In fact, it wasn't really an epiphany at all, it was more so a "make a change now or you're screwed" situation. Yet, it wasn't for the reasons you may think about for someone that was struggling with an eating disorder. I wasn't medically unstable. I didn't have family and friends worried about me. I was keeping up with my commitments to school and work. Which is exactly how I designed it - as long as everything looked fine on the outside, everything would be ok.

Or so I thought.

The thing about suppressing your emotions, ignoring your inner-hurts, and utilizing detrimental coping mechanisms is they can only last you so long, even though it never feels like that when you first start. When you start it feels like everything you have ever wanted - control, comfort, relief.

Those were the feelings I experienced the first time I started to fixate on the way that I ate, moved, and looked. The satisfaction of being able to take the reigns in just one area of my life felt like everything I could have ever needed. And you know what they say about good things... there's no such thing as "too much". Or wait, is it actually "too much of a good thing"? 

Once I experienced those desirable emotions I decided the answer was to seek out more, so I embarked upon that journey rule by rule. What I loved about this was there was never an "end" to the ways I could "optimize" myself and my habits. There was always a new ingredient to obsess about. A trending body standard to reach. An unsustainable exercise routine to follow.

The problem was those initial feelings of control only lasted so long and next thing I knew it felt less like I was controlling my body and more like my body was controlling me. It felt like a partner betraying me. A best friend stabbing me in my back. My world crumbling around me. So I held on, because what else would I do? Try to work though it?

I used to wish I did though, work through it. 

If, upon that first realization, I had just started my journey to healing, everything could have been different. My journey would have been more exemplary, commendable, traditional and less messy, chaotic, tumultuous.

But if that had happened you and I also wouldn't be here right now, sharing this story.

My epiphany for needing to get help didn't come about gently. 

If you're reading this you may feel like your story would never be sitting in the "feel good" section of the bookstore. Maybe, you even feel as if it would be found in the literary fiction section and the premise would be something along the lines of "woman who continuously takes wrong turns chronicles her journey to finding herself". I won't lie, this is personally my favorite premise, so that means you're probably my favorite person.

I became a Registered Dietitian and started a business because I wanted to help people. Looking back, I realize that I probably even wanted to help myself, current and past. Which, in turn, leads us here. You, on this page, reading my story and wondering if you are prepared to dive into the journey of healing.

Stories that don't follow the "rules" are just as beautiful as the ones that do.

I'm not here to tell you that you have to be ready, but I am here to tell you that I hope you don't let having an "unconventional", "untraditional" journey hold you back. All the thoughts in your head that tell you why you can't reach the relationship with food, body image, and exercise that you want are telling you that because they want to keep you stuck.

There is no such thing as being "sick enough." 

The "right time" to start doesn't exist. 

You are not "the exception" to healing.

It won't be easy but there's nothing harder than being stuck in a place where all of your energy is taken up by something that drains the life out of you, for as long as you live.

You deserve to live unrestricted just as much as anyone else. Let's write a new story together.