Every morning, Judith McNeely decides whether she’ll live or die.When stress clouds her mind and she reverts to her old way
of thinking, it’s a tough choice to make. But Judith has too much to live for to let
anorexia steal more time from her.
“It’s a daily choice to fight it,” Judith, 26, explains. “I have to work
on the way I think about
food and how I cope with stress. But I know I’m not alone in my fight. I
couldn’t have come this far without my savior — Jesus.”
Judith became anorexic during the summer of 1993,
just before her junior year at Auburn University in Georgia. To cope with the stresses of
school and outside pressures, she put herself on a diet and began running excessively.
Controlling her food and body gave her the sense of power she’d been missing.
“It was right at that time that I met my
boyfriend (who is now her husband) David,” she remembers. “He had no clue that I was losing weight because I was so careful to hide it and
do it slowly so no one would suspect it.”
Judith is five-feet-seven inches tall with a
slender frame. In 1993, her weight hovered in the mid-90s, well below her medically ideal
weight of 117.
David says he was totally “in the dark”
about Judith’s eating disorder for at least a year.
“I didn’t know her before she got sick,
so I didn’t know her behavior to be any different than it always had been,” he
says. “And she didn’t seem to have any issues with food.”
That year, Judith became deceptive. “What
David didn’t know is that I’d go run for an hour after we ate together to burn
off the food,” she says.
In the spring, a roommate finally confronted
Judith, saying she thought her daily running routine was extreme. “I just brushed off
her concerns and told her I was fine and that was how we left it,” she says. “I was so deep
into denial that I didn’t
even appreciate the risk she took by confronting me.”
In the fall of 1994, when Judith was a struggling
senior at Auburn, another roommate confronted her. This time, Judith took it to heart.
“In the back of my mind, I knew what I was doing was hurting my body
but I had no idea where to go with that knowledge,” Judith says. “That night was the first time I broke
down and admitted that I had a problem. I was so tired.”
She called her mother with the news, talked with
David and wrote his parents a letter.
Much to her surprise, David didn’t leave her.
“My attitude back then was, ‘OK,
there’s something wrong with you, let’s fix it and go on about our lives,’
because I didn’t understand that it
wasn’t about food,” he says. “It was about control and self-esteem and not
being able to accept imperfection.”
Judith went to see counselors at the university to
placate her friends and family. She hid her behavior so well that the doctors never
diagnosed her with anorexia.
“These counselors offered nutrition
counseling and really basic therapy. They couldn’t help me with what was going on in
my head because I wouldn’t let them.”
Judith stopped her sessions and vowed that
she’d heal herself. Her weight stayed in the mid-90s as she continued her long runs.
She never completely stopped eating; she just cut down.
Putting on a ‘good show’
In March of 1995, Judith and David were engaged.
She graduated in May with a degree in speech pathology. David was working as a youth
pastor at a local church. Things were good — on the surface. The wedding took place
in October.
“Now I know that I missed out on all the normal feelings and joys
that people have when they graduate and get married,” Judith says. “During all
that time I was mentally checked out. I was just going through the motions.”
For the next two years, Judith continued to eat
little and exercised constantly.
“I put on a good show,” she remembers.
After a while, people believed Judith was fine. David was worried but willing to believe
her.
“It was easy to dispel people’s fears
that I wasn’t eating because I could drink a milkshake in front of them and then go
run later for two hours,” Judith says.
In April of 1997, Judith’s father had a
massive heart attack. After hearing the news, she went for a two-hour run.
“As I was running, I realized I could hear my insides knocking
together,” she remembers. “And I knew I was doing to this to cope and something
was seriously wrong with me.” This knowledge planted a seed in Judith’s heart.
She prayed for the strength to confront her
disorder. But she feared that she would lose her husband, friends and family if they knew
how weak she really was. She felt guilty and foolish for abusing her body so badly.
Finally, in October of 1997, Judith collapsed.
“I told David and said I was tired. I was weary. I couldn’t do this to myself
anymore.”
The couple set a deadline of Oct. 31. By that date
they would have a plan in place for Judith to get treatment. But everywhere they turned,
treatment was astronomically expensive or too severe. Judith wanted help, but not to be
confined to a hospital bed.
David and Judith kept the plan a secret — not
even telling their parents. They prayed together daily, hoping a solution would arrive
soon.
“We found out about Remuda Ranch, this
amazing Christian treatment center in Arizona and I figured it was my best option,” Judith remembers. “Everything
about it seemed to fit my personality well. The problem was the cost. Even though the
insurance company said they’d pay for part of it, we couldn’t seem to raise the
rest.”
When all hope seemed lost, a miracle happened.
A man walked into the church where David worked
one day and handed the pastor an envelope. Hidden inside was the answer to the
McNeely’s prayers.
“He said, ‘I feel burdened. I have David on my heart and I feel that he should have this even
though I don’t know why,’ Then he handed the pastor the money, and walked
away,” David remembers. “The pastor came to me and gave me the envelope, and it
was full of exactly the amount we needed to send Judith to Remuda. The exact sum.”
Judith was hesitant to accept the money at first.
“Then I told David,
‘Can you imagine what we could do with this money?’ We could’ve put a huge
down payment on a house, gotten a new car. But then I realized that God had given us this
money and I was going to
use it for what He intended it for.”
After the money arrived, everything else fell into
place.
Judith’s cousin, a flight attendant, arranged
for her to fly free to Remuda on Nov. 4, 1997.
Judith called her friends and family and told them
where she was going and that she’d see them at Christmas. They offered their prayers
and love.
Recovery begins
Judith weighed 92 pounds when she arrived at
Remuda. Her circulation was poor so she was constantly cold —
Even as she stood in her room at Remuda, Judith
fought her diagnosis.
“I told the nutritionist that if she made me fat I’d sue her.
That’s how far gone I was.”
After arguing with roommates, counselors and
family members about her disorder for years, Judith still wasn’t ready to break down.
“What I was doing was practicing a slow form
of suicide without being fully aware of it,” Judith
says. “My weight loss was very slow. My mental state, however, changed more rapidly.
I came to truly hate myself and the feelings of being out of control that I couldn’t
fight.”
Surrendering control to the staff at Remuda felt
like an impossible task.
“Judith is a really independent,
self-sufficient person and for her to be told where to be, what to eat and what to do 24
hours a day was difficult,” David says.
Judith quickly found solace in the other women at
Remuda —
“I met girls there who were so bad off that
they wouldn’t lick envelopes for fear of the calories in the glue,” she
remembers. “It was amazing to be in the company of people who understood where I was ... and also to see people who were worse off. It was
all inspiring.”
One woman made an especially lasting impression on
Judith. “She was 65 years old and had been battling anorexia for decades. Seeing her
made me realize that I
was not going to let this overtake my life. I began to realize that I had a choice to make.”
Judith finally broke down during her fourth week.
She missed David terribly and still felt defeated and out of control. She feared that the
world-renowned experts at Remuda couldn’t even help her.
“I finally
just put my hands up and told God that I was ready to heal. I was sick of myself.”
Judith focused on getting better by fully
participating in her Christian-based therapy sessions.
“I learned
that just because you’re a Christian, your life isn’t going to be perfect,”
she says. “But being a Christian means you always have hope and a savior to trust
in.”
While Judith was away, David plunged his energy
into his work as a youth pastor and prayed for her safe, healthy return.
“I have a deep-seated belief that God is in
control and that is what got me through it,” David
says. “Once Judith took on that belief, she opened herself up to God’s
love.”
She says reading Jeremiah 29:11 helped her accept
that idea. It reads: “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord. “Plans to prosper you and not to
harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”
“I was angry at God for a very, very long time,” Judith says.
“I didn’t understand why He would let this happen to me. Once I resolved that issue, I knew I would be
OK.”
And even as she learned that she’d damaged
her immune system, sent her hormones completely out of whack and greatly increased the
chances that she’d suffer from osteoporosis, Judith decided to start living life to
the fullest.
Day by day
It’s been almost two years since Judith left
Remuda. Her battles have left her wise.
Through counseling at Remuda, Judith learned to be
a “true believer.” She says she’s replaced her former habit of constantly
evaluating herself with the knowledge that God knows what’s best for her.
“I can’t keep dwelling on comments that people have made to me
in the past that have hurt me, because it’s not healthy,” she says. “I have
to fight that because I can
recall so many specific negative things, who said them, what I was wearing at the time ...
and I sometimes struggle to let that go.”
And, Judith says, she constantly reminds herself
not to compare herself to other women.
“I try to remember that God didn’t design me to be that other
person,” she says. “He designed me to be me, and I have to honor that.”
The support of her family, friends and fellow
church members has given Judith the strength to share her story, she says.
“I’d love to help whoever I can get through this because I know how lonely it can be,” she
says. “In small towns it’s still considered to be a family embarrassment when
someone has an eating disorder, and that’s wrong. People need to realize that
it’s an illness, just like alcoholism and cancer. There are still so many
misconceptions about it — like that people think it’s girls just wanting to be
skinny. It’s really girls taking their frustrations out on their bodies.”
Judith says another breakthrough she’s made
through therapy is accepting full responsibility for her disorder.
“I chose this life,” she says. “God
is not to blame for what I did. He gave me the ability to choose what to do with His gift
of life ... And I understand that none of this was meant
to punish me — it was part of His plan for me.”
Judith is now looking for a Christian therapist to
help her maintain a healthy lifestyle while she tries to gain 10 pounds. She jokes that if
she can’t find one, she just may go back to school to become one herself.
n
Judith McNeely says she’s happy to offer
support and information about eating disorders. You can reach her by calling
(336)746-4879. |
Lifestyle