Something to know..

My name is Morgan. I am a mother of two and one on the way. I am a Christian, wife, mother, daughter, sister, friend and runner. Being a mother has changed my life and for the better. My children have put my life into perspective. They have taught me new things that only a child could teach you. They have a carefree life only a child can have. Becoming a mother has been the greatest blessing God has ever given me. I thank God each and every day for my beautiful healthy children.

I want to tell you who I am and what I have been through. Years ago, in high school I developed an eating disorder. I began cutting calories and running 5 miles every single day. I was in the gym for 3 hours every day after school. I would come home and lie to my parents about already having dinner. Then I would pass out on the couch because my body had nothing left to give. My calories each day got smaller and smaller. And the weight just started dropping off. Now keep this in mind, I was never heavy to begin with, maybe 125-130. I was receiving so many compliments and how great I looked. And it all went to my head. My thoughts were if it’s this easy to lose weight, by cutting calories and running a lot, I can keep this up and lose more. When I looked in the mirror, I thought “Morgan you could stand to lose a few more pounds. Your thighs shouldn’t be touching, you should be able to see your collar bone and your cheek bones should be well defined.” So I kept cutting calories and kept running more and more. Every morning I had a Special K bar. That was it. For lunch, I had another Special K bar and a fruit cup. Then I would go and run my heart out. I would get home and most days I didn’t eat dinner. Some days I had one or two saltines. I had chronic migraines. My body was trying to tell me to feed it. It was starving, but I didn’t care. All I cared about was losing more weight. After a few more pounds down, I stopped receiving compliments and started receiving concerned looks and questions about my weight. I was in denial. I was just “eating right and exercising”. I lied to everyone about what I was doing to my body.
 

Finally my mom had had enough. She called my pediatrician and asked if my weight loss was normal. I had lost 15 pounds in less than two months. 15 pounds I didn’t need to lose. They immediately told her no and wanted her to bring me in. I was still in denial. I told the doctor I was eating right and something must be wrong with me. I can’t count the number of blood tests they ran on me to find out if something was wrong with my thyroid or if something else could be wrong with me that was causing all of the weight loss. I was still in denial. I kept convincing my mom and the doctors that I was eating normally and something HAD to be wrong. After all of the blood work and still nothing found, it came down to it, I had an eating disorder. But I didn’t admit it. I remember countless times, my mom asking me if I ate dinner and lying to her. She knew better and we would sit in the kitchen floor crying with food on a plate, begging me to eat, some night forcing me to eat.

Then the day happened. We would go out to eat after church on Sundays and of course I had to eat in front of my family. I would eat the least amount of food as possible; I knew the weight would start adding up if I didn’t get rid of the food. So I started purging. I just couldn’t gain weight, I didn’t want to. Purging made me feel like I had control over everything. Not eating also made me feel that way. But it was like, “well I’ll show them! They’re going to make me it, I’ll just throw it up.” This went on for months.
 

During this time, I had been making bi-weekly visits to the doctor to keep a check on my weight. I was never allowed to see my weight. I had to get on the scale backwards, the nurse would write it down. Each time the doctor told me, I had to gain this much weight by my next visit. I never did gain the weight. I had it in my head that I wasn’t skinny enough, I could stand to lose more weight. It was about 6 months of hell for my mother and I. she just didn’t understand. I got to a point where I really didn’t understand either. My body was lacking so much food and energy I couldn’t think straight.
It was in June, one of the last trips to the doctor. I was just so tired of lying, of starving, of chronic migraines; I didn’t know how much more I could handle. I broke down. I finally admitted I had an eating disorder. I was crying, my mom was crying and I think even the doctor was. I remember the feeling of guilt, being ashamed, and regret that I had given up all control that I had over my life, my eating disorder. The doctor gave us references for a therapist for a nutritionist. We made appointments and my mom and I went. It all felt like a daydream to me. I hated every second at the therapist. She tried telling me that there was an underlying cause to why this happened. I told her “NO! I just wanted to be skinny!” I saw her maybe twice and I was done. The nutritionist I saw a few more times. Even though I admitted I had an eating disorder, I didn’t want to follow her guidelines, but I tried. I stopped seeing her too.

I started eating a little better. And the weight just packed on it felt like. But my body had been starving for months and it was holding to everything it could get its hands on. I had killed my metabolism by starving myself so the weight I put back on was unevenly distributed. I had been banned from going to the gym or running around my neighborhood. I had finally been “released” and started running and the weight seemed to distribute properly over time. I got back to a healthy weight, the doctor and my mom was happy with, but I wasn’t. I had done everything in my power to lose the weight and it all went down the drain.

To this day, I still struggle with looking in the mirror and thinking “you could be smaller”. But I have come to grasp that food is necessary. Food energizes you AND can help you lose weight the right way. I need food to live.

As a pregnant woman, who has a past of an eating disorder and body image issues, it's hard to see your body change and grow beyond your control. I am not starving myself anymore, I know that proper nutrition is the most important thing for my growing miracle. But as someone with a past eating disorder, who still struggles with it on a daily basis, it can be upsetting to see things widen and get larger. Posting about my issues during my pregnancy with my body image, it's not me being selfish (for the most part, some of it is being selfish because I don't want to see what pregnancy does to my body), it's me who is struggling with a past disease. It's me only being human. I want everyone to understand where I have come from, the battles I have fought to be where I am today. I also hope that I may reach out to other women AND men who are going through struggles of their own. So they know they are not alone and it can be overcome.