In 2014, I wrote essays about rehab for anorexia. They went viral and changed my life

An ode to the first blog post, in 2014, that would rock my world

This week is National Eating Disorder Awareness Week in the United States, which has long been a staple event in the recovery community.

I’m writing this while sitting on a stool in Medellin, Colombia, eating a giant galleta (cookie) at 9:35AM. And I’m doing what most 80s and 90s women do. Instead of eating it with synchronistic flow, I’m instead tearing off pieces of the cookie to nibble on, which I then wash down with coffee.

I’ll likely leave the cookies in shambles: pieces scattered around the box for my boyfriend to later look into and sigh. “Must we mutilate all the cookies before we eat them?”

He knows the answer, it’s rhetorical, and likely I’ll grin, give him the finger, and continue on with my day: he and I fully aware it’s a leftover eating disorder behavior. A symbol of control, a beacon of will power.

Or so I like to fancy myself; though none of this is really novel observation, many of us still clawing our way out of the sludge of 90s and 00s cultural zeitgeist.

An era who’s entire slogan could be defined by Kate Moss’ “Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels.”

Do I sound like I’m making light of my eating disorder issues?

Perhaps I am. If only because I’ve lived with eating disorders for nearly 20 years and I’ve been in recovery and have written about eating disorders for 11 years and there’s so little left that feels interesting to note — the novelties or self-discovery of it seemingly tired and bored.

Some behaviors apparently are more rooted than others, and if it’s tearing apart cookies - so be it. It’s better than running with stress fractures.

Overall, I’ve concluded that some years, I just manage my behaviors better than others. And when I have particularly hard or rapidly changing times, I’m less apt to stay the coarse. And have to be more vigilant.

2021, when I got the van - I was happier than I’d been in a long while, but life on the road nose dived my eating schedule and I skipped meals far too often out of exhilaration, road laziness, cook camping fatigue (“must I use this camper oven yet another night?”) and as a way to feel in control whilst I very much lived as a vagabond.

I dropped weight, I looked frankly skeletal. And - of course - I loved it. But, I knew it was not sustainable. And when loved ones started threatening rehab again, I worked through it.

On the flip side, I went through a god awful break up this past year and lost a ton of money. And, while this would’ve been prime time - I mean just prrrrrrriiiiime time - for me to slither on back to anorexic glory, I’ve actually been eating disorder suave while going through it. The urges less staple, more passing.

I don’t know why. Maybe it’s age. Perhaps I’m finally getting to the point where I accept that being Anorexic isn’t really a cure to anything. And far more taxing than it’s worth.

I no longer feen for the validation. In return, it’s given me a bit more IDGAF energy when it comes to how I look.

In my 30s, I’m a hell of a lot more confident in my career, myself, all those la-de-da things. And of course I think that helps lessen the load of the eating disorder weight.

Whatever it is, I’m not complaining. Less migraines. More mind capacity. It’s nice when I’m on the upside of recovery. And not reliving this time, 11 years ago, when I was just getting out of rehab and trying to figure out which side was up.

It’s wild to think how much my life would change following rehab. And not just in the symbolic recovery sense, but in my career and general path, too.

When I first started documenting eating disorder recovery, it was a 9-part essay series on a Wordpress blog about life while in treatment.

I don’t know what I expected from it at the time. Maybe just clarification. I knew the gossip in my hometown was popping off. That people knew I’d been struggling with eating since high school.

I guess I thought it would be a way to control the narrative: the future Publicist in me already trying to craft the story, lmao.

What I didn’t and couldn’t foresee is how those essays would fan out into the inter-verse and connect with millions of (mostly) women who - at the time in 2014 - did not have access to firsthand personal narratives of women dealing with eating disorders.

And man oh mannnn, did most of us all struggle with varying degrees of eating disorders?

It’s interesting. In 2025, with Substack and every other mode of social writing - I doubt my blog would blow up for the years it did. I don’t think my writing is all that profound or evocative, but at the time - it was something still coming onto the scene. Personal narratives of life with eating disorders a taboo subject just starting to get the media attention it needed.

So, really, this is just my long-winded way of writing that in honor of it being EDAW week - and as I reflect on the 11 years since I started my blog “I Haven’t Shaved in Six Weeks” (which still makes me LOL that I chose that blindly, not knowing how often I’d have to say it to media and online), I’m re-posting my first essay I ever wrote.

The first blog I ever published about my first day in treatment in Florida.

I hope some of you may remember pieces of it, and some of you enjoy what tidbits I had to share back then.

Appreciate the ride, and all of you who have reached out over the years. May we continue to fight the good fight <3

***And yes, I’ve updated a bit over the years, my writing far less PC 11 years ago than today.

---

Truth 1: Rehab Orientation

1.) Bitch, Please: There’s How Many Grams of Sugar in that Yogurt?

The day is here – you barely slept.

You rolled around the hotel bed with your laptop by your side – Mad Men Season 5 shifting from episode to episode on Netflix.

You’re wondering what movies will be on it when you get out; what you’ll miss at the Nitehawk in Brooklyn.

You’re texting the person you were dating, sending the salutations and farewells. Telling them you’re sorry for being dishonest – hoping they’ll find someone while you’re gone.

You don’t know who you’ll be when you’re done.

You don’t really want to.

Face the nightmare, homegirl. Your life has come to a point where you’re binge eating two boxes of cereal a day.

Where your roommate hides her chips and cereal in her room so you won’t eat it under the sheets in your bed.

You’re tired, laying in that hotel bed, but you won’t sleep. You’re texting this person and remembering how you once went on a date and threw up in a deli bathroom when they dropped you off at the subway.

You text your parents.

“You okay?” Mom asks.

“Yeah, going to bed.”

“I love you,” she says.

Why? You want to ask.

You leave your room, wander down the hall past the concierge, and sit on a bench and smoke a cigarette outside the Fairfield Inn.

The Fairfield Inn. An otherwise forgettable hotel if it wasn’t the purgatory to whatever comes next.

You cry because you know you’ll be crying a lot. And shouldn’t you? You smoke knowing it won’t help.

For the next month(s) you’re sure you will cry over the cookies you’ll be forced to eat (Oreos. So many Oreos), the high-calorie granola you’ll be instructed to finish (What, no fat-free?), and the Glazed Doughnuts you would’ve avoided like the plague (Hello, Dunkin) had you previously had the chance.

You slink back to your hotel room, shifting your eyes away from the gaze of the people sitting in the lobby.

You bought some leggings today. Do people dress up in rehab?

Wash your face in the sink. Will you lose weight now that you won’t be free to binge?

Will they let you lose weight?

Surely, you think, there must be a way I can manipulate the system and still lose weight.

Crawl into bed with your oversized t-shirt. Do you make friends in rehab? God, you hope they’re not looney toons.

Drift into uneasy sleep with your cell phone in your hand; the last message on Facebook sent.

—

Restless sleep.

And now the morning’s here and you’re unsure whether to eat. Should you starve before? One last binge?

You decide on a banana and half a cookie.

This is the first day of your life, you like to think – even if it’s cheesy.

You pick up your things around the room; sit in front of the mirror and apply make up; scowl at your hair.

You don’t have a straightener, a blow dryer, nor a curler. A subtle reminder that you aren’t allowed those things when you’re crazy.

You’re outside smoking a cigarette when the driver pulls up in a black Chevrolet.

“Lindsey?” he asks, smiling.

Your eyes flinch. Why are you smiling?

“Yeah,” you say, going to stab out the cigarette.

“No, no,” he says, holding his hand up. “Take your time. No rush.”

You nod ‘thanks’ but the cigarette and you have already divorced.

Is this your last cigarette? You wonder, trying to make it memorable.

You get in the car while he puts your suitcase in the back.

“Tom,” he says, reaching out his hand.

He talks the entire way, and frankly you find his good humor grating. Doesn’t he know you just want to shove in headphones and self-pity?

But you don’t – ’cause damn you Tom and your chatty demeanor – you think as he pulls in through the metal gates. Jumping out, he opens the door and helps you gallantly with your suitcase.

You feel guilty for being an asshole to him, even if it was only in your own mind.

“Good luck,” he says – as if you’re going off to war – and a lady with a trim figure meets you at the car.

“Hi Lindsey! Reception’s this way,” she says.

Of course she has a trim figure, you think, glancing her up and down as she walks ahead of you.

Hours pass. Instructions dealt. Suitcase inspected. Your “Team Red” binder stamped with your name. (What is this- Middle School Field Day?)

The suitcase inspection particularly humiliating, you think, once it’s over. A woman on staff tries to make light conversation as she picks through each of your things. You smile as she does, but feel particularly dehumanized as she confiscates a disposable razor from your toiletries.

“You can imagine why,” she explains, nearly tutting at you.

You nod, flushing a deep red.

Of course, you think. Us looneys can’t go around slicing ourselves.

After she’s done, she leads you back into the reception area, where she points to a worn, floral couch.

So here it is, you sigh finally, sitting down with your red binder. It’s your first day in rehab and all the skinny bitches are running around the halls with their feeding tube IVs and waft figures, and here you are now staring at hand-crafted artwork from a patient 7 years ago that reads “4319 days is ENOUGH” in eerie black and red paint; an XXS t-shirt you assume this satanic painter once adorned hanging beside it.

You are jealous of this person on this first day, and her XXS willpower. You wonder what 4319 eating disorder free days would look like – disgusted. The Facebook photos that would have the social community whispering “Poor thing, she used to be so thin back then.” Oh God, the cellulite. Your legs shake with nervous energy. Cut it off. Can you just have a knife to cut it all off.

You want to run thinking about it. Your body instructing you to; toes tensing in your shoes; muscles clenching in your black jeans, weakening by the moment. Run, they instruct. Don’t let yourself give up you lazy bitch.

But I ran last night, you explain. I ran for you. I ran and my shins hurt and I laid on the gym ground with my knees to my chest and I said I was sorry for not working hard enough.

If I had just gotten to that fucking weight, you think. I could’ve stopped before it came to this.

If you’d lost those final 5lbs, you would quit binging. You would’ve stopped lying. You could’ve sat between people in the subway. You could’ve taken that rest day once in awhile. And God, you’d eat that cake mom made at Christmas. You only binged because you looked in the mirror. Cellulite, skin, weight clinging – like a tick to your leg.

These are your thoughts that first day, have been your thoughts for so long.

You’re on the verge of tears; comparing yourself to the women that walk by - the girl with the baggy flannel and cut off shorts, the model with the bony waist and tube hanging from her nose. Oh, there are the pretty ones, and the plainer ones, the bigger ones and the skeletal ones, and the ones you assume came in on drugs. You’re not judging them though - you’re judging you: sitting there catching their blank eyes and listless frames. When you see the shoulder blades protruding on the woman in the corner - you wonder again whether you actually need to go through the humility of this experience. Should you leave? Should you call your parents? Oh God, what would (insert ex name) think if they knew you ended up here?

You think about the last time you saw that ex – the way they looked at you when you changed your shirt - eyes gazing at your dinner plate - tightened jaw when you laid together in a bed and they rubbed their hand over your rib cage. “I can feel your ribs,” they whispered. And you smiled.

You always won, then - before you moved to NYC and could no longer run as much.

You tried the 5am work outs – midnight Planet Fitness runs – but the weight crept back amidst the late work nights. A pound here, a pound there. You laid in your bed pinching the side of your hips – hoping it would shed like a snake.

So you could go to that birthday dinner-

You think about your friends at home now. You think about your mom leaving the night before. The way her head hung to the side, her eyes bleary.

Someone speaks to you from the couch over – a girl in cowboy boots and ill-fitted jeans with a heavy southern accent. She’s staring at you with a curious look on her face. You imagine she’s wondering whether you’re a binger, a bulimic, an ano? Sometimes, it’s obvious. In your case, you don’t think it is.

“This your first day?” she asks.

You smile like you’re going through 2007 Sorority Rush. “Uh-huh,” you say. “Yep!” You add for good measure.

You chastise yourself mentally.

The girl stares at you with her toothy Alabama grin. “It’s not this bad usually,” she says, lowering her voice and pointing around to the other fairly lifeless-seeming women around you. “But we’re doing rounds right now so everyone’s in a bad mood.”

“Rounds?”

“For levels,” she says. “On Tuesdays, we find out if we move up a level. I’m on escorts and I wanna move up to level 1, but everyone’s different.”

“Escorts?”

“Yeah, if you’re on escorts you can’t go to the bathroom without supervision.”

“Someone goes with you?”

“No not like in the stall,” she pauses. “But you have to count real loud while the staff stands outside and listens.”

Before you can press her further on this level system, a lady in a light yellow cardigan and long blonde hair walks out from a room “Stacey?” she says, looking toward the girl you’re speaking to.

“Well,” she grins. “Wish me luck.”

You smile politely and watch as the girls around her pat her back and make flustered movements.

“Where you from?” Another girl in flannel asks.

You look at her standing in the corner, worn Van sole pressed to the wall, hair in her face, paint all over her torn jeans and undershirt.

“Texas.”

“Me too,” she says. She doesn’t look happy about it.

“Cool,” you say. “Yeah, Fort Worth – Dallas area.”

“Denton,” she says, looking you up and down quickly. “Or, well, actually Plano, then Denton. Then New York. Then here.”

You nod. “I live in New York too.”

She nods. “Alright,” and turns back to the girl sitting on the ground in front of her. “This is fucking bullshit,” you can hear her mutter.

“Yeah, but you know if you weren’t such a bitch to them they’d let you move up.”

She throws up her hands, “I’m done with it.”

The girl on the ground looks bored. “No you’re not. Sit down.”

“I’m sick of it,” she says again, louder. But she slides down the wall next to the girl who you assume was like a dancer at some time in her life.

“Stop fighting them and you’ll get out. They want you out of here as much as you want it too.”

“I’m not even thin anymore.”

“You still act on symptoms.”

“Not in the last week.”

“Didn’t you hide butter?”

“That was like two weeks ago,” she says, exasperated.

You’d laugh, if you could. But some part of you wants to ask her how she did it, and you find that despicable.

—

This is how the first day goes: a blur of surreal conversations, introductions, and med checks.

You hang out in your room later, on top the floral Floridian comforter, a connected bathroom, notably locked. Your roommate’s things are strewn all over.

She seems nice enough – if not catatonic.

Definitely on meds.

You find you are too overwhelmed by the whole of the day to cry. So instead, you sit on your bed and briefly consider how long you could get away with doing crunches beside it before a counselor reported you.

But then you think about the Level system the girl told you about, and the bathroom escorts — and you decide chancing it for a few crunches seems a heavy price to pay.

Dinner comes, and from outside your room you hear a counselor cattle calling down the hall for everyone to leave their rooms and get into line.

The whole thing feeling juvenile at best, degrading at worst, you think, as you throw a sweater over your head and follow your roommate out the door.

You watch the others and file behind the other girls in military precision. Some are friendly, turning to introduce themselves. Some are blunt, like the girl you met earlier with the paint still caked to her: “you’re gonna have to take that off,” she says, pointing to your chest.

“My sweater?”

“Yeah, you think they’re gonna let us crazy bitches in the dining room with big sweaters?” She smirked. “We’d be hiding whole ass meals in them.”

From behind her, a girl with a pageboy haircut and deep cuts all up her legs and arms smiles and says ”You’re pretty. I like your smile.”

You find out later she’s only 14.

Once you’re shuffled into the cafeteria, you notice the floor to ceiling windows, the farmhouse beams on the ceiling, and after being herded into a line with a plastic tray and served a measured plate, you sit across a person named “Wes,” who informs you they’re forced here because their biological gender was female.

“Now, I’m stuck in here with all you bitches,” he quips.

And he helps you through dinner; watches you as you look down to see the cup of white rice, broccoli rabe, tofu (you chose the healthiest options you could on that GMO-fueled, calorie-packed menu), and yogurt for dessert.

You grimace, looking at the food, but think you’ve beat the system. Tofu and yogurt, you cackle quietly to yourself. I could’ve chosen the chicken and 2% milk like that fool over there, but I went safe.

It’s then you peer down at the nutrition label on the yogurt and break into panic.

“What the fuck is this,” you yell to no one in particular.

You point to the grams of sugar in the vanilla yogurt.

“I can’t eat this shit,” you exclaim.

In response, Wes reaches over and pats your hand knowingly; tells a joke.

The table is laughing with him and ignoring your hot tears and anxious jerks- used to the overreactions of the new people.

Some girl beside you who’s name you don’t know puts her hand on your back.

“You’re alright, you got this,” she smiles.

You don’t, you think. You really don’t.

“We’ve all been there - first night’s the worse. Don’t think about it. Just stuff it in.”

You stare at the clump of yogurt pushed onto your spoon.

“This isn’t good for us though,” you inform her. And she laughs, and you hint sarcasm.

“Newbies,” she rolls your eyes.

The girl with paint stuck to her watches you from down the table, expressionless.

“Can I trade this out for something else dairy?” you ask the table.

The girl beside you turns to you. “No, that’s part of this whole,” she waves her arm. “Thing here. You’re forced into eating whatever you choose from the paper menu.”

“Why can’t I trade?”

The paint girl sighs openly toward you, twirling her fork around plain looking spaghetti. “Because you’re not special, everyone here thinks the way you do - and we all have to eat this shit, anyway.”

You stare back at her, thinking how you’d like to pour this yogurt over her greasy hair. But eventually, you take a bite. You take the fucking bite because you’re god damn polite.

You’re polite and you were taught to be seen and not heard.

You eat the yogurt - bite by bite – and you imagine the sugar fermenting into your veins.

The fat you’ll feel on your stomach when you go to sleep later.

The anxiousness in your heart beating.

You let tears stream. Because this is really all so pathetic, isn’t it?

And no one says anything while you do it; they just clap quietly when you finish, and smile.

As the cafeteria clears, you leave feeling like a lamb for the slaughter.

And that night, tucked into bed under the starch white sheets-

You cry yourself to sleep.

This is Rehab: Day One