Braces, Headgear, and…Eating Disorders?

 I run an online support community called Behind this Mask: there is someone real for MySpace.com - for those of you with an interest in joining, all you need is a free myspace.com account, and you can visit the Key to Life MySpace page  to send me an add request.

Recently - this morning in fact - one of the group members posted about her recovery, and how hard it is to accept her new body shape and size, post-inpatient treatment. I remember (sans the inpatient treatment, of course) this process all too well. And I will tell you, as I told her, that it took a loonnnnnnnggggg time for me to accept my new body shape and size - and it really wasn’t until just recently that I finally achieved the ability to give my poor battered body the support and love it has always deserved.

To be honest, one day here not too long ago I just woke up and - poof! - I was looking at, feeling about, and treating my body totally differently, and seeing it as more beautiful than not, more acceptable than not. One day, all my concentrated years of efforts simply PAID OFF. I am really not kidding (I kind of wish I was so I could give you more factual details of how this would be possible).

But I can only imagine that the same will be true for us all, and have met many people for which this expectation has also held true - it just takes the time it takes to turn the ship around. In the meantime, this is the beauty and the value of building a recovery community for ourselves. We then gain access to constant reminders, from those just a bit (or a lot) farther up the path than we are, of the wonderful relief, release and new life that waits for us up ahead.

In the meantime, as I am sure anyone engaged in sustained recovery work knows, reshaping a lifetime of thoughts and impressions doesn’t happen overnight. You must, just like I did, set your mind and heart on full recovery - no matter what - and accept nothing less than that for yourself. The mental schism between where you are coming from (where death itself might seem a welcome release from the constant painful chatter of the ED mind) and where you are headed (that very same welcome release, through your diligent, daily efforts to achieve recovery) is growing wider and wider.

So grit your teeth and do whatever it takes to bear the transition pangs. Have you ever had braces? I have … and rubber bands, and headgear … man that hurt! For FOUR YEARS! My whole mouth was traumatized. But now those growing pains are a dim memory, and I have a wonderful lifetime’s worth of beautiful, straight teeth yet ahead of me to show for it.

You will, too - if you just KEEP WALKING FORWARD.

Warmly,

Shannon

www.key-to-life.com

The Key to Life: A Beautiful Mind

If you want to know how I healed from my eating disorder, go rent ‘A Beautiful Mind’, starring Russell Crowe. This movie will take you to the depths of the un-recovered places within you, and then bring you back out again, gleaming with hope. I am determined to meet John Nash and his wife Alicia someday and thank them for their courage. Even though I was already well past the worst of my eating disorder by the time the movie came out, watching John’s story helped the fighter in me to finally gain some of the long-overdue recognition I owed her.

I have always maintained that it takes finding your ‘key to life’ (there may be more than one) before true healing becomes accessible. This is because of the mental illness nature of eating disorders - the whispery, amorphous voices inside the head that control us totally, without seeming to bear much influence at all. It is easy to tell ourselves that such quiet voices couldn’t have malicious intent…just like John’s imaginary roommate’s imaginary young niece couldn’t be anything but real - after all, she cried real tears!

So the ‘key to life’ is the battle cry - for me it was my music. The eating disorder affected my health so severely that I had to drop out of music school and give up any hope of a career doing the one thing I loved. So I began to fight for my life when the one thing that mattered to me more than my eating disorder was taken from me - by my eating disorder.

But I was still left with those voices….oh, those voices. The voice that told me I was fat. The voice that told me I deserved to die, and that losing my music was just desserts for the hell I had put everyone around me through. The voice that told me to push all my friends away so that it and I could get closer. The voice that ‘comforted’ me when I was starving, by telling me that it would all be worth it - that I’d see its wisdom, in time.

I never saw. The torture never ceased. In time, I recognized the voice for what it was - an ‘imaginary friend’ that was busy, quietly destroying everything that mattered to me, while it whispered to me and danced before me to keep me distracted from what was really going on.

John learned to wake up. He used his beautiful mind to distinguish the difference between the real and the unreal in his life, and then he used his beautiful heart to choose what mattered most to him and do whatever it took to reclaim his REAL life. We can do the same. I did it. You can too. Watch the movie - learn his story. I promise you will not regret it.

 Warmly,

Shannon

www.key-to-life.com

Song: ‘This Mask’

Click HERE to listen to the blog theme song, ’This Mask’, by Shannon Cutts

Good News!

 In and amidst all the trauma, turmoil and tragedy, there is good news to be had - and you can be the first to find it, here amongst the courageous, as we band together to take our lives back from eating and related disorders! I recovered from a fifteen year (yes, that’s right - fifteen year) battle with anorexia, bulimia, depression and anxiety disorder. What is more, I recovered without ever once being offered the expertise of a professional treatment team. A miracle? Possibly. A repeatable miracle? DEFINITELY.

If I could hang in there long enough to find my ‘key to life’, the one thing that mattered to me more than the eating disorder, then you can too. There is more to life than ‘thin’. There is more to hope than ‘thinner’. There is more to YOU than the eating disorder can ever know, explain, or contain.

Check back often for inspiring tips to guide you, and your loved ones, as you walk in my footsteps back to health and life again. Questions? Just ask. Comments? Post away. Got something to offer? We would love to hear from you.

Because, remember - Behind this Mask: there is someone real. YOU.

And you, like me, are beautiful, irreplaceable, and utterly unique.

Warmly,

Shannon

www.key-to-life.com