A letter to my 17-year-old self By Danielle

For those who may not know, eating disorders are serious, debilitating, potentially deadly illnesses that wield incredible power and misery over those who suffer from them1.

I would know because I was one of these people.

Although I didn’t realize it at the time, I now see how much grief was embedded in my eating disorder. I lost so much to an illness I thought I’d never escape.

There are many, many nuances and things that need to be said, corrected, and explored about this very big, very important topic. What I want to say about eating disorders will never fit in a Grief Casserole. And yet, I want to honour this awareness week in some way.

Here’s how I chose to do that.

To my 17-year-old self: I have so much to tell you.

This is you, descending into your eating disorder. You’re only 17, but you already know a lifetime of loneliness.

17 year old Danielle

At 17, you have long since internalized the idea that the most important thing is how you look, not how you feel. The notion that your feelings, needs, thoughts, and dreams don’t matter seems less like an idea and more like a fact. Prioritizing others comes automatically, and you are many years away from realizing the true cost of self-abandonment.

At 17, it’s already impossible for you to be in your body because it doesn’t feel safe, and you have been told that there are too many things wrong with it. You’re still a child, but the world has already taught you (as it teaches all girls and women) that your body isn’t yours. You move through life with a sense that, at any time, your body can be grabbed, hit, held down, or claimed by someone else. And indeed, it has. Many times over.

You feel shame all the way down to your bones about everything and nothing.

And here you are with this secret. This eating disorder. You don’t know how it happened, but in these early days, it seems like a solution. You don’t view it as a problem. Not yet. But you will.

Your eating disorder is a lot of different things rolled together. Partly, it’s the voice of casual, everyday violence pretending to be okay and normal. Desirable, even.

Right now, you believe that once you “fix” everything that is “wrong” with your body, you can live your life. Your eating disorder is laid out before you like a path to safety, belonging, and love, but it will never deliver these things. It will not heal your broken, tender spots. It will not make you safe.

Being less won’t make you whole.

What you’re doing is dangerous, but you already know this. That red line is some months behind you now. You cannot stop what’s happening, that much is clear. You tell yourself you can control it, but you can’t, and some part of you knows this. Even at 17.

What you don’t yet realize is that your life is happening without you, and you are missing out on everything that really matters. This, you will learn the hard way, is the true cost of your eating disorder. Your sister’s death will teach you this very painful lesson.

In a few years, when things are the worst you think they could ever be, here’s what I want you to know: Your eating disorder will take years of your life, but you will get help, and you will get better. You will recover your health and your self. You will return to the things you gave up when you were unwell. You will earn your master’s degree, write a kickass thesis (on eating disorders!), and you’ll become a therapist.

Along the way, you will continue to meet people who are looking for someone to control, use, or push around. Part of recovery will involve learning that not everyone is who they pretend to be, not everyone deserves to have access to you, not everyone is a friend.

One day, you will meet a man who is gentle, and sensitive, and tough, like you. Through him, you will learn what it feels like to have your whole self loved, seen, cherished, and held. You will fall in love with this man, and you will marry him.

I wish I could tell you that everything is okay after recovery, but I can’t. And it isn’t. The world is not a fair place. The universe remains cruel in ways you don’t deserve and can’t avoid.

Even after recovery, your body is still something you can’t fully make peace with. It still feels clenched, unsafe, afraid. You are still balled up like a fist, waiting for the next bad thing. But this isn’t your fault—this is the legacy of traumatization. This is how your body holds the memories of the terrible things that happened to you, that were done to you.

This exists outside your eating disorder.

Even though you’ll reach a stable recovery, you’ll also learn that being recovered doesn’t offer a clean slate. You’ll still struggle to feel safe in your body, and you’ll struggle to feel okay about your body. But when your life gets difficult, when the pain of being alive becomes unbearable, you’ll know how to hang on without turning toward an eating disorder.

Recovery will help you realize that you get to decide for yourself what is true about your body and what is just the bullshit you’ve been told about it.

And what’s true is this:

Your body is not a project.

The appearance of being healthy and fit aren’t things you owe the world2.

Your inherent value is inside you.

Bodies aren’t cars or calculators. Food is so much more than “fuel.” Exercise is movement, not an obligation, a punishment, or a correction.

Life doesn’t begin after you force your body down to a number on the scale. Life is not dormant; it is not waiting to be revealed beneath lost inches or shed pounds.

Life is happening now.

And now.

And now.

Through recovery, you will learn all these things and more as you reclaim and honour your voice.

And you will learn how to respect your body, even if you still don’t quite know how to be in it.

To read more written by Danielle follow the link below:

https://griefcasseroles.substack.com/p/seventeen?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=2811939&post_id=156191818&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=4a1qo7&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

1 Anyone can develop an eating disorder. If you think you might need help, don’t wait. There are many free and accessible resources. Here are two places you might start: The Looking Glass Foundation (BC), NEDIC (Canada). These are Canadian resources, but many other organizations exist that can help you get connected to support.

2 I wrote “appearance” here because, let’s be honest, we live in a culture that is very over-focused on appearance, and this focus tends to be on the appearance of health not on actual health. I’m also not convinced that health is something we, as individuals, owe the world either.