New Year, New Me

My name is Michelle Franklin.

For many years, when faced with the question of who I am, I would have told you that I am an anorexic. I have an eating disorder. Anorexia has me. I gave up my individual identity to the monster inside my head and led my life under the control of a demon who wished to kill me. For nine years, I called myself by the name anorexia. For nine years, I was too afraid to stand up to the disease that so eagerly wished to kill me, and I let my life dwindle into nothingness countless times. For nine years, my motivation was driven by the number zero. But I am proud to say that after a long, painful, nine year battle against my eating disorder, Michelle has outlasted anorexia. And Michelle is finally winning the fight. I will no longer be answering as an anorexic, a lifeless, powerless, hopeless identity.

This is 2018, and this is a new year. This is a new me.

My name is Michelle Franklin.

And I am in recovery. I am a strong, positive woman ready to give back to the world. Ready to make a difference, no matter how big or small. I am a student at the University of Connecticut, hoping to graduate with a nursing degree and pursue my dream to become a psych nurse on an eating disorder inpatient floor, helping others to win the battle I know so personally and to achieve the recovery I know to be possible. I am a twin, a daughter, a girlfriend, a friend, a granddaughter, a niece, a cousin. I am a runner, a musician, an artist, a writer, a volunteer, an animal lover, a fashion enthusiast, a lover of learning.

And I am a survivor.

But it has taken an immeasurable amount of strength, perseverance, and time to reach this point.

For the first ten years of my life, I lived as a healthy, social, sporty, intelligent, care-free child, bouncing around, playing soccer, reading, dancing, and most importantly eating. Whatever I felt like eating, whenever I felt like eating it. Never thinking twice about what I put in my mouth, or how it would affect my size or weight. Never worrying about the number on the scale, the size of my clothing, or the way my thighs, cheeks, or stomach looked in the mirror. Life was pretty easy in the life of Michelle. All until everything seemed to come crashing down.

A lump on the side of my sister’s neck. A biopsy. A positive result. A diagnosis of Hodgkin's Lymphoma. All in such quick succession, my twin sister suddenly faced a life threatening disease at the age of nine. She quickly began treatment, a three month trial treatment of chemotherapy, which, fortunately, worked immediately and eliminated all traces of cancer from my sister’s body. My family dealt with the situation impressively, in a loving, supportive, devoted way, supporting my sister, as well as me, every step of the way. Everyone always commented on how well I seemed to be handling the situation.

I was indeed handling it. By keeping in all of my emotions. By keeping to myself. How important could my feelings be when my sister was battling a life threatening illness? I was handling it by subconsciously developing an eating disorder. Underneath the surface, beyond the sight of everyone, including myself, the foundation of my anorexia had formed. And I began to control my life with food and exercise. Seeing the number on the scale drop put me in a sense of control. And seeing the attention I got as I dwindled into a dangerously low weight range fed the reasons behind my eating disorder.

I vividly remember sitting in the car with my mom and blurting out “I'm so fat”, when, in reality, my body weight was critically low. My mom looked at me in panic, and a wave of realization washed over her face. She had figured me out. She knew. And from that moment on, counseling began, appointments with doctors and dieticians became my routine, and my mom took over my food and exercise habits, restoring me to a healthy weight. Being so young, she was able to take control of my behaviors and maintain my recovery for four years.

Until eighth grade when my eating disorder took a different dimension, a turn for the worse. It seemed as if the perfect storm of events came together to push me back to my eating disorder, a stronger eating disorder I had never met before. I read an autobiography of an anorexic, had to quit soccer due to subsequent injuries, and had a jaw appliance to fix my facial profile, which, at the time, blimped out my cheeks, significantly impacting my body image for the worse. And to reign my life back into control, the restricting and over-exercise took over once again, stronger than ever. I became more defiant in my ways, more driven to the number zero. And unfortunately, the beast became stronger than my mother and father could handle.

I entered treatment at Walden Behavioral Care, at first outpatient treatment, and quickly moving to residential and inpatient treatment, missing the last month of my eighth grade year, and staying at the inpatient level of care for eleven weeks, being fed by a nasogastric tube for the entirety of my hospitalization. I was considered a mere hopeless case, and the hospital discharged me because I had reached my goal body weight; it seemed there was nothing much else they could do to help me. I returned home, lasted for one week, and was readmitted a week later, this time just for a one week stay. I then continued treatment for another fourteen weeks in the Intensive Outpatient Program, after which I had finally reached a point of stability and partial recovery.

I was able to start high school on time, play lacrosse my freshman year, achieve straight A’s throughout my high school career, become event coordinator and eventual president of my high school’s Key Club, run multiple fundraisers for a variety of causes, volunteer at a camp for special needs students, babysit for several special needs children, play the violin in a variety of music festivals, become a member of multiple honors societies, receive my high school’s essence award, and gain acceptance into seven colleges. All with a solid base in recovery during my high school career and because I chose life over my eating disorder.

But unfortunately, recovery is not linear. And the year 2017 was plagued with another relapse. Following multiple rejections to prestigious universities I had applied to, the word failure seemed to become my identity. And rejections seemed to continue to fall into my life as soon as I seemed to recuperate from a previous rejection, to the point where I could no longer hold myself up and my eating disorder seemed to be the only remaining thing I could succeed at.

Once again, I fell harder than ever into my eating disorder and began outpatient treatment at Walden Behavioral Care. My family and treatment team tried their absolute hardest to prevent the past from happening again, to prevent another agonizingly long stay in an inpatient setting, however, my mental and physical health quickly deteriorated.

I tried desperately to make it through the monumental events that characterize the end of senior year, and fortunately, although I started the partial hospitalization day program, which meant missing school, my body held out for the most important events, such as our senior picnic, awards ceremonies, final orchestra concerts, meeting and beginning my relationship with my amazingly supportive boyfriend, and our senior ball. But, unfortunately, I just fell short of making it through the end of the year.

Memorial Day weekend, I was placed on the waiting list for the new inpatient eating disorder unit at Rockville General Hospital. My parents were told that if I showed any signs of worsening health or if I refused food or liquid intake for more than 24 hours, I was to be immediately taken to the emergency room. My heart rate dropped a little lower each day, yet I still continued to restrict and run despite the ever present possibility of collapsing. Zero was the only motivation left in my body. Zero was the only number low enough to satisfy my eating disorder.

By sheerly a miracle, my body made it through the weekend, and as soon as I stepped into program that Tuesday morning, my clinician told me there was a bed open, and I would be admitted that evening. I never believed this would be a reality again. I hoped that four years prior would be the last time I would ever step foot in an eating disorder hospital. But relapses happen, and sometimes you have to take a few steps back to take a giant step forward.

My hospitalization differed this time because, being eighteen, I was now considered an adult, and with such a status as a patient came different rules and freedoms. The biggest and most detrimental freedom to my health was the right to refuse. And as soon as I became aware of such a right, I refused the majority of tube feedings and treatment protocols that my team had put in place. And my health continued to deteriorate.

Until my parents, full of overwhelming hopelessness and grief, stepped in with a power of attorney over all of my medical decisions, and I no longer had the right to refuse. While at the time I was frustrated, scared, weak, and angry, looking back, this was a life saving decision made on my behalf, and I couldn't be more grateful to my parents for their unconditional love and support. They literally saved my life.

The Monday the power of attorney was instated, I was close to entering a state of hypoglycemia. Which could have very possibly meant death. Due to the severity of my malnutrition, I was tube fed continuously for several days, after which I was nocturnally tube fed all remaining nutrition that I was not able to complete during the day. And I pushed as hard as I could because I had the goal of making it to my graduation just two and a half weeks away.

Each day, I regained both the mental and physical strength needed for my goal, and although my treatment team recommended I stay longer to restore more of my health, they were confident enough with my progress to release me the day of my graduation. And on Friday, June 16th, I walked across my graduation stage, graduating with my class of 2017.

The following weeks were rocky, with some close readmissions back to inpatient, but I held my own, fighting for my future, for college, which was just a few months away. I was advised by many people that it may not be the best decision to start school in the fall, but I was determined to prove them wrong, showing the world the strength I had within me. I continued to make physical and mental progress during the summer, making incredible memories along the way.

And August came. The decision was made. I would be starting school at UCONN, living on campus, attempting to hold my own. I moved in, set up my dorm room, met up with new and old friends, and began classes. But my eating disorder decided its presence was necessary, especially to cope with all the stressors that had crept into my life. Restricting, over-exercising, compulsions. And once again, deteriorating health.

My family and counselors desperately tried to intervene, first with having me commute to classes. But unfortunately, my identity had become my anorexia, and I seemed to have reached the point of no return yet again. After three weeks of struggling to hold on, I could no longer put up the fight. Taking a medical leave of absence for the semester, I was readmitted inpatient again, this time only being tube fed for one day and staying for one week.

Having never been in a long term residential treatment program, my treatment team decided that this may be the key to my long term recovery. Not a fan of the idea, I headed off to residential in a poor mindset, which in no way set me up for success. I lasted a solid four days, until I was too unstable to be treated anywheres other than inpatient. And once again, I was shipped off to the hospital to return my body to health.

But this time was different. This time was the key to turning my life around. This time, recovery clicked.

Many people ask me what it took to “see the light”, to “have recovery click”, to “make the switch”. And, in reality, there are two pieces to my click.

The first being a vision that I had as I layed in bed my first night back, tube running, body weak, mind exhausted, life practically hopeless. A vision of my possible future. Of all the amazing moments, possible successes, lives I could touch, change I could create. Of all the happiness, joy, freedom, and independence. Of all the opportunities to be had, memories to be made, and milestones to be reached. How could I possibly let it all go to waste to live my life in such misery, such torture, such pain? How could I possibly let myself continue in such a pattern of bouncing in and out of hospitals and treatment centers, only to fall back into the same behaviors and same health outcomes?

And the answer is, I won’t. I won’t let myself give away the future that I saw so clearly, the future in recovery I know to be so possible.

The second part to my click was during breakfast my second day back. As I sat in front of my tray, four UCONN nursing students came into the common room to observe us as we ate breakfast and learn the way the unit functioned. And it hit me. A wave of humiliation, frustration, anger, fear. Here, I sat, a helpless patient, struggling to get my life back on track, struggling to complete a daily task that comes so easily to most people, struggling to hold onto the little life I had left. And there they sat, nursing students at a school I was supposed to be currently attending, a major I was supposed to be studying, a job I was planning on pursuing. Would I really let myself stay on this side as a patient, as a sick, helpless, chronic case? Or would I turn my life around, take my life into my own hands, switch sides, leave the patient side behind and join the nursing side, a side of hope, strength, and possibility?

And I chose the nursing side. I chose the side of my future. I grasped onto my vision, grasped onto the humility and frustration I felt during that breakfast and I pushed forward for my life, regardless of the pain, suffering, and fear that arose. And slowly, step by step, I climbed my way up. I was tube fed for less than a day, completing one hundred percent of my meal plan following my first day being inpatient again. And I continued to complete my full meal plan, each meal, each snack. And I was discharged one week later. For the last time.

I will never let myself be hospitalized again. I will never let myself lose control of my life, my health, my body again. I will never give up on my hopes and dreams for the future I saw so clearly that night. I will never give up.

I have worked extremely hard these past few months to reclaim my life, and with the help of my treatment team at Walden Behavioral Care, my loving family, and my incredibly supportive boyfriend and friends, I have made it through the longest year of my life: 10 months of treatment, 3 hospitalizations, 2 close calls with death, and countless hours of struggling, suffering, tears, and emotions too powerful to put into words. My recovery is not yet perfect, and I still struggle with a variety of anxieties around food and exercise, but I have learned to push past the struggle and not let my eating disorder control my actions, not let my eating disorder control my life.

But I made it. And 2017 is behind us, with 2018 lying ahead of us, full of so much potential, hope, and strength. Each day, I am taking one step closer to reclaiming my life, reclaiming Michelle. And reaching recovery.

My name is Michelle Franklin.

And I am on the path towards my future, the path towards incredible recovery.