and supportive friends. I have a really close family and my mother is one of my best friends. I am a nerdfighter and I have found a great sense of belonging within that community. I want you to know that these things have not always been true, but they are right now. I always want you to know that life isn’t easy and I am not trying to sell you some solution. In accordance with what it is that I am attempting to accomplish, namely inspiring an understanding and acceptance one’s body and the ultimately peace and happiness that can accompany this state, I feel that it is important to share my personal story with my followers alongside the images that I hope represent my goal. Whether it is a recollection of a previous event or an attempt at articulating meaningful insight out of an event or emotion I am presently experiencing, I do not intend to hold anything back. I hope that my you all can learn more about me and in time possibly grow to respect and trust me. I want nothing more than to offer my help in any way that I can but as you know it is very difficult to reach you when there is little chance that I may ever even hear your voice. I am more than my story of depression and anorexia, but that is an important part of me as well.
At age 16 while battling with depression, a stressful home life, school, and feeling as if everything in my life was out of my control, I could always say no to food. The less you eat, the less you have to eat until your brain and stomach just seem to stop communicating. I became addicted to the sense that I was in control of something and no one could do anything to stop me. I always thought that if it ever got too bad, a doctor would help me.
At age 18 after five days of eating less than 400 calories a day my mother had to take me to a hospital because I couldn’t get out of bed. When the doctors finally spoke to me they kept trying to trick me to admit that I was anorexic or bulimic, by asking me if I had negative body image, which I didn’t. It was all about stress and control, which they didn’t understand. They told me that most of America today eats too much, but I was eating too little. Their solution was for me to get on a healthy diet. If I could do that then I would be fine. That’s when it hit me; if I could take it so far that I had to go to the emergency room and still I didn’t get help, then I had to stop. I had to make myself eat. So, I did.
I am 21 now and I didn’t have another episode until events in Nash Hall triggered me again back in April 2012. It wasn’t the event that did it, it was the councilors reminding all of us that we needed to take care of ourselves and we needed to eat. That was the day after Middle Women was launched. For three weeks following these events I struggled with memories of my old habits. I had never gotten back to what you might call “normal” and the stress of the situation showed me how much more recovery I needed. I rarely actually felt hungry and when I ate, I never got full because I couldn’t stand the feeling.
It’s been three months since I wrote the statement above and I have made a lot of progress. It started by waking up every morning before I went to work and having breakfast. I also went to a doctor about my digestion problems and a dietitian who told me that I wasn’t eating too little, that most of the people around me might be eating too much. That made me feel a lot less guilty.
I eat when I am hungry and I don’t eat when I am not. I get full when I have a meal. They seem like small facts, but they are huge to me!