Feel Called to Help?
Please email us at jason@attitudeballet.com if you feel called to help provide financially for someone who is struggling with an Eating Disorder, but doesnot have the funds to receive the necessary treatment. I was blessed to secure a loan through a family member in order to receive the necessary but costly treatment I needed, but I know girls who are not fortunate enough to have the means to receive the treatment and healing they desperately long for. A 6-week stay at an inpatient facility can cost $50,000 or more, and insurance often covers very little if any of it. Your help could change someone’s life. While we do not take donations directly, we know specific girls who are awaiting treatment, and we can put you in contact with them and the treatment facility they hope to enter.
Email us at jason@attitudeballet.com
or call us at 765-208-6181!
Growing up, I was the youngest and only girl in my family, with two older brothers and two very loving parents. I was one of those kids who did everything, including playing the violin and piano, dancing, helping lead my youth group…pretty much you name it, I did it. Most people would say I looked like I had everything together…and I thought I did too. Yet, somehow ED crept into my life around my Junior year of high school.
It started out just wanting to look good for an upcoming dance recital and losing a few pounds, but after a break up with my first real boyfriend (now my husband, ironically), and a knee injury that kept me from exercising, ED became my sense of control.
After high school, I went to college, and by Christmas, had lost so much weight my brother apparently told my parents they were in denial and that their seemingly perfect daughter had an eating disorder. My dad confronted me and I admitted I was struggling, and honestly felt a twinge of relief and hope now that my secret was starting to dissipate.
My parents talked with my aunt who lived in the same town as the college I was attending, and found a counselor and doctor who were recommended for eating disorders. I returned to school and things just kept getting worse…yet now I felt like a complete failure because here I was going to see these professionals, yet ED just kept getting stronger.
Looking back objectively, I can see how these so called “professionals” were more damaging than I realized at the time because when you have an eating disorder, your mind is so consumed by negative thoughts that you cannot think clearly. My therapist at the time said things like “Man, maybe I should try that to lose weight!” or how about the “specialist” homeopathic doctor that gave me salt tablets to dissolve under my tongue and told me I’d be better in two weeks?
After somehow completing that semester (and somehow doing quite well), I returned home and went with my parents to a nearby city in search of healing. Apparently at the time, a psychiatric ward was all that was available, and our hope was quickly diminishing. We eventually found a place 2.5 hours away that I ended up driving to twice a week for a couple hours a day, yet I realized rather quickly it wasn’t helping. A doctor there actually told me she would rather have me throwing up than not eating. Definitely not a helpful comment for someone with an eating disorder! Needless to say, my hope flat-lined and I decided to “fake” my way out of there as quickly as possible. I put on my best acting face and pretended I was all better, even putting on a few pounds to satisfy my doctor and keep my parents from worrying.
That fall I decided to change colleges and started my final 3 years as a Communications Major, teaching violin on the side. ED continued to keep a tight grip on me, and I felt so alone and like I was screaming silently, praying over and over again that God would just heal me. I wanted Him to just reach down and flip a switch that would make me stop being so crazy. Every time I prayed, I was frustrated, yet felt God just telling me to trust Him and His timing. I praise God that He allowed me to do that through the past 8 years of hell with ED, because it was certainly not by my own strength.
I graduated in 2004 and married my most amazing husband who I had been dating since high school. He has stood by me through high school, college, and everything. If you want to meet a man of God, meet my husband.
God brought us to live in Anderson, IN and gave me a wonderful job for two years…all the while ED kept silently tearing me apart, keeping me quiet in shame and guilt for the “sin” I felt I was committing, yet couldn’t rid of in my life.
In the fall of 2006, my body finally started to demand attention, as I was constantly exhausted and dizzy. Refusing to believe it was ED, I went to the doctor thinking I had mono or something else. Blood tests revealed very frightening blood levels, especially of potassium, and my doctor called me in to talk. He asked me if I was struggling with an eating disorder and the truth came pouring out. After that, I KNEW I had to immediately tell my husband how much I was struggling, b/c I don’t keep anything from him (well, except ED b/c I reasoned it would just stress him out)…and I knew I needed help. I walked in the door, fell in his arms and sobbed everything out to him.
We learned of Selah House in Anderson, IN through a friend’s sister who worked there, and decided to pray about it. Financially, it was absolutely not possible, but we just kept reminding one another that God does not care about money and that somehow if it was meant to be, He would provide the resources to get me there. God kept laying on my heart that while outpatient therapy would be the most logical way to go financially, I absolutely needed to go inpatient at Selah. I knew how deeply ingrained ED’s habits were in my life, and knew I needed constant monitoring to break those habits, as much as I hated to admit it. My husband and I kept praying and somehow God has provided for us in spite of the fact that I was the one with the full-time job and benefits, which ended up not paying for mental health coverage anyways. I say all of this to give hope to those who see no way financially to make it to Selah, because if God wants you there, He WILL make a way for it to happen…and He has proved that to us!
I was scheduled to enter Selah in January of 2007, but I ended up entering the House in December of 2006, right before Christmas, because I was having such weird aches in my heart that I honestly did not know if I would live to January if I didn’t do something drastic. I remember one night looking fearfully into my husband’s eyes after he had prayed for me. It pained me to see my fear reflected back to me deep within his soul, and I prayed I would live to the morning and enter Selah as quickly as possible. I entered 2 days later.
Entering Selah was a HUGE answer to prayer. Throughout my entire 8-year struggle with ED, I never met one person who had or was struggling with an eating disorder. People kept telling me that tons of people struggle, yet no one was talking. That’s why I’m sharing my story with you today, because I believe God wants us to show our weakness so that He can show His strength. I prayed all through my eating disorder that God would bring one strong Christian woman, JUST one…into my life who would at least understand what I was dealing with, and when I entered Selah, God not only gave me one woman who understood it, He gave me a rotating household of INCREDIBLE women who had walked the road I was walking, and had brought them through to the side of recovery. I have never felt such renewed hope than when I entered Selah House and was received with such genuine warmth and love. I knew then that God had brought me to Selah to finally heal.
I placed my trust in God and His ability to use the staff at Selah to make me whole, and I’m alive again, a free woman today because of their willingness to be used by God to heal me and also because of the huge prayer support of friends and family. I cannot thank them all enough for walking me through to recovery and teaching me to separate who I am from who ED is. I used to walk in shame, but now I walk in confidence.
There is hope, and I am living proof that you CAN be free of ED. Life with ED was very rigid, controlled, dull and black and white. Life in recovery is free, full and more colorful than I ever knew life could be! I pray you find the freedom I've found, and know it is worth the fight to make it to this side of recovery.
Sincerely,
Kendra
Email Me!
:)
Note: ED stands for the eating disorder.
