My Struggle and My Journey

Hi everyone, or whoever that actually reads blogs anymore. It's been a hot minute since I have written anything here on this blog. I decided it was high time that I write a post.

I am a 29 year old mom of two beautiful wonderful children, and I have the best husband in the world for me. I have been so blessed to have the family and the life that I have. But I have been struggling you all. Let me just tell you the journey that I've been on for the past year or so. I used to NEVER compare my body to any other girl on the playground in elementary school. I was a day dreamer my friends. I spent most of my recesses make believing scenarios in my head, daydreaming about the movies that I was going to star in. I didn't give a second thought to my body. Then I entered high school, gained a bunch of weight and all of a sudden I felt TERRIBLY insecure. I created this ideal in my head that I had a chubby body that was going to require me to diet, and workout for a long time. I was not thankful for my body. I despised it, and was frustrated for every pound that I carried.

When I was close to the spirit, when I was living up in college with amazing woman, traveling the streets of China, and meeting and marrying my husband I was not dieting and the weight naturally came off. But then I had 2 babies, was isolated, slightly depressed that I started to control something that I thought that I could control, my body, my weight. I was too afraid to say that I was lonely, I felt invisible, I felt like Amber was gone and now I was just another "mom" of the throngs of beautiful Utah moms out there. Social media painted images after image of what I was supposed to aspire to be. If only I was as skinny as that mom I would think, then I'd feel better. So I downloaded the calorie counting apps, I got that gym pass, and I went all in! I wanted to follow this image of what I should look like. That I needed to change something about the way I look in order to be happy. That something outside of myself would make me happy. One of the greatest lies the world tells woman. I was following a broken world to make myself whole. I didn't understand or see that I was in it bad. I didn't know that I was sinking further and further into a full blown eating disorder.

I am guilty of idolatry ya'all. My idol you ask? Well it was being skinny and the praise that would come from that. I was so sure that would validate me as a person. I kept on dieting, not able to see that I was losing weight. I was sure there was still fat to be shed. More and more foods were added to my "don't eat that" list, and fewer were safe to eat anymore. When I realized my hair was falling out, my period was gone, my moods were up and down, and I literally was becoming brain damaged (your body eats away your brain FIRST when it's starving) that I HAD to humble myself to the reality that I had lost touch of reality.

A few months ago I checked myself into a hospital inpatient treatment center for anorexia nervosa. When I arrived I was placed in a wheelchair for 2 days to let my heart rest. My heart rate was so slow they feared it would just stop, and because of that worry I was placed on a heart monitor the entire 3 weeks that I was there. You know what's the crazy part of all this, even when I was sitting there in a treatment center I would see another girl come in, much skinnier then me (in my head) and I would think that I was fine. That's when it hit me, that I would NEVER believe I was skinny enough. That there was never going to be a finish line. Satan would have me keep going until I would literally have heart failure and die. And all for what? To be called "skinny"????? Like I said earlier I was searching for a BROKEN world to make me feel whole. I was lost and confused ya all.

Since I have been home it's been the hardest thing to IGNORE all the diet talk, all the messages about being "BAD" for eating certain foods. I have had to tell myself that, that girl may miss a meal but I CAN'T. I have to eat even when the voices are screaming in my ear that I'm getting chubby again. I have to stop comparing my body to the other woman around me. I have to take "skinny" off of my altar of worship and put Christ back!

I just hope that if you are reading this, and if you are worried about your body size, to know that it's not worth it. The sheer mental energy, the insecurity, is not worth a second of your time! I have been small..... I have been larger.... and I can say in FULL sincerity that I felt BEST when I was average. When I wasn't thinking about my body at all, but about my LIFE! I didn't feel deprived and isolated, I felt involved and energetic. I want that back! I want to be vibrant and happy and I DO NOT want to promote the image of skinniness to any woman around me. I want woman to be themselves in the unique individualized bodies that they have came in! NO body is the same, no size is the same. You know what was my biggest hangup, my belly, I constantly focused on that, and my desire for it to be flat. Well folks, I got under 95 pounds and I still had a belly! Satan knew that the bond structure and where my organs are placed within that structure that it would always appear I have a little pooch! If I hyper focused on that post babies he knew he could keep me dieting, restricting to the grave.

If you find yourself with constant thoughts of comparison, of the need to change the body that you came in tell SATAN to go to HELL!!!!! Do not believe that being smaller is an accomplishment. Do not believe that you are just a body image. You are amazing and wonderful and this is your life girlfriend. This is your ONE life, and you do not want to WASTE it by denying yourself, restricting, beating yourself up every single day because you're not adhering to some fake altered social media driven ideal of beauty!! You are wonderfully made. I am wonderfully made and I deserve to eat, and to eat whatever foods my body desires. :) I hope something in here as touched you or motivated you!