Dance, My Eating Disorder, and Me: Part 1
By Emma Neilson, DWC Staff Member
Medical Disclosure: Dancewear Center does not claim to have any medical expertise on any circumstances or diseases discussed. This is Emma’s personal experience and opinions. If you need help or are in a medical emergency, see the resources listed at the bottom of this post.
Trigger Warning: Eating disorders, trauma, self-harming behaviors, and sexual harassment.
This post was originally written by Emma in 2019, shared in 2020, and re-released in 2022 and 2024. Edits have been made for clarity.
Development
As a child, I remember comparing myself to others my age in the dance studio.
I remember family members talking about how they didn’t like their bodies.
In middle school and high school, I remember being surrounded by diet culture in my family.
I remember my friends talking about what they would eat in a day, how they had eating disorders, and how they would hurt themselves.
I remember when I first started dance and thought to myself, “I don’t look like anyone else here,” and hating myself for it.
I would say that I’ve had disordered eating habits since I was 13 , but my actual eating disorder (ED) didn’t develop until my senior year of high school. There’s a saying that your eating disorder develops after a perfect storm of “little t” traumas that over time culminate into your eating disorder. For me, there’s almost too many to list. I was a perfectionistic 4.0 student with no idea what she wanted to pursue after graduating high school, a dancer who had been surrounded by diet culture her whole life, and a teenager who was sexually harassed in her junior year of high school.
I have such a crystal clear memory of the first time my ED reared its ugly head. I was at lunch with a group of my friends, and I happened to look down at the nutrition facts on the package of chips I was eating. Within the hour, I had counted all the calories I had eaten so far that day, and had a calorie goal set for myself for each day of the next week. From that moment on, I was fighting a downhill battle.
Everyday consisted of strict rules including calorie limits, foods I could and couldn’t eat, weight goals, and how I would “punish” myself if I didn't adhere to these requirements. I was totally obsessed and my whole life became consumed by this mindset. I couldn’t focus on my academic classes, and I was depressed and anxious. I tried to keep it a secret as long as I could.
My body eventually took over in order to keep me alive, and I wound up in the cycle of restricting and bingeing. I started therapy, and it was at this time I was diagnosed as Bulimic. Things were not going well, and I was hospitalized for suicidal ideation for the first time 3 months before I graduated high school.
After I was released, I was determined to graduate with a 4.0 GPA, while my family was trying to encourage me to go into treatment and temporarily drop out of school. Eventually I graduated, finished all my end of year recitals and concerts, and not even a week later was hospitalized again. While I was there the second time, my doctors recommended I go into intensive treatment for my eating disorder.
Treatment
What It’s Like and My Experience
From June 2017 until March 2018, the majority of my time was devoted to attending treatment, working through my thoughts and ED behaviors, and recovering.
The first half of this year, I was in a Partial Hospitalization Program (PHP), which was 10 hours a day, 5 days a week. It was during this time that I was diagnosed with OSFED (previously known as EDNOS). A typical day in treatment looked like this:
I would get there in the morning, and as a group, we would do a check-in: how we were feeling, anything that we were struggling with, etc. Then we headed to breakfast. I would say that hands down, the hardest part of treatment was meal times. Each person had a personalized meal plan, and if you didn’t finish the food you were required to eat, you were given a meal supplement you had to finish. If you didn’t finish it, you were sent home for the day, and then other treatment options were discussed with you and your team. We ate in groups as well, so being surrounded by everyone having their own battles often made it harder. Before eating we would do check-ins which included talking about our hunger levels. Typically with EDs, you ignore your body’s hunger cues, and can even lose them altogether, so this was an exercise in body awareness. We would play games during meals to help distract ourselves and try to get through it. After breakfast, we had intuitive groups. Our groups ranged from therapy, to discussing certain topics, nutrition & cooking, outings, and art & yoga. You could also have individual therapy or nutrition appointments throughout the day, as well as medical appointments to monitor your heart, blood levels, and weight. We had snack times between each meal, lunch, groups/appointments, snack, break, dinner, and the last group of the day. Wash, lather, rinse, repeat. The only time you had at home was between 7pm-7am the next morning before you got there for breakfast. I personally found nights the hardest, trying my best to sleep and not engage in ED behaviors during the night time.
After a few months of this, and a third hospitalization, I ended up at a different treatment facility by January of 2018. Here, I was in an Intensive Outpatient Program, or IOP. I spent breakfast through lunchtime there, with 2 groups per day. This allowed for a lot more freedom and responsibility on my end to meet my meal plan and prove to my care team that I was getting better. After about 6 months of not being allowed to engage in any exercise, I was finally cleared to, and I decided to return to figure skating for a few months after I had taken a break from this sport for 4 years. This level of care was the hardest for me. I wasn’t in treatment for as long each day, and it was up to me to eat everything I was supposed to and not engage in ED behaviors. However, towards the end of that spring, I started quickly declining. My team wanted me to go up to the PHP level of care again, but since I had been in treatment for so long and was deemed “medically stable”, my health insurance denied this request. This was not the first time my insurance had done this. Within my first two months of treatment, I was supposed to go to an inpatient clinic for 24/7 care, but as I was “medically stable”, my insurance would not cover it. Insurances tend to look at the medical aspect of things when it comes to treatment for eating disorders- which is completely backwards because they are mental illnesses. I was not dangerously underweight and my blood work was normal after the first few months of treatment, and at this point my insurance would not cover higher level of care. The entire time I was in treatment facilities myself, my family, and my care team were fighting to keep me there so I could get the help I needed.
That spring, my insurance was no longer wanting to cover any of my treatment costs, and I was 18 and was reluctant to go to a PHP program again. I was now an adult, and could now decide to voluntarily leave any program I was in, so I did. Right after I stopped my treatment, I ended up spending two weeks with my sister and her family. This ended up being a very healing time period in my life. My mindset completely changed and I decided that I was sick of being sick. I never understood when doctors, therapists, nutritionists, and those who were recovered said that recovery is up to you. I felt like I didn’t have a choice, and that my ED was controlling all of it. But that’s not true. I had to make a conscious decision to recover, and realized that no one could do it for me. No amount of treatment was going to magically heal me if I wasn’t actively trying to get better. And I realized that I hadn’t been trying.
I started to recover, and I finally returned to dance after over a whole year off.
“Remember, even if you can’t see someone’s struggle doesn’t mean it’s not real.”
If you or someone you know needs help please visit https://www.nationaleatingdisorders.org.
For emergencies please call 911.
And for more resources you can visit our page listing local and specialized help options.
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