WHEN HEALTHY ISN’T, PART TWO

Six months after we started dating, we got engaged, and suddenly the whole idea of starting a family was so real. It was happening! I was at the point where I really did want some answers, but also knew that to pursue anything medically would be extensive and consuming. I didn’t feel like it was something I could concentrate on during the months before our wedding…there was too many others things to think about! We decided to get married, settle in, and then form a plan.

So we did. We got married and had a great honeymoon and moved into our home together and it was wonderful. But there was always this little niggle of sadness in the corner of my mind. It had been so long since my body was normal, and I think a part of me just felt like it was hopeless. After a few weeks of married life, we started talking and praying more about seeing a doctor/specialist about my cycle. It was so unappealing to me to start on that road…it just seemed so overwhelming and tiring. But I know that many times that is the way to go for medical answers and health, and I was ok with that if that was the direction we were supposed to go. We checked into a few different options, but nothing really seemed to be right.

So I started praying, really praying, that the Lord would show me what I can do…that He would show me what I needed to be well again. I asked Him to show me the truth, and He did. It was the last thing I wanted to hear…the last thing I wanted to do. But He had been preparing me, so gently, so surely, to know the truth and to let the truth set me free.

A few days after I had began to pray in earnest asking God to show me what the problem was in my body, I was doing more research online and came across information that clicked…it connected with my spirit so strongly that I couldn’t ignore it or deny it. It was so direct and so strong that I knew immediately it was my answer from God. I found that there is a condition called hypothalamic amenorrhea, which is essentially when your body shuts down it’s ability to conceive because it believes that it is not strong or healthy enough to support another life besides the one it is already supporting in yourself. I’m no medical expert and don’t have a proper biological explanation, but it’s basically this:: by not giving your body enough energy to function properly, it will shut down your menstruation in order to conserve energy and life. This condition can be reversed and healed most times, although there are instances of women in their twenties or thirties who do actually go into menopause because of extreme dieting, over exercising, and low body weight.

I didn’t receive any type of official diagnosis from a doctor in this…but the Physician of Heaven showed me. He opened my heart, He opened my eyes. Finally…I saw it. Finally, truth was beginning to set me free.

That moment of truth was the start of a most incredible, painful, and beautiful journey.

I knew what I had to do…and that meant walking straight into the thing I feared the most. I had to gain weight. I had to give my body the energy it needed, and allow it to heal and become strong again. I had to walk out from under the stronghold that had held me in for so long. I had to somehow ignore the voices that called me “fat fat fat” and listen to the Voice that speaks kindly. I had to give up the comfort of my control that I had held onto for years.

I cannot tell you how many tears I cried those first few days and weeks. I cried because of sorrow and regret of what I done to myself and to my body. I cried because I was losing something that meant so much to me. I cried because I wanted to be beautiful and it felt like I was losing everything that made me so. I cried because I wasn’t sure I was strong enough to go through it. I cried because I saw the numbers on the scale go up and up and up. I cried because I felt like I was living in the middle of my worst nightmare. But I also cried because I caught glimpses of freedom…glimpses of a way so much better and higher than what I had known. I cried because I caught glimpses of a definition of beautiful that had nothing to do with my body or the way I looked.

I gained weight really quickly once I started trying to, which was the strangest mental shift after years of trying to lose weight! And two weeks after I actively started eating to gain, I was twenty pounds heavier. Twenty pounds. The majority of this weight was primarily due to water weight, which I explain this way:: in the same way that an ankle will swell up when you sprain it to give protection to the joint/muscle as it heals, the same thing happens when anything else in your body is trying to repair itself. The body has to get energy to stay alive, and if it’s not getting it from the food and nutrients that you eat (or don’t eat), then it has to take it from somewhere else. If you under-eat long enough, it will eventually start to take energy from internal fat and organs. Clearly this isn’t a good thing, and will eventually cause serious health problems and/or death if a person doesn’t start to take care of themselves.

It was good I was gaining weight, because that’s what I needed…but it felt awful. Horrible. Like my worst nightmare. There were many times that I was ready to give up…to ignore what I knew…to run back to where I could be in control and have what I wanted. There were many times where I hardly cared about the prison I was being delivered from, hardly cared about the promised life and freedom on the other side…all I wanted was my skinny back. There were so many times where my husband would hold me, cry with me, and fight for me in prayer and in truth.

The first two weeks of gaining weight were the hardest for me, physically. Like as in actually hard physically…my entire body ached all over and I barely had enough energy to do minimal household chores. I felt like a train with five-hundred cars had run over me, and then backed up and did it again. It was the strangest thing to be feeling so awful and sick just from eating more food, but it was also a clear sign that all those nutrients were going to work and doing some good things inside. After a few weeks, the exhaustion and nausea started to disappear and only kept improving as time went on.

Because of all the immediate water retention, I looked extremely puffy and swollen. This puffiness took months to dissipate, and seeing this every day was probably one of the hardest things to deal with mentally. Everything got swollen. I remember one day trying to find one thing that was still normal on me, one thing I wouldn’t have to feel embarrassed about…and decided that my wrists were still ok. But then the next day they too were puffed and swollen. It was like everything I had was being taken from me. I knew it needed to. I knew I needed to die to find life, but it was really, really hard. I was so embarrassed because I was never going to be that bride who lets herself go and no longer tries to be attractive or care for herself after she gets married. And here I was…two months as a new bride and twenty pounds heavier. I knew what it looked like…and I hated it. I knew it was what I had to do…but I hated it all the same.

This might all sound just shallow and carnal, and I guess you could call it that. But it was a very real thing for me…it was an identity issue. I had wrapped up my value, worth, and beauty in my body, and I had to lose that in order to find my real identity. I put it this way:: I didn’t gain weight because I didn’t care; I gained weight because I cared too much.

BUT…three weeks after this journey began, I was healed. After four years of waiting, I GOT MY PERIOD. Gaining that weight was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, but I did it…and to this day, my cycle is normal and healthy. For a lot of women who deal with this same issue, it can often take months or years before their cycle returns normally. God did it for me in three weeks. I am so grateful for that…for His touch and miracle healing for me. It gave me courage to believe in what He had showed me and to continue the fight against the lies.

Physical healing didn’t make the battle go away or even make it any easier. I still fight with the feelings of inadequacy and “fat.” I still fight against the impossible standard of perfection that our world gives us as women, a standard that I had taken up as my own. I still fight with being ok with the body and build I’ve been created with, and I still fight with being tempted to diet myself back down to where I was. Some days I want to do anything, ANYTHING, to feel skinny again…some days I can hear that familiar prison calling my name and I’m tempted to go running back to where I could use my iron will and control to get me what I want. But those days are the days when the grace of the Lord covers me. In so many moments of weakness, I feel that gentle voice of truth and kindness remind me of who I am. And He restores peace. Sometimes He does this several times a day or several times an hour…but He does it.

He’s helping me win.

I share all of this to perhaps encourage anyone else who is facing the same fight to take hope. I share all of this because I know there are other girls and women out there who face this same thing, and I want them to know that there is something better, that there is a different way that is free and full of joy. There is a way that doesn’t make you a slave to the mirror or the scale or the size of your clothes, or how much you worked out or how little you ate. Jesus really does offer a way that is better than the prison of an eating disorder. It doesn’t always feel like that…but it is the Truth.

And that Truth is what sets us free.

Thank you, friends, for reading my story, and for caring. You’ve inspired me to greater courage. If you know of anyone in your life who faces this same battle, the best thing you can do is pray for them. Pray that the eyes of their heart will be opened to understanding and to Truth, and that the true definition of beautiful will make its way from head to heart.