Sometimes I get really tired of bad news. I get really tired of talking about all the negative things when it comes to Eating Disorders.
Thing is I am a firm believer that a lot of times all that sourness, and bitterness, darkness, and sadness can be turned into something positive. ![]( "17830957_640")
I get asked all the time what it was that made me make that turn from being on the brink of death, to completely turning my life around?
I tell people all the time that I got sick and tired of sitting in a hole figuring out how I got there. Instead I started to focus one hundred percent, on how I was going to get myself the hell out of it.
I also knew that I was going to have to come up with something that I loved more than my Eating Disorder.
It was when I started to work at Rader Programs that I knew I had a purpose. I fell in love with my job, and writing became my passion, along with being a public advocate, and helping others who suffer find hope.
I started to gain Confidence, and I had people who believed in me, not for what I weighed, or how I looked, but for who I was.
My good friend Leah recently told me about an Olympic athlete, a cyclist named Dotsie Bausch. Until I researched her name, I knew nothing about her. “Melissa!…you have to read about her, and you have to do a blog about it” she said.
My eyes filled with tears as I started to read about who she was. I was introduced to a woman whose story was eerily similar to mine. Bausch developed her ED when she was a senior in high school in the 90′s, and a high paying modeling career pushed her into a life of binging, purging, and cocaine.![]( "IMG_8722")
For years she fell into that horrid place this disease takes you to. It ravished her body, depleted her soul, and left her at one point on the verge of walking into oncoming traffic to end her life.
After seeking counseling, and getting to a good point in her recovery, Bausch started to take up cycling. She fell in love with the sport, but realized that she was going to have to rebuild her body in order to keep up with the vigorous energy it required.
The body is an amazing thing, and as Bausch said it didn’t take her as long as she thought to gain her muscle mass back, and stamina.
By 2002 she was a member of the US National Team.
Today she is one of the five US Olympic finalists competing in Olympic games in London, where she and her team proudly achieved a silver medal.
To see this woman’s strength is Amazing!
It’s a prime example that it is possible to turn this disease around.
To gain a sense of self, and to do something that drives you to make a difference in this world is a key factor to recovery.
I am a firm believer in it!
I get goosebumps hearing Bausch tell her story, and to watch her be so successful.![]( "Dotsie Bausch Olympic Hopeful")
She like me talks openly about her recovery, where it took her, and where it has brought her today.
It just goes to show us all that is you want something bad enough it is possible!
I couldn’t help but find it ironic that she quoted that going back to her eating disorder was “not an option.”
I say that everyday.
YOUTUBE–DOTSIE BAUSCH INTERVIEW
Eating Disorders Treatment brought to you by RaderPrograms.com
