Stories of Healing: Stacia

Stacia struggled with food and body image for years before seeking help in Rock’s program. As a young teenager and through college, she wrestled with food, the harmful messages of diet culture and beauty standards. Finally, Stacia decided that it was time to seek help. Through Rock’s Bridge to Life program, Stacia finally found the freedom she was so desperately seeking and the community support she needed to thrive, even through the most difficult seasons. Read more about Stacia’s story of healing below!

I have struggled with food and with my body for almost as long as I can remember, and by college this battle in my mind was relentless and exhausting. As a teenager, I think I tried to deny the influence that society and media had on me, and I found myself eating in rebellion. I was subconsciously trying to resist diet culture, resisting what I thought were shallow beauty standards, while secretly hoping I still measured up. However, in college my poor eating habits caught up with me. I gained weight, and became obsessed with losing it. This only solidified a vicious cycle of restricting, binging, and obsessing over every calorie of food I did or didn’t put into my body. I wrestled with expectations, and the connected feelings of shame and failure. Having this fear and obsession with not only food but also how I looked was incredibly isolating. It wasn’t something I could talk about and it frequently affected my plans with others.

Somewhat ironically, I downloaded a podcast on eating disorders a little over a year ago in another desperate attempt to fix myself. At that point I knew I had an unhealthy relationship with food, but was still minimizing it. I figured that my own issues were far less complex than those of someone with an eating disorder, so maybe I could fix my much smaller problems with their more serious remedies. I didn’t think I was actually sick enough.

I will never forget listening to that podcast as I drove home from work. The host calmly listed the criteria for binge eating disorder, and I remember saying, “check” out loud to each symptom as she went down the list. It was a major turning point – the realization was horrifying, but there was also a sweet relief at putting a name to what I was dealing with.

Around that time, Rock Recovery partnered with my church to host a workshop, but I was unable to attend. Instead, I went to their website and found the Bridge to Life program. This was my first experience with therapy, and in less than a month I was attending the weekly group. I had briefly considered counseling before, but when I called around it was either too expensive, too difficult to schedule, or both. Rock was both accessible and affordable, and I appreciated that it’s a faith-based organization.  Joining a group instead of a one-on-one counselor also took some of the pressure off.

At our group each week, we sit in a circle, start with a basic check-in, and then share a meal together. The group was small and quiet when I first came, and at one of our first dinners I remember asking, “Is this weird? We’re all just sitting here forcing ourselves to eat a meal and be social?” And one of the other women affirmed it instantly – “Yes, this is totally contrived, but you’ll get used to it.” And I did. And our group has grown, and it has been a beautifully diverse group of women from different backgrounds and disorders and faiths, and dinners are no longer quiet and there is a real sense of camaraderie that I wish everyone who struggles with an eating disorder could experience.

I was skeptical at first, but a year later I can say that my panic and anxiety around food is gone. Because of the women that have stood alongside me this year, the scripts in my head have been re-written to speak truth and not lies, and these truths have been deeply re-enforced through this group.

Recovery is not linear, it is not easy, and I do not say that I am recovered in the sense that my journey is over and done. It is a process. I do say that I am recovered in that technically, I have been symptom free for perhaps the longest stretch of my adult life. I am moving forward with new appreciation for my experiences, for my body, for the ability to even speak these words out loud, and with a deep sense of gratitude for the women that I have crossed paths with over this past year. At the risk of sounding dramatic, finding this community has not only impacted my life in the present but has affected all of my future experiences and relationships for the better.