Endometriosis, Unhealthy Body Image, Loss, Grief, and Stress...10 years later

Thanks to Facebook's Memories, I'm remembering 10 years ago today: August 27, 2006.

I was beginning my junior year at Northland College. This picture was taken while riding on a bus to a preseason soccer game in the UP of Michigan.

If I'm being honest, when I first saw the picture posted in 2006, my first reaction was "ooo you can see my hip bone sticking out when I lay like that" and I felt like I was doing something right to have that be my body shape. 😯 (I don't think I need to tell you that THAT is not a healthy thought/body aspiration.)

I worked so hard all summer to improve myself- working out in the company fitness room during my lunch break and having maybe half a sandwich or granola bar to refuel myself. All of that sweat and work, only to spend a couple days in the hospital to be diagnosed with endometriosis and essentially lose all of that progress.

Every month that school year I would often spend days in a row in bed curled up with a heating pad and take ibuprofen like it was candy, crying from the pain.

The end of August and early September was also when my Grandpa George and Grandmother (Fox) passed away. I remember visiting my Grandmother in the hospital after her heart surgery and passing out from low blood sugar.

That was the last time I ever saw her, and she was worrying about me from her hospital bed. To this day I cannot have plain vanilla milkshakes because of the memory associated with drinking part of hers to raise my blood sugar after passing out.

We didn't know at the time, but we only had 5 months left before my Grandpa Fox would pass away as well.

That year was so difficult and challenging for soccer, family, and school. Especially in 2nd semester, my grade dropped weekly in the hardest physics class I would ever take. I'd break down crying in my teacher's office, trying to manage my grief and stress while being unable to understand the material.
😪

If only I knew then what I know now...

That working out past exhaustion on no calories was not the way to lose weight or perform better on the soccer field. Food was not the enemy- food was FUEL.

That I didn't have to carry the burden of grief and stress alone. I didn't have to be mad at God- it only isolated me from His love even more.

All of these memories from a simple picture. I'm reminded of not only what I went through at that time but how far I've come since. ❤️