Good Sports

Reprinted with permission from the Zionsville Times Sentinel on February 28, 2007

                                           by Budd Glassberg and Kalin Atkin

Encountering ED

 

           

            She was always a fine student.  Graduating Zionsville High School in 2005, she finished 6th in a very strong class.  I first coached her while she was a runner on the ZMS cross-country team.  Kalin Atkin was a runner with heart, who worked extremely hard.  She was and is one of my daughter’s best friends.  Twice she accompanied my family on vacations over spring break.  Kalin appeared in this column two years ago when she paced me the last 37 ½ miles of my first 100 mile run in North Carolina.  She comes from a very caring family.  My wife and I have always considered Kalin to be very mature for her age and a very positive influence on our daughter.  In the fall of 2005 Kalin entered Boston University.  Recently, I learned of her encounter with ED.  The following is an account in her words of her journey and the trials associated with an eating disorder.

 

            “I remember in sixth grade when the girls around me started talking about how they felt fat and needed to go on a diet. I also remember thinking they were crazy; first of all, they definitely weren’t fat, and secondly, we were only 12 years-old! Did we really need to worry about that?

            Fast forward a couple of years and WHAM. Now I have an eating disorder.

I cannot tell you exactly when or how it happened, but I can tell you why. Your body won’t let you ignore its needs. While I was happy, confident, and carefree on the outside, inwardly I was plagued with self-deprecating thoughts about my body and my performance in school and sports. I consistently ignored my emotions, as they were too uncomfortable to deal with. The way I saw it, the only thing in life I could control was me.  If I didn’t want to feel angry or upset, then I wouldn’t. Unfortunately it doesn’t work like that.

            I turned all my negative emotions inward, so instead of feeling angry or upset with others, I felt deeply sad and lonely with myself. My eating disorder, which I’ve come to call ED, became my way of coping...with everything.

            I struggled silently with my eating disorder in high school. The tricky thing about eating disorders is that you don’t have to be emaciated-looking or a celebrity to have one; ED doesn’t discriminate. For most of my life with the disorder, I was not underweight. In front of others, I ate well and stayed active, simply enjoying a healthy lifestyle. No one would have expected I was binging, purging, abusing laxatives, starving myself, exercising obsessively… If anything, I was just a teenager moderately concerned about her body image, and what female isn’t, right?

            In college, I decided I’d had enough. I hated ED. I hated the secrets I was keeping, the lies I was telling, the chronic fatigue I was feeling, and the terrible guilt and shame I was carrying. So I tried outpatient therapy. Twice.  But I still couldn’t seem to get ED out of my life.

             By last Christmas, ED’s control over me became obvious.  I weighed less than I had since 6th grade, my heart rate was 42 and irregular, my body temperature was 94 degrees, and I did not have the energy to make it through a full day. My parents took me to Selah House, a residential treatment for eating disorders in Anderson, Indiana. I took this semester off school and spent six weeks in therapy. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done; to admit I had enough of a problem that I had to put my life on hold to deal with it was really, really difficult.

            It was the right decision.  I discovered so much about myself, God, and life in general. I met some truly amazing people. I learned how to talk, to express myself in a healthy manner so I don’t need ED to numb me. Being in recovery is going to be hard, but nothing could make me want to give up this freedom I have from the monster that was inside of me.

My hope is that by sharing my story, I can help others come forward and seek help. Given the chance, ED can destroy lives. Don’t give him the opportunity. If you see yourself or your loved one in my story, I urge you to help him or her find treatment.”

 

            Whenever we hear or read of someone’s difficulties, it is natural to sympathize with the individual and often count our blessings that we have not encountered a similar situation.  The lesson here is that it is possible that the seeds of this condition may be affecting our own family without our knowledge.  With educating ourselves and our children about this problem and keeping an open channel of communication, it is possible to catch it in time to avoid permanent damage.  I urge every parent to have an open discussion about eating disorders with their offspring and each young adult to do likewise with his or her parents.           

           

            Budd Glassberg is a resident of Zionsville who is active in the local running community.  Visit www.runz.com for reprints of all his columns.   You can reach him by email at budd@runz.com. If you have any questions or concerns about eating disorders and would like to contact Kalin, she can be reached at keatkin@bu.edu.