Marriage, y'all. It's happening!

Well, friends, I feel desirous to share with you the experience I’ve had over the past several months. As the majority of you are aware, I was hospitalized last January with an eating disorder, and the months following my release have been the most difficult months of my life. I continue to struggle on a daily basis to make recovery-based choices. Some days, it’s all I can do to follow through with my meal plan as prescribed by my dietitian, and resist the temptation to spend all of my free time (as well as my not-so-free-time) climbing stairs at the gym.

While the past several months have been extremely challenging and emotionally exhausting for me, I feel I’d be misrepresenting my experience of them if I left my description solely to the previous paragraph. As I’ve consciously and consistently been making choices to increase the distance between myself and my eating disorder, I have experienced a great deal of emotional turmoil; that is true. However, the benefits associated with these same choices have been overwhelming. The blessings that have followed my recovery choices are more wonderful than I ever could have imagined. I have a body that functions properly, a mind that is capable of mental processes unimagined by my previously malnourished brain, and a greater quantity of meaningful relationships than I’ve ever had before. I’ve been able to reclaim my status as “favorite aunt” to my cute nieces (a title I never plan to rescind), I’ve opened my heart and connected to my siblings and parents in new ways, and I find that I’m better able to form genuine connections with other people I associate with on a daily basis. My favorite benefit of all, though, has been my new-found ability to fall in love! Fortunately for me, this beautiful process of falling in love has taken place with the most wonderful man I’ve ever had the privilege of meeting. My ability to connect deeply with and fall in love with my fiancé, Bo, is a result of those choices, and I am filled with overwhelming joy and excitement when I consider the fact that I am fortunate enough to be the one to spend eternity with him.

A great deal of excitement has followed his marriage proposal last week, but unfortunately, the excitement has been matched with all manner of body shaming articles and advertisements. My fragile body image has been thrashed around as I’ve begun my journey to plan the perfect wedding. I’m one week into wedding planning, and I’ve already been bombarded by all kinds of diets and workout plans to “shred before the wedding,” various tactics to assist me in manipulating my body to fit into a tiny dress it was never created to fit in, and wardrobe items created to hide this, or suck that in; and quite honestly, it’s all been quite overwhelming, and at times, quite a deflating experience. 

After spending a great deal of time contemplating these things and agonizing in my own body shame, I’ve come to a conclusion that I’d like to share. I’ve decided that I’ve worked way too hard to leave my malnourished body behind to run back to it now. What good will it do to be a thin, “beautiful” bride if I am fainting instead of saying “I do,” and lacking the energy to give my new-found husband (eeeeek! I’m gonna have a husband!) so much as a simple kiss over the altar? What fun will my wedding reception be if I can’t even enjoy my extremely pricey wedding cake with my sweet boy? How can I enjoy a paradisaical Hawaiian honeymoon with my hubby if I don’t even have the energy to leave my bed? For these reasons and many others, I say: forget you, beauty industry! I’m not interested in your crash diets, tummy tuckers, or anything else you have to offer me. There’s no need for you to assist me in changing my body to fit into a dress only my pre-pubescent body could have fit into without restricting my food intake; me and my ghetto booty are entirely content to find a dress that fits us just the way we presently are. My decision is as simple as that.

Now, if you need me, I’ll be out with my handsome fiancé, sampling wedding food and cakes, trying on dressed with sizes in the double digits (heaven forbid!) that fit my recovering body, and ENJOYING the whole process.

The Greatest Gift: Gratitude For My Body

Well, it’s been about ten months since I’ve made a blog post. In the course of that ten months, my body has been through all but hell and back. To make a long, scary story short, my body hit rock bottom, and I was hospitalized in January in order to allow my body an opportunity to stabilize and heal. It’s been four months since I first entered treatment, and since then, everything in my world has improved a great deal. I still struggle on many levels in the way I feel about myself, but my body is healthier now than it ever has been in the past!

A few weeks ago, I was brainstorming what I might do for my mother for Mother’s Day. While writing a list of things I could choose from to create for her, I began writing a letter spontaneously. Interestingly enough, the letter was not addressed to my mother. The letter I wrote that day was addressed to my own body, and it caused me to reflect back on a poem I had written in the darkest days of my disorder. The two pieces of writing are in opposition to one another, yet both are reflective of intense feelings I have experienced on my journey to find physical and emotional health.

After writing the letter, I decided to share both pieces of writing with my parents as a Mother’s Day surprise. When I shared each piece with my mother and father, I looked up to find them both in tears. My mother expressed that she loved her gift; that it showed her a great return on the investment she had made in my treatment beginning in January. Beginning with the poem I wrote while bound up in my eating disorder, my writings are included below.

November 22, 2014

Before you put that in your mouth,

Think about how you’ll feel

Sad, so sad, and full of regret,

A girl no man will steal.

Food’s never done you any good

Yet misery and pain it’s brought

Remember what it is you really want

The thin body for years you’ve sought.

You’ll never get there eating that food

You’ll just fail, and fail again.

If you keep giving in and eating,

Forever you’ll remain broken.

If you’re struggling now to resist

Take a breath, or better, go and run.

Starving yourself isn’t all that bad

And your results, no man will shun.

Keep it up, girl, you’ve got this down.

Be strong and do not give in.

Embrace the hunger and suck it up;

That’s the only way you’ll ever win.

How difficult it is for me to read and reflect on the words I penned several months ago, that represent the pain I experienced each day in the captivity of a horrible mental illness. Although openly sharing these things causes me to feel extremely vulnerable, I trust that I can share them with my tender-hearted friends, and hope that my words might be appreciated for the transformation they indicate is coming over me as I embark each day on my healing journey to recovery. Brace yourself: a very different Hilary is about to present herself throughout the course of this letter.

Dear body,

I am sorry for disrespecting you in so many ways, for so many years. I am sorry for starving you, stuffing you, and forcing you to run freakishly long distances on no fuel. I am sorry for the few times I desperately stuck my finger down your throat and attempted to purge, in order to relieve what seemed at the time to be unbearable anxiety. I am sorry for hating you, hurting you, and hiding you. I am sorry for seeing you as an object to be used only to gratify others’ lustful desires. You are so much more than that.

I’ve spent so much time and energy trying to make you fit a standard you were never created to be. When I finally managed to squeeze you into a size 0, you were in much worse health than you were at a size 24. Your frail size 0 frame may have been devoid of body fat, but was certainly not lacking in pain, discomfort, and bruises. Yet I continued to push you, thinking that if you could only be a little thinner, a little faster, and a little stronger, perhaps we would finally be enough.

But we were never enough, were we? Not even the “105 pounds down” mark was enough. Time passed, your mass continued to decrease, and I realized I was slowly killing you. Laying down in bed each night, desperately trying to obtain much needed rest, I thought my heart might stop, as it very well could have at any time. But I told you time and again that you were being over-dramatic, and that even if you were to die, at least it would be in pursuit of a worthy cause.

How wrong I was on both accounts, and how grateful I am that you made it through all of that! You endured so much, and I want to dedicate the rest of my life to respecting and cherishing you.

You’re no longer a size 0, but from here on out, I am choosing to be grateful for that, rather than ashamed of it. Thank you for falling to a place that allows me a cushion on my bottom to sit upon. Sitting is so much more comfortable now! Thank you for providing me with an awesome set of baby-bearing hips, and for allowing my menstrual cycle to return to go with them. I am confident that both will come in handy in the future. Thank you for providing me with body-wide insulation, so I won’t need to bundle up in my winter coat all summer long. Thank you for giving me strong arms – good for much more than compulsively lifting weights at Planet Fitness at 2:00 in the morning, trying to compensate for the frozen yogurt I had earlier in the day with friends. No, I’m grateful for your arms because they allow me to serve others, soothe crying children, and give the best hugs, among other things. And thank you for giving me killer calves – my most complimented feature. Great for running, hiking, and looking fabulous in high heels. Don’t you ever marry a short guy.

But more than any individual feature, I am grateful for your resilience and full functionality. Thank you for staying strong and enduring so much abuse. From here on out, I will respect and honor you. I will provide you with proper nourishment to allow you to function well and to be active. When you are tired, I will let you rest. I will stop fighting you, and will learn instead to embrace you.

Well, dear body, I hope you can forgive me for the cruel treatment I have given you for so many years. The healing you have been able to accomplish in the past several months is evidence to me that you can. My hope is that we can leave the past behind us now, and move forward and relate with one another in a positive and healthy way.

I love you, body, and I’m looking forward to our future together. We’ve had a rough several years, but we have all of eternity ahead of us to make up for it, and I know we can do it, together.

With love and gratitude, Hilary Anne Growcock

Though I still struggle on a daily basis to accept the truths I wrote to my body in that letter that day, I am coming to accept each truth a little more fully, each day. I am growing, I am changing, I am healing. I believe that my body and spirit were created with an incredible capacity to heal, and I am so grateful that I am seeing the evidence of that beautiful truth each day.