A couple years ago, I was invited to speak in a recovery-oriented webinar by BALANCE Eating Disorder Treatment Center. I discussed how finding my purpose through identity was integral in my healing. This is what I think about the topic today…

Finding identity outside the eating disorder is a universal journey. The eating disorder entraps us and forces into believing we have nothing to offer besides thinness or an illusion of self control. The truth of the matter is that we are just sick and miserable with an eating disorder — and that’s no way to live.

Some of us recovery warriors were taught in treatment to call the eating disorder Ed, as if it was an outside identity, so we can begin to separate oursleves. I call my mental illnesses the Monster. We may feel so caught up in our struggles because we don’t know who we are and we haven’t found our worth outside of looks or desperate attempts of coping with our pain and trauma. Doing the therapeutic work of crafting my identity outside of the Monster helped me get to where I am today — grounded and secure. Knowing that we have worth far beyond the scale or the mirror is where the freedom is found.

In my declaration of who I am outside of the eating disorder for this webinar, I said, “We feel like we have control, but we are actually spiraling out of control…It’s like you’re craving this control. Maybe you feel like your situation at home is just so unrooted and maybe you’ve experienced trauma and you’re trying to desperately cope, but it’s actually maladaptive coping and it is hurting you. And so along the way, I actually began to feel like my eating disorder was my identity. I felt very attached to it and I used to feel very ashamed for feeling that way, because, of course, a healthier mindset would be like, “I don’t want to have an eating disorder,” but a disordered mindset might be clinging to that struggle because it’s helped you, and when you leaned on it, it was there for you, but also recognizing like, “Who am I without this eating disorder? Who am I without these struggles?” And I began discovering labels that fit me in positive ways — like an advocate and a writer, an artist, a student, and having these labels attached to me now, it’s just so much more empowering rather than stigmatizing me or isolating me from others”.

In my communities growing up, I used to be known for being quiet and isolating from my peers — often declining well-meaning invitations as a teenager, due to anxiety and depression. Most people didn’t know why. I was grateful for the role patient privacy played in protecting the fact I was in residential treatment for my eating disorder my sophomore year of high school, as I could privately recover, although some of my peers assumed the mystery behind the “why”. Rumors fly, but what matters is that the people close to you are supporting your personal journey, and my close friends, family, therapists, and mentors did.

This last decade being an online creative and writer, I’ve honed in on my craft so passionately that creating is second nature to me today; it’s in my blood and it’s my everything. I need this space of creativity to keep motivated and inspired. Other creatives, such as singers, artists, and writers inspire me as well. The ever-flowing well of inspiration I gain from my communities is beautifully motivating. I feel rooted in who I am to myself and others. I also don’t mind saying today that I am recovered. My identity is not “illness” or “sufferer”. I am an overcomer; a hard-worker; a survivor; an advocate. I am more than where I fell down. I have a lot to offer.

While I love being a writer, artist, healthcare worker, student, etc. I also love just being Lexie. My creativity is who I am and acts as a constant source of meaning and purpose. I’m called in every aspect of my life for my compassion, kindness, and creativity. While I have titles that define me and provide meaning today, I’m also so much more, as echoed by my #BoycottTheBefore campaign.

Some days I just enjoy existing as a good friend or someone committed to their self compassion and inner child healing journeys. My work sprouts up from these identities, but I feel so comfortable showing up to my life that I find worth in who I am by as little as how I feel or how I love. I can separate them for the sake of my own self-worth, but it’s very encouraging because I’m intrinsically tied to my creativity no matter what — through writing letters or creating art for others to appreciating myself through self-care. These gifts cannot be taken away from me; they’re who I am and what I breathe.

Being able to define ourselves for our heart, I think, is something no one else can take from us. We may lose friendships and experience grief in life, but knowing I have good intentions and mean well, even in my missteps — that’s all I could ever want now that I’m recovered. The extra meaning found outside of self-worth is finding friendships who see the same light in me. Being that unconditional support for self and for others is the basis of my purpose. I’ve learned to put myself first.

Last year, I experienced a few losses. I wrote about my instinctual reaction of thinking to myself, “I want to die” in an article for Mental Health America. A turning point in my recovery was recognizing the distinction that this previous red flag of suicidal ideation is now just a harmless reflex.

In this time in recovering from the losses, I’ve found that I have my purpose at my jobs, in school, with friends, with mentors, in therapy, with family, with pets, and most importantly, with myself. That old suicidal reflex resurfaced because I was in distress, but I feel so rooted in who I am in every facet of my life today, that it was much too painful to imagine leaving this life worth living I have created so honestly for myself. I have so much to live for — so much I have created out of love. And I intend to continue creating out of love, rather than fear.