Recovering From an Injury With an Eating Disorder

Depression, absolutely no energy, jello legs, tiredness, fear of even going outside to try, total lethargy, irritability, a conglomerate of confusing symptoms that are hard to prove or put into one diagnosis. 

When I developed overtraining syndrome, and didn't originally believe my physician assistant that it was even a real diagnosis when she told me, I had no idea how severe it was going to be. The doctors and dietitian who work with me tell me that all of their athletes who straight up aren't fueling enough crash and burn. I didn't think it would be me. 

Surely, I wasn't sick enough. I was eating a lot. I wasn't the sickest. I wasn't the smallest. 

No one is the sickest. Small doesn't matter. Like, needing to be “small” is straight up against the most basic science.

And I crashed and burned HARD. And that happened even before my last two marathons in 2018-2019. I haven't been the same since 2017. 3 years. I haven't been able to race in 2 years at all. 

I'm going to start off and be frank with you right off the bat. I get injured about every other year.

That's too often - but this is the first time I've gotten a stress fracture 2 years in a row, that has taken 6-9 months to heal both times. Leaving me only a few months of only walk-running and biking to only begin to return to normal in between. I haven't been able to do more exercise than a little biking and walk-running for probably a year and a half now. Sorry for all the numbers.

The point is:

I have crashed and burned.

I was my most athletic and successful between ages 17-21 and I am now 24 and facing repercussions of not taking care of myself. Those few years of success have not been worth what I put myself through. Or, what I went through under those circumstances. 

Sure, when I wasn't breaking bones, I was fast. Whoop-de-doo.

I'm still recovering from an injury I got a year and a half ago that never fully healed. 

Whoop-de-doo. 

Our bodies can't heal themselves when we are still struggling to fuel ourselves. Stress fractures should never take this long. Why is it taking this long? Here's why. 

SURPRISE:

I'm struggling! I've been struggling. I'll have these phases of recovery where I'll do well for a while and then slowly, I don't even know how it happened, but suddenly I'll be back in the depths of it, at some level. Suddenly, I can't eat a certain number of times in a day without severe anxiety. Suddenly I notice the types of foods I'm eating again. Suddenly school work doesn't matter as much as my eating disorder does.

For a while those obsessive tendencies might go away for a little bit, and then they just attack out of nowhere, and sometimes you give.  You're sick and tired of fighting. 

I'm sick and tired of all of it. 

I am fighting, the hardest maybe I ever have, and it is tiring.

I didn't know how deep I had dug myself back in until I tried getting back on a plan again. For me, it's so hard to justify eating enough when I'm just not exercising as much as I used to. 

It gets to my head. It tells me I'm lazy, I'm failing, I'm not enough. It tries to remind me all I've lost and every horrible thing I've ever done in my life, if the

"You're lazy, you're failing, you're not enough" doesn't work. 

And truthfully, I know it's a load of crap. I out loud tell it to "shut up" these days, and literally just shake my head. 

Just a couple weeks ago I never thought I would end up in that place again. It was funny that I had no idea I was already there. It's just sneaky. When I'm not on top of taking care of myself, and forcing myself to be mindful of eating a normal amount of food every day, of course it's going to come back. It used to be second nature. My mind follow's my body's cues. 

"Oh we're hungry? We're doing that again? Okay well, don't eat then, I'm gonna come back and attack you later. Anyway, talk to you later." 

I have to be on top of it. I can't afford not to be. Anyone recovering from injury needs to be on top of fueling if they want to heal at all. The eating disorder piece specifically can also be a slippery slope.  

At this point in my life,  I'm not allowed to get more exercise unless I eat my whole meal plan. If I don't, or obviously if I'm not medically stable, I get it taken away. It's not something I can even manage on my own anymore. I never did manage it on my own. I was never able to manage my own exercise because I can't handle it.

I use it both for and against myself. 

What do you do when you love and punish yourself with the same thing? What do you do with that relationship? Especially when you don't even know what boundary to set. I don't know where the line is for me between "this is freeing;" and "this is to get my anxiety out so I can't stop until it's gone" or "this is because I need to do this or else I'll get in trouble." 

I think a lot of people can't handle managing exercising and intake on their own, actually. I believe a great portion of specifically female athletes but some male athletes too, need someone telling them they can't exercise if they don't "Finish their meal plans." 

Recovering from anything just takes time. It didn't have to take this long. I don't think I realized just how much longer it would take if I didn't give it my all earlier on. 

That's the problem with not believing you have a big enough problem. You can't heal in denial. You can't heal from something you don't know you have. Or something you don't believe you have, even if you do know. 

If you have people who are worried about you, and you've been ignoring them - or saying "it's not that serious," and "they have no idea."

You actually eat when they're not around, you don't "Actually over exercise," your "body is fine," you "don't need a break," you're one of those people who can "push through," you're not "small enough," "sick enough." 

PLEASE. That's just a load of garbage. I know you believe it, but somewhere inside you, if you're not happy, if you have obsessive thoughts, can't stop thinking about what you eat, get worried about how much you're eating/what you're eating, it consumes your mind, if you're tired, if people have said things off the cuff to you or straightforward - think about it. Do you want the rest of your life to feel like this? Do you want to crash and burn? 

If you don't have time to worry about it now because you're training or busy with school/work/frineds/family/etc., well, then, you'll just have to have a much greater portion of your time available down the line. And really, these thoughts and behaviors take up so much of our time as they are. 

Again, always feel free to come to me or send your friends to me for resources. I know doctors and therapists and books and podcasts and dietitians and support groups for athletes and non athletes. Don't be like me. I've lost a lot from this and I'm trying to get to a place where I can be free the rest of my life. 

I'm an EMT now. I've been picking up patients from my old eating disorder inpatient hospital, patients who are suicidal, etc.

It's truly a privilege. It almost feels like a miracle to be "on the other side of the storm."

But really, I was just lucky to get intensive outpatient help from extremely dedicated doctors. 

I know full well I could've been spending more time in those places, if people weren't willing to work with me out of my life at home. 

It's definitely triggering to go back. Feels like I belonged there and it's not fair to the others that I get to be here and they're stuck there.  It also tells me that I'm not as sick as I used to be. Shouldn't that feel better than it does? 

We're all healing. Being able to connect with my people in those situations feels like a blessing. Being able to tell someone "I've been there." It's just a blessing I never knew I would get to have. I never truly imagined being on this side of it.

I really am doing better than I once was. It was a surprise realizing how far I have to go, yet I've also evolved. And every version of me is both held and precious. I needed help back then. I need different help now. Any type of help we need, is worthy. We are worthy. There is no fault for needing help. Just stop being stubborn and get it!!!!! Because of it I can handle so much more that I never imagined. 

I finally decided to go on a higher dose of my meds, I finally started following my whole meal plan, and those things are making a difference. Sometimes I feel happy. I wasn't really feeling that emotion for a while.

I wonder how I will continue to evolve. 

Just a last  reminder -

It doesn't work for anyone. Every single person who does it the way I did it, who doesn't eat enough, or does eat enough but exercises a little too much, or doesn't take breaks from training, or goes from race to race to race with no more than 2 weeks in between year after year without any real off periods - it's going to happen to you. No offense to anyone doing it. Just warning you. My doctors who have been doing this for decades work with athletes, female and male alike, and said there was only one patient who had been doing that that they hadn't seen crash yet, and they recently did, and crashed HARD. It's a time ticker. You aren't the exception - nobody is. I wasn't, and I thought I was. And I truly believed I was doing okay when it happened.  

If you have confusing symptoms, it might not even have to do with food, it might just be overtraining, but talk about it. Or reach out to me, I have resources. Everyone is different. No shame allowed here. 

Carli Lloyd took care of her body. She dedicated her life to taking care of her body and was able to be a professional athlete, arguably the best forward on the team at age 39, is in the best shape of her life going into retirement. That picture is me in her jersey from a month ago.

"You're story's gonna change. Just wait for better days. You've seen too much of pain, you don't even know, that your story's gonna change. I promise you, I won't let go." 

Dermot Kennedy