NEDA Week 2022: Amanda Lewis' Story
My name is Amanda and this is my story.
Food and I have never really gotten along. In addition to being a severely picky eater, food was never really enjoyable for me. While the majority of the population treats food as a positive experience to spend time with friends and family, there are some people in the world who would rather avoid the hassle entirely.
Guess which one I am?
As I continued through high school and college, food got harder and my body image got worse. When my sophomore year of college came around, things were pretty rough. I had been diagnosed with anorexia and was seeing a therapist, dietician, and doctor. My friends and family knew I needed help, but they didn’t know what to do. The eating disorder voice was so loud. I spent the majority of each day thinking about food, or really how to avoid it. I stepped on a scale any chance I got, and couldn’t even think about my body without being disgusted. I had a goal weight in mind, and I was desperate to hit it. The voice in my head had me convinced that once I hit that number, I would be happy and things would go back to normal.
Here’s the thing about Eating Disorders: they’re LIARS.
After some of the hardest months of my life, I did hit that goal number. Instead of instant relief and happiness, hitting my goal weight got me a month in residential treatment. When it felt like all hope was lost, I took a leave from college and said goodbye to my friends and family to search for this thing called recovery. I traveled across state lines to the suburbs of Chicago and entered Timberline Knolls Residential Treatment Center.
I was finally on the path to recovery, but man, it was hard. The next month consisted of reintroducing my body to food, memorizing DBT skills, repairing a lifetime of negative body image, and lots of tears. After 30 days in treatment (1 of them being my 20th birthday), I was discharged on March 26, 2019 and sent back to Missouri to finish my sophomore year of college.
Going into TK, my goal was to get my life back. Instead, I got my life back and more. I learned how to appreciate my body and how hard it works to keep me alive. I learned how to prioritize my mental health over anything else. I learned that the way I feel will always be more important than the way I look. I learned how important it is to share my story. I learned that I was not alone. In addition to my recovery, TK gave me a new passion for mental health advocacy. Since then, I have started my own blog and created a social media presence focused on normalizing the struggle, recognizing diet culture, and prioritizing self care. You can find my blog at https://chooseharmony.home.
I would like to say that once I left treatment my life was perfect and I never struggled again, but that is not the case. Recovery is not linear. There are good days and there are bad days. There are still some moments where I struggle with food, weight, and body. But the bottom line is this: even the worst day in recovery is better than the best day in my eating disorder.
3 years ago I struggled to see a future without my ED. It felt like there was no way out. Now I can confidently say that I have a life worth living. I live in a town I love with a job I love. I recently started a job as a Customer Relations Specialist for a residential treatment center. Every day I get to work in an environment similar to the one that saved my life. I was even crowned Miss Columbia 2022 and will be competing for Miss Missouri this June. As Miss Columbia, I am given an even bigger platform to share my story and advocate for mental health awareness, especially in the pageant world.
If you are reading this and struggling with an eating disorder, body image, or any mental health issue, I want you to know that it does get better. You are not alone in your struggle and you deserve recovery. I’m going to leave you with a passage I came across in treatment that absolutely turned my recovery around and inspired the name of my mental health campaign.
"I acknowledge that my body is innately good. I will work each day to rewrite the scripts I have about my body to include love, appreciation, and care rather than hatred, punishment, and disgust. I choose to feed my body simply because my body is a gift from God and every part of me is worthy of care and love. My body did not and does not do anything to attract badness or to deserve punishment. Rather, my body is a brilliant and resilient being that I can either choose to live in harmony with or live in war with. Just for today, I’m choosing harmony."
3 years ago I started choosing harmony and I encourage you to do the same. You won’t regret it.
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