Fourteen Years Later

"Shame cannot survive being spoken. It cannot survive empathy." - Brene Brown

 Fourteen years ago tomorrow, I embarked on what I thought was going to be an adventure of a lifetime. I was going abroad to to study in Greece for six months, a country in which I had spent many summers and had countless great memories and a lot of wonderful family. Every ounce of me was ready for this trip. This was the first time I would not be living under my parents roof, I would be surrounded by new people and new opportunities. In my mind, this was my opportunity to discover life and to discover myself.

Unfortunately, I had started losing myself even before I ever boarded the plane. For a year or two prior to this, I was on a slow but slippery slope to anorexia. When I arrived in Greece, instead of finding myself, I lost the last of everything and everyone I could relate too and turned to the one thing that was still with me, my eating disorder.

Five months and 40 pounds later, my mom and sister came to bring me home. They saved me even though at that time, I don't know if I really wanted to be saved. I went through the motions of recovery but as I sit here writing this, I know I am not recovered. I buried my past, pushed through, worked hard and accomplished everything I had envisioned for my life - school, good job, husband, house, beautiful kids, etc. But even with all this, I still feel like a piece of me is missing. And I know this piece of me is the piece I hide deep inside yet is present in everything I do and everything I am.

The upcoming posts will be me writing out the journal I kept throughout those five months. The journal I put in a closet when I came home and have not opened up since. This writing was filtered because I was scared of anyone ever realizing what was really going on in my thoughts. Throughout this process, I am going to try to tap into some of the unwritten thoughts and feelings. My hope is that by owning my story and speaking my shame, I can truly put the past behind me.