At ten years old I began taking tennis lessons. It was not because I loved tennis or any other sport for that matter. It was because I loved my father, and he had died from cancer earlier that year. He loved tennis, and he had always wanted me to be a big tennis-star. As a ten year old that was the only way I could deal with the loss of him. It was my logical way of showing him that I loved him so very much. It was as if I somehow knew that he was not really gone, and that no matter where he would go, he would always be with me. I thought that me taking tennis lessons would really make him proud, so that is what I did.
I did not cry for a year or show any other signs of grief, the only way I dealt with it, was through sports. My mom later told me about the night I finally cried. It was late, and I could not sleep. My thoughts were racing, and my first anxiety attack hit. My heart was beating really fast, and I could not catch my breath. It felt as if I was terrified, my palms and back were soaked in sweat. With heavy steps I went up to the living room where my mom was seated. I asked:
“Mom, are you going to die?”
She looked at me and answered as gently as she could: “Honey, we all will at some point, that is part of life.”
As she answered I could feel my tears filling up my eyes, I could feel that there was no chance of me holding it back this time. That night I finally cried.
I kept taking tennis lessons for five more years, but at the age of fifteen, other things would start to interest me. That year it became more interesting to hang out with my classmates, although I had never really been the social type. That year I also decided that I was fat, and that the only way I was ever going to receive love or acceptance from anyone, was by becoming thin. I quit tennis, and started running instead. As soon as I turned sixteen I signed up for a gym membership. I would run, and join aerobic or step classes every single day. Knowing very little about proper nutrition, I just figured that food that was mainly rich in carbohydrates or fats were bad foods, and that protein dense food was good foods. At the time that was all I knew, and the logic I was going for. Weighing myself became a daily must do. Not once a day, not twice a day, but several times during the day and sometimes during the night. Needless to say, I had no clue what I was doing. My food intake became increasingly more restrictive, and my bodyweight dropped quickly.
When I reached thirty-eight kilos, had lost my menstrual cycle and was constantly lethargic and freezing cold, my mother took drastic action. She had of course been worried for a while, but every time she urged me to eat a little bit more, I would get hysterical and restrict my food intake even more. I had developed anorexia, but I was in deep denial about my problem. It had become my escape from my emotions, my sadness, and no one – absolutely no one had the right to take it away from me. I was obsessed with keeping it around, because it was the best way I knew how to deal. Luckily my mother knew better, and I was still under eighteen years of age, so her determination to take me to a psychologist won. I can remember it feeling totally pointless, because I could not talk about my emotions – I had no clue what they were, duh! As a matter of fact, I did not dare to truly look into my emotions until very recently, ten years later; I will get into that a little bit later. The psychologist diagnosed me with depression and anorexia, and that was when that I started to see a nutritionist who actually managed to help me achieve small wins by setting up achievable goals. It was not easy to let go of control, and I freaked out many times as I saw my weight coming back on, but I had somehow realized that it was this or death.
After a while I started to eat more, and gained more weight. I was functioning normally again, and in the eyes of everyone around me, I was healthy. That was the truth I wanted to buy into as well, but honestly I was far from healthy. I did not handle gaining weight very well, and I had still not learned how to actually face my emotions, which were the root cause all along. This led me to develop a new coping mechanism, this time in the form of binge eating, followed by excessive exercising and restricting my food intake. Needless to say, that became a vicious cycle – fast. It also quickly became a habit that I felt I had absolutely no control over. For years this cycle left me feeling completely powerless, anxious and depressed. Knowing nothing about why I had such difficult issues with my body and with food, I was constantly trying to figure out a new way, but it always felt like hitting a wall. This was “me”, but it did not feel like me because I did not recognize this “me”.
No more hiding, break me or make me – Here goes.
There is something very scary in facing everything that you have tried to hide from over the last decade. Yet, once the fear and pain of staying where you are becomes larger than your fear of not knowing what lies ahead, the choice is not hard to make. I really had no choice. I was exhausted. Last summer, summer of 2017, it felt like I was caught in a terrible, tragic comedy that was my life.
It dawned on me that I was a twenty-eight year young woman; with absolutely no real will to live, and that I was not able to do what I really wanted because I had no clue in the world who I was.
It felt as though I had given away all these years to an eating disorder that wanted nothing but my attention to it, with absolutely no concern for my happiness. My best friend and I took a walk in the woods one evening, when she asked me the question that ultimately changed my life. She asked:
“How far are you going to let this go”, my answer was: “As far as it can go”.
She looked at me, and what followed was almost unbearable at the time. Silence. Absolute silence. I knew, that she knew, that this was the time to face what I had feared the most. “It” could not go any further, because I was at a crossroad. It was time to face the emotions that I had not dared to face, it was time to heal, and to choose the road I wanted for my life.
Hiba Doeiri, Fitness Enthusiast.
Any individuals in sports and fitness who would like to share their voice, please submit to hank@hankfittraining.com