Recovery Taught Me the Importance of Speaking My Truth
It’s been seven years since I began to struggle with mental illness, yet I still remember the feelings of insecurity, loneliness, and self-doubt that crept into my life and ultimately led to my downfall. I was thirteen years old, a shy, awkward eighth-grader struggling with her identity. The pressure I was under academically and socially, combined with my exacerbated self-loathing and some bullying at school, gradually built inside me until I couldn’t take it anymore and turned to dieting to cope. It started innocently, as it often does, but things quickly spiraled out of control, and before I knew it, I was deeply entrenched in an eating disorder.
After a couple of months of sheer torture, my parents noticed my drastic weight loss and disordered behaviors and admitted me to an outpatient treatment facility. I was there for eight weeks, and when I discharged, I was physically better but mentally I was still a mess. I was no longer in school due to my crippling anxiety, so I spent most of my time at home doing what I could to pass the time. For months, I existed in a strange in-between place where I was well enough to not require a higher level of care but still very much under the control of my disorder.
At the start of ninth grade, I decided to try to return to school. This was a terrible idea since I was essentially re-immersing myself in my triggers. I once again felt overwhelmed and out of control, and with restricting food no longer an available coping mechanism, I began to self-harm. I hated my life and was depressed to the point of being suicidal. When my parents realized what was going on, I was deemed too unsafe to stay at home and admitted to an adolescent psychiatric ward, my first of many.
The months that followed were the darkest and scariest months of my life. Every day was a struggle simply to get out of bed and face the world. I spent more time in hospitals than at home, always discharging with a plan in place only for it to quickly fall apart and needing to be readmitted. It got to the point where I started to wonder why I was putting myself through this. I was fifteen, and I had no independence, no freedom, no nothing. My peers were learning how to drive and starting college prep, while I still needed twenty-four seven supervision. I couldn’t eat by myself. My mom had to hide the sharps in the house. It was like I was a helpless little kid all over again.
In September of tenth grade, I was admitted to my seventh and, unbeknownst at the time, final psych ward, this one specializing in eating disorders. I was in the adolescent unit, but across the hall, separated by a see-through door, was the adult unit. It was the first time I’d been around adults with eating disorders, and it was a wake-up call to say the least. It was like I was looking at my future if I didn’t stop while I was ahead. Seeing these emaciated women, some of whom were middle-aged, walking around more dead than alive made me realize I didn’t want that to be me in thirty years. I didn’t want to be chained to my disorder forever.
I wanted to get better.
Thankfully, I went straight from that hospital to a residential treatment facility that also knew how to treat eating disorders and provided the support and resources I needed to fully commit to recovery. When I discharged in early 2016, I was determined that it would be my last inpatient stay. And it was.
Five years later, my mental health is in a significantly better place and so is my life. It hasn’t been an easy road to find stability in recovery but with external support from my family and my outpatient treatment team and internal motivation, I’ve achieved what once seemed completely impossible. I’m not fully “cured” but to me, that’s not what recovery is about. Recovery, in my opinion, means I’m able to live my life on my own terms, not dictated by my mental illness. It means I have goals, passions, and hobbies unrelated to diet and weight. It means I have hope for my future.
The past few years of learning how to navigate recovery have been a journey like none other. In 2018, at eighteen years old, I published my debut novel Changing Ways, a contemporary story about a high schooler’s journey to overcome anorexia. One year later, I published the sequel Breaking Free, and this past November, Choosing Life, the third and final book in the trilogy. While fiction, all my books are based on my personal experiences of living with mental illness.
I discovered writing when I was in a dark place, and it played a large role in me getting better by giving me a glimmer of hope that there was a future beyond my disorder. Since publishing my books, the overwhelmingly positive feedback I’ve received has exceeded my expectations. I’ve heard from people who’ve said my books helped them with their mental health or helped them understand loved ones who are struggling. It inspires me and gives me another reason to keep sharing my story.
Talking openly about my mental illness still scares me sometimes, but realizing the impact my honestly and vulnerability have on others makes the nerves entirely worthwhile. This creative hobby that had saved me when I was at my worst is now making a difference. I’m chipping away at the stigma surrounding mental illness, and it turns out all it took was speaking my truth.
Recovery isn’t easy. On the contrary, it’s just the opposite. However when I think about how far I’ve come from an insecure thirteen-year-old filled with self-hatred to an independent young adult proudly living her truth, there isn’t a doubt in my mind that it’s worth it.
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About the Author: Julia Tannenbaum is the author of the Changing Ways trilogy, which she started writing when she was seventeen years old. She’s an advocate for mental health awareness and often incorporates her personal struggles into her fictional work. Tannenbaum is currently pursuing a Creative Writing and English B.A. at Southern New Hampshire University. She lives in West Hartford, Connecticut with her family. Her books are available on Amazon.
Follow Julia on Instagram: @julia.tannenbaum
