It’s not really just about the food. - ED Recovery Story by Gracie Kettell

Hi! My name is Gracie Kettell. I am from Scottsdale, Arizona. I am currently in recovery from anorexia nervosa and using my Instagram and TikTok account @gracieseats to document my journey in hopes of helping others in their recovery journey. I am here to share my experience in battling an eating disorder to make other sufferers feel more seen.

My story begins in June of 2021. The Fourth of July was coming up, and almost everyone from my high school drove down to Mission Beach, California, to hangout and celebrate together for the week. I have always been pretty confident with myself, even though there were definitely days when I felt uncomfortable in my body. Knowing this trip was coming up, I felt stressed having to wear a swimsuit around a bunch of people all day. I was surrounded by diet culture telling me I should cut down on what I was eating to have a good “summer body” or I needed to work out to tone up. So I started exercising more and eating significantly healthier. Quickly enough, I was on my trip and feeling confident in my body, but experiencing small feelings of guilt whenever I ate, which was not typical for me.

The second I got home, I had a whole plan to get all the foods I restricted prior to my trip, but I just fell into the hole of guilt and shame every time I would eat. As my weight started to go down more and more, I was honestly quite terrified and worried and did NOT want to lose any more weight.

By now, my eating disorder had nothing to do with being skinny; instead, it gave me a sense of control in my extremely out-of-control life. My sister/best friend in the entire world had just passed away from cancer, and my parents were fighting like crazy and became separated. I moved into an apartment with my mom, and my car was sent back to the dealership, along with several other stressful issues. It seemed like everything in my life was going wrong, so I went to ED for control. But little did I know it was just taking more and more power away from me.

Things were going downhill pretty quickly. By the end of July, my mom had brought me to the emergency room, where they had told me my BMI wasn’t “dangerously low” and to only come back if things got worse. People with ED would usually take this as they aren’t “sick enough” to get help. Since my ED wasn't about my weight at all at this point, this situation did not make me feel invalidated. However, it's inconsiderate and harmful to only use physical symptoms to measure health.

Two more months had gone by, and my health was exacerbating. I had distanced myself from everyone, and my physical health was really taking a turn. My mom had brought me back to the emergency room in early September, where I was admitted to inpatient. I was not allowed to have a phone, visitors other than my mom, do school, shower or use the bathroom without being STARED at. I hated being there. All I wanted to do was get out and just go back to my ED and have a form of control. I got out two weeks later and immediately went back to restricting and exercising. I would constantly lie to everyone I loved and was just living a miserable life.

Everything took a turn when I started my TikTok and Instagram and began to meet new people/reach out to others who were going through the same thing. I finally realized I am much more than a disorder and deserve to live the absolute best life possible. I started slowly eating more, challenging food rules, eating fear foods, etc. My recovery has brought me many new friends with similar experiences, true happiness, a way better relationship with my boyfriend, and so much more.

I am not just choosing recovery for my family, my guardian angel sister, my boyfriend, and my friends...I'm choosing recovery for myself. No one can recover for you but yourself, and that is your greatest power. I am nowhere near fully recovered, and I still have a lot of work to do, but I am so grateful to say that I am doing much better than I was last year, and I am finally willing to push myself to reach full recovery <3

Thank you for listening.