By the time I graduated from high school, I had a full-blown food addiction. (This addiction was never formally diagnosed; however, it is the only way I know of to describe my thoughts and behaviors at that time.) My daily routine, as I mentioned before, was to restrict food all day until after I got home from school, at which point I would go completely overboard. I would still eat breakfast and lunch, but just smaller-than-normal serving sizes. I would sometimes hide in a handicapped bathroom stall at school during my lunch break and eat my lunch there because I was ashamed to eat in front of other people.
I usually walked or rode my bike to school to help burn excess calories from the binge eating I did each night. 

Every day I would tell myself, "I'm going to eat normally today." Every day, I would break that promise to myself. 

Another way I got rid of excess calories was by joining track. I had been in basketball and figure skating before the eating disorder really grabbed hold of me, and then I dropped out of everything in 10th grade. When I got to 11th grade, track seemed like a good option for me- not too physically interactive with less likelihood of getting injured, but I could still burn a lot of calories. That was pretty much the main of goal of each day- burn a lot of calories. Deep down, I knew I would end up bingeing, so I always had Plan B in mind to make sure I could negate all the food intake by exercising a lot.

Even though I was at a healthy weight for my height and structure, it was the biggest I had ever been in my life. All I could see was misshapen, gross limbs and too much fat. It all came down to too much fat.

I graduated in May 2002, and spent that summer, you guessed it, restricting, bingeing, exercising. And repeat. A lot of the details of this period of my life are gone, and I don't have very many distinct memories. Maybe that will come back eventually. One thing is very clear to me though, that I was living a lie, which is probably why my memories aren't distinct.  I lied to myself and tried to be happy. I lied to my parents each time they would ask about missing food. "I only had a couple muffins," I would say, knowing full well that I had eaten about 20. (I have since asked their forgiveness for that episode, and it was just one of many.) Same story, different baked goods. They just kind of called to me with their sugary, buttery denseness, and I used them to fill up the emptiness inside.  I lied all the time, then felt extremely guilty about lying, and then turned the guilt into exercising and eating. Not a good plan.

I had entered into various states of fantasy/unreality/escapism early on in my life, often escaping into my imagination to make life more interesting. By the time I was 16, I spent the majority of my day off in space. I would often have full conversations with my former psychologist, finding comfort in what I imagined she would say if I were to talk to her. "Unhealthy" probably doesn't begin to describe that behavior.

Another unhealthy coping mechanism I embraced was yoga. I had gotten a gym membership during my 11th grade year to a women's health club near my house. Like all good, American gyms, this one also advertised idol worship performed to rhythmic beats in rooms with hot temperatures, which is more-widely known as yoga. (The postures and poses are done in adoration to false gods, which I did not know at the time.)  At the time, I was looking for anything to heal my body and my mind. The church I was going to didn't seem to offer healing, the Bible I believed in and read talked about healing, and I wrongly concluded that must include everyone but me.
When I did yoga, I am not going to lie- I actually felt well. I felt whole, like what I thought it must be like to be healed. I felt the best I had in years. I say all that not to endorse yoga, or any variation of it; I say all that to say that there is a reason why it is so enticing. It is not all smoke and mirrors. There is a spiritual reality in it that brings strength through illegal means. I wanted to feel strong again, and for the first time in what seemed like a really long time, I felt strong.  My best advice now would be to never engage in yoga, never practice it, never participate in it.  The truth is when I am weak, then He is strong. I had spiritually opened a door into my life that I had not intended to open. It seemed so harmless at the time.

I guess that kind of defined my life from that point on- I was on a qwest for healing. It led me down a lot of damaging paths, but ultimately led me down a few paths that ending up saving my life. It also led me down the slippery slope of New Age religion and ideals. It initially led me into greater deception. All the while in my heart, I was screaming for the Lord's help. I knew He could help me. I was really busy trying to help myself though, and I think He was waiting for me to become so exhausted that I would finally collapse and He could speak to me in the silence of the exhaustion.

It took several more years for that breaking point to come. So maybe by the next post I'll get to my first post-high-school stop on the journey. :)