On May 14, 2002 at 7:14 am the life I’d lived for 28 years ended, but at 7:15 am that morning, the life that I’d always dreamed of was just about to begin. For most of my childhood & all of my adulthood I have lived with an eating disorder. Something I never understood, yet something I questioned God about on a daily basis. It’s only now that I fully understand the “why me’s” of why I had to be chosen to endure this.

My story begins back in the 5th grade. At this time, I really began to notice just how much “society” based our self worth, & our social status on how we looked physically. To fit into the “mold” you had to be pencil thin, flawless, & basically fake. I started dieting pretty regularly at this time, trying to fit into that mold, the need of wanting to be accepted. Any fad diet, or anything with the word “diet” in it I tried. I honestly don’t recall a time where me & my childhood best friend Mindy weren’t on some type of diet. My life revolved around dieting. This was the start of my destructive path, often what I refer to as my “roller coaster ride of hell”. I continued dieting till high school. But somehow in high school I found a few really close friends that accepted me for me, & not what I was or looked like, so I mellowed out a little bit on my dieting. I didn’t give it all up, I still tried different diets, but it wasn’t my focus anymore. I was a really shy person during this time, I pretty much hung out with the few friends I had. My weight held me back from doing a lot of things I would have liked to have done. But I was afraid to try, afraid of what others might say if I did. I remember in high school once a guy told me “You know you’re a really cool person to hang out with you’ve got a great personality, but you are not pretty enough, or skinny enough to date, just not dating material”. This comment has stayed with me for a lifetime.

During the Fall of 1992, I transferred to Indianapolis to attend college. Here I was a shy person, embarking on what should have been the journey of my life, but instead I was withdrawn because of my insecurities. Three days after my parents left me there in Indiana, my grandmother had a heart attack and died. What a tragic loss this was for me because we were extremely close. I never got over it, but I had no choice but to move on. My feelings of dieting really came back at this time, & my need to be able to control “something” took over. I remember the day it really became a focal point of my life. It was about 2 months into school, 3 weeks before the big Annual Fall Formal Banquet at College, something that was required for every student to attend. As the day of the banquet got closer, I became more obsessed with dieting. I was the only girl in the dorm who didn’t have a date to this, & it stung like crazy! Oh how hard it was to sit back & listen to the other girls tell who asked them out, or who they were going with, what they were going to wear, etc. Then the day finally came, & how it hurt watching them as they got ready, watching as their dates came to pick them up, bringing flowers, or stuffed animals, knowing that when it was time for me to walk down the stairs & out the door, that no one would be there waiting for me, I’d be walking out alone. (For a year, I was the only girl who had to attend the Christmas Banquet, Valentine’s Banquet, the Spring Banquet & then the graduation banquet alone. Oh how that hurt! Granted I’d started to meet people, but I was really withdrawn & shy, so to a point I kept myself separated. I was afraid to trust people, afraid of what they’d say, afraid of getting hurt.) After having to attend the Fall Formal alone, dieting became more of an obsession to me than life & living did.

After awhile, after I got used to my new surroundings, my college life started taking off, & I started coming out of my shell a bit, but inside I was scared, feeling alone & sad, I was still afraid to trust. I guess to a point, I put on a front. I played the part of the one who “had it all together”. In fact several teachers even told me, “You know I’ve never met anyone who had the world on the top of their shoulders like you to. You’ve just got it all together. You’re going to go far”. If they only knew what was going on inside. I started starving myself at first just for a day or two, only to end up binging, then to end up feeling guilty for binging & end up purging. This became a way of life for me, for once I had control of something, something no one else could control, only me. I started starving myself for longer periods of time, 3-4 days, only to repeat the cycle of binging, then purging, then 7-8 days, then the cycle again, I’d finally starved myself for 16 days straight. Nothing to eat, only lots of liquids. No one ever knew, I’d been able to pull it off, I was good at hiding it. Finally the starving wasn’t enough, I needed something more, so I started taking diet pills too. At first it was only one kind, but then that one kind grew to two, then the next thing I know I’m taking 3-4 different kinds of diet pills & mixing them, taking them 3-4 different times a day. Again, no one knew, I was an expert at hiding it. Even my best friend & roommate had no clue, so I thought! Boy did I think I was good! Little did I know what it was doing to my emotional state. I was an emotional roller coaster. The diet pills were “speeding my body up”, however, my chemicals on the inside were all messed up, so I needed something to “slow me down“, so I started taking Xanax on top of everything else. I had a good excuse for using it, I was doing a lot of performances, a lot of singing, playing the piano, musicals, speeches, “I need something to just calm me down before a performance.”

Finally after a year or so of doing this my best friend became to get suspicious of me, so she started watching me, counting how long I‘d go without eating. I remember going into work one after a 16 day starvation fit only to be called aside by my boss. My best friend had told him I hadn’t eaten in 16 days & he refused to let me work until I’d ate. Boy was I mad!! I tried to deny it, however, he didn’t believe me. I almost lost my job over that! I thought no one knew, I realized I was going to have to be more careful. No one would catch me doing that again! The scariest thing that ever happened to me was the day I overdosed on diet pills. Boy was that freaky! I remember lying across my bed, unable to move or speak, but awake mentally, but I didn’t have any control. No one suspected what was going on, my roommates just assumed I was tired & let me sleep it off. Boy was the Lord watching out for me there! Again, I’d have to be more careful. Although it scared me, it wasn’t enough for me to change my destructive path. I thought I had control of it all, I didn’t realize how far I’d really gone.

After a few years of being able to hide the diet pills, a friend & I moved into our own apartment. Again, she began to get suspicious of me, so one day while I was at work, her & another friend went thru my room trying to find anything that might give them a clue as to what was going on in my life. Finally they stumbled on my stash of diet pills & Xanax that was hidden in a dresser drawer. Boy did they do some heavy confronting when I got home from work. At the time, I was mad, they invaded my privacy. They had no right, but looking at it now, they probably saved my life. I was on the road to killing myself, I just didn’t realize how far I’d really gone. I just wanted to be pretty for once, I just wanted to know what it was like to be loved, to have a guy accept me for me. Guys in my past always told me the same thing “you’ve got a great personality you’re so much fun to hang out with, but you are not dating material”. Boy did that hurt. I was looking for acceptance in the wrong spot. I had my eyes on the world instead of to the Lord. Here I was attending Bible College, pretending to be dependent on him but yet I was looking for happiness from the world. So many nights I cried, pleading with God just to make me pretty for once. “Why me??” “What did I ever do to make you hate me??” I remember one incident with one of my bosses at work. She used to always try setting up my single friends, but after knowing her for so long, she never once tried to set me up. I remember asking her why, & she got this look on her face, & finally she said “You know Tray-cee, I don’t think you’ll ever get married, I don’t believe you are what guys are looking for. You’re a great person, but you just aren’t dating material”. What the heck was Dating Material??? & just who decides this??? She might as well have stabbed me with a knife for her words cut just as bad.

It wasn’t too long afterwards, it seemed my life began falling apart again. My grandfather died, my youth pastor died, & then a family friend who was like a grandfather died. I’d lost a roommate, & another friend because of something someone else said & did. I felt alone, it was then that I truly realized I had to do something, my life was headed towards death. I’d started going back to the roller coaster ride of dieting, the diet pills, the starving. So I got help for my eating disorder. I started attending a “weight-loss” facility, but yet they also counseled me 3 times a week. Not only to help get the weight off, but to get to the “core” of the heart, the “core” of the problem. I learned a lot about myself during that time, however it was only 3 months & my parents came over to Indiana to “talk to me”. They didn’t know what was going on in my life, but they knew I wasn’t happy. They thought I was on a destructive path....oh how well they knew me, just when I thought I was doing so well at hiding it! They offered me the chance to go back to school & get my master’s degree. “You choose the place & we’ll send you. Where do you want to go? Anything to get you back on the road of life again.” So, I chose to attend a school in TN, I’d been there a few times, but it just seemed like a good place to get a new start. So off I left. Going there was the best decision I’d ever made, however there wasn’t a weight loss clinic there that I could attend...so I just assumed I could do it on my own. How wrong I was. So once again, slowly I slipped back into my destructive path...only this time a little more wiser! I had to be careful, I couldn’t let my roommate see! For some reason, my slip back into the path wasn’t as bad, maybe it was my need or want to actually over come this. Once again, I’d found a group of friends that accepted me for me, & for some reason that was enough. Also, I thought I’d found someone who really accepted. I’d met a guy off the internet (Ok, so I wasn’t really searching nor looking, however he’d ended up going to school with my sister-in-law & dating her best friend, so I thought I’d give it a try! They all spoke highly of him, so I thought I‘d go for it). We dated for almost a year & then he proposed one night when he came down to TN to visit me. I should have said no, I’d never been in a real relationship before (shoot I’d never even had my first date til I was 24) so I guess I wanted to give this as much as I could. I should of realized that no matter how much you want something you can’t force it. We fought more than we had happy times. I guess, personally, I was just afraid that if I didn’t take this chance it would never happen again. I mean, NO One had ever shown real interest in me before. I thought it was my chance to prove all those in my past wrong. I can honestly say I never loved him....that is something even now I’m still waiting for!! I realize it’s better to not have anyone then to have someone & live in a mistake. After he proposed, I decided to move back to Illinois to plan for our wedding, but during the transition of moving, I broke it off. Therefore, I’d given up my life & everything down in TN, so I had no place to go but back home with the family. I felt like a loser having to move back home. My goal was to stay around only for a year & then leave. Well after a year of living at home, my need to overcome my eating habit once & for all became my focal point. I’d gotten a really good job at this time, & I wanted to prove myself there, I wanted to go far, I wanted this to be my career. But I wasn’t secure with myself, so I needed to make a change. I wasn’t sure how to do it, but something had to be done. I didn’t feel I’d make it to 30 if I didn’t get control over this. So, quietly I started researching what’s called the “Gastric Bypass Surgery”, also known as the “Stomach-stapling” procedure. I spent a good year really trying to decide if this is something I wanted to do. After all, this was a major decision! This was my life! There were risk involved just as there was with any surgery. So I began researching...not only everything about the procedure, but about me. Who I was, where I wanted to be, & where I was heading. Finally in Feb. 2002, I came clean to my family & announced to them, my plan of going thru with this. Although they’d never really known what had happened in my life, I confessed it all to them. I broke their heart, but at least I was ready & willing to make a change now. So I made an appointment with the specialist & did whatever he told me to do to prepare. I spent 2 months dedicating my life to living how I was going to be living for the rest of my life after the surgery. I chose not to tell anyone I worked with b/c the pain of my past was just too great. I remember the day I told my supervisor where I was heading with it, I couldn’t even talk without crying. I did end up telling 2 really close co-workers of mine, & I’m thankful I did. I’m not sure I could have made it like I did without their constant support & encouragement! Today, I can talk about it with a whole different attitude! If what I’ve gone thru can help someone else then my struggle & burden is worth it! I’m very open about it now, it’s what I felt I had to do, it was my decision & one I believe has saved me!

So here, I was, getting ready to make the biggest decision of my life! I’d given my life back over to the Lord, & finally decided to work on me! If he wanted me to be single, then I’d accept that. My biggest goal in life was to get married & have a family. Up until this time I felt like a loser b/c I hadn’t. What was wrong with me? Part of my battle was to try to fit into this, if only I were thin, maybe someone would love me? If only I were pretty, maybe someone would love me? But I realized that I couldn’t be happy with anyone if I wasn’t happy with myself. So, I became content with where I was in life.

I’d started attending a new church, & didn’t know that many people my age, but in March, some of the single’s were going to WI for a single’s rally, & they invited me to go along. I figured this would be a good time to get to know them. I’d already made up my mind, I wasn’t going up there to meet anyone! I was going to be single, it’s how God planned my life to be. Little did I know how wrong I was! That weekend, I meet a guy, someone I thought really liked me! I came home thinking “But Lord, I thought you wanted me to be single? Why are you bringing someone in my life??!” So we began a relationship. I wasn’t honest with him about my surgery. He wanted me to “date” him & at first, I kept telling him no, I can’t. I couldn’t & wouldn’t let anyone come between my & my goal & get me side-tracked from my surgery! I’d come too far! But finally after a few months, I really began to trust him & open up. So I shared with him my story & where I was going, but more importantly “Why I couldn’t date him”. He acted like it didn’t matter to him, he claimed he wanted to be with me! So, I broke the walls down & opened up some. Then the big day approached.!! The night before my surgery, he wanted to be with me as I reflected on my life & let go of all that had once held me back. He was there for me every night while I was in the hospital. The week after I came home, he was gone. Found another girlfriend & left me! Again, another emotional roller coaster ride. “God why did you allow him to come in here & turn my world upside down? Just when I thought I was content with where you put me, you allow this to happen??” I’m still waiting for the answer! However, I am a firm believer that in every situation, or with the passing of every person in our life there is a lesson to be taught. Some may not come at the time we want, but eventually they’ll be made known.

So, alone again I was. “I was fine with that. I didn’t need a guy in my life! I could make this on my own. I’d been hurt enough, why let another hurt me!” So, I journeyed thru my surgery & my recovery on my own, along with a couple of close friends. Today, at 2 years later, I am down 115 pounds & couldn’t be happier! It’s a great feeling to see someone I haven’t seen in a while & speak to them, & see they don’t recognize me! I’m learning a lot about myself now, & why I am where I am. Although, it’s not all figured out, I believe that for once I’m conquering the biggest challenge that life has put before me! I’m determined not to go back! Although, I do not want to go back, I do not want to forget where I’ve come from & the struggles I’ve been thru. Although, they are painful years, they are also what craved the person I am today. I am a survivor! I do not know the “real” reason, I was asked to bear this cross, but I do believe that there is a purpose. I only hope it’s to help someone else in life bear it as well. For years, I felt alone, although I had friends, I felt alone & empty inside. Ashamed of who I was & what I’d become. They didn’t understand, they didn’t bear my cross! But I realize now, I was never alone! I made myself alone! Today, I am enjoying life! I am eager to do the things I missed out on! The night before my surgery I created a list of things I wanted to accomplish in my life, & for once I am beginning to start crossing those things off!! I’ve learned to live each day to the fullest, b/c we aren’t guaranteed tomorrow. To take his soul that is placed in our life & treasure them for who they are & not what they are! They are placed in our life for a reason, our job isn’t to figure the reason out, but rather to accept it as it comes!

Feel free to email me if you have any questions regarding the Gastric Bypass surgery, or just need some encouragement from someone who’s been there! You’re not alone & you don’t have to feel you are!