Guest Blog Post: Life After Sickness

I am so proud to present to you my first guest blog post! After seeing all that the H.I.P.S. organization was doing for teenagers, I asked my cousin Rebecca to share her experience with living with an eating disorder and body image issues, how she coped, and how she came to appreciate her body and help others to do the same!

Life After Sickness

By Rebecca Kaiserman

The transition to high school was harder than expected. The academic, extracurricular and social pressures were more than I expected. However, living in today’s society, I was only taught how to increase life’s speed, rather than cope with its current stresses.

I began to engage in very unhealthy behaviors, including restriction of calories, purging of food and over exercising. I decided to finally acknowledge that my behaviors had gotten out of hand and was admitted to a relatively local treatment center during the summer between freshmen and sophomore year of high school. Continuing in private psychological and nutritional therapy, I founded the H.I.P.S. organization during my sophomore year of high school. I was fairly stable until the eating disorder voice resurfaced towards the end of my junior year. I began to abuse diet pills as well as retreat back to all the previously stated unhealthy tendencies. But hold on, this is where the story turns around.

The summer between my junior and senior year of high school, I was on the verge of being readmitted to a more intense level of treatment when I miraculously managed to convince my parents it would be a better idea to keep my plans to go on an abroad community service trip. I spent ten days in Costa Rica teaching English and becoming immersed in one of the most beautiful cultures in the world.

The culture in Costa Rica put my illness and my priorities into perspective. Their culture does not emphasize the size of one’s body, but rather the value of an education and hard work. I came back home with the greatest sense of appreciation for our world. I did not leave pitying the lack of fiscal resources that many believe plague foreign communities, but rather with the hopes of implementing their values into my daily life. 

I have been able to continue to appreciate the little things and focus on continuing to do what makes me happy. I have become very interested in spiritual practice and connecting my mind, soul and body. I truly believe if you use your mind to take care of your body and foster your soul, these three things will align to optimize your physical and mental health. I have come to appreciate my body as a vehicle that helps my soul convey the messages it contains and dreams I hope to accomplish. My body knows so much more than I think and communicates with me what it needs, as long as I remember to listen.

Absolutely there are days where the eating disorder voice reemerges, telling me my life would be easier without lunch and if I spent hours on the treadmill. But I know myself well enough to know I can over power this voice; I have enough faith in myself to look back on all through which I have persevered and am sure that if I want to continue to lead a physically and mentally healthy lifestyle, that is as possible as I wish it to be.

To see all of the amazing work Rebecca and the H.I.P.S. organization are doing visit their website.