Anorexia Has Made Me a Liability

"Not being able to understand God is frustrating, but it is ridiculous for us to think we have the right to limit God to something we are capable of comprehending." -Francis Chan

It is no secret that I love school. Since I can remember I have always loved going to school. More than socialization though, I love learning and acquiring a plethora of useful (or useless...) information. I like to think it is one of the reasons why I am so good at jeopardy...

My campus is beautiful.

It was never a question whether or not I would attend college. It was always a fact. I remember being in second grade and knowing without a doubt that I would attend college. At that age I was ambitious enough to think that a four-year degree would more than likely not be where my education ended.

College has always been my goal, and I am so lucky to have made it there. Over the past two years I have fallen absolutely in love with Mount Vernon, and I could not imagine my college experience taking place anywhere else. I have made some of my best friends, I have taken some of the most interesting classes, and I have met professors who have spoken immense wisdom into my life.

Over the past few weeks, however, the remainder of my college experience has been threatened--it only seemed appropriate to share the experience.

It started during finals week.

I was stressing out about exams, and consequently engaging in eating disorder behaviors. It was not the healthiest way to cope with the amount of stress I was experiencing, but it was what I was working with. My counselor at school consequently made the decision that I was not in a state of mind to make safe and healthy decisions for myself. She suggested I be put on a "safety plan."

Had I chosen to attend a public university, this probably would not have been a discussion. Because I go to a private university, though, my anorexia has made me somewhat of a liability to my school. The idea is that if I were to have a spontaneous cardiac episode, the school would be liable if they knew of my condition and did nothing.

As you can imagine, there is a ton of legality and logistics involved in this process. I have a meeting with the director of student life next week to discuss what all of this means for me and my college career. I will definitely update everyone after that happens. There is always the chance that my status as a residential student could be threatened though.

As you can imagine, that has been a hard pill for me to swallow. As of late, I have been in a state of denial. If I do not think about the situation, the situation does not exist. Clearly I'm an expert at handling problems...

One of the biggest factors in fueling my denial is the fact that I have no physical symptoms at the moment. Sure I had a load of side effects at one time (i.e dry skin, purple nails, joint and muscle pain, fatigue, hair loss) but I currently I am not experiencing any of that. As a result I have the mindset that "everything will be fine."

But everything won't be fine.

My status at school is in question,  I would hardly call that fine. This is out of my hands; as a controlling perfectionist you can surely imagine how painful that is. All I can do now is pray that God's plan for my life involves a complete four years at Mount Vernon.

I will definitely update everyone after my meeting next week.

xoxo,
jkd