Helping You To Heal Yourself

It all started about 8 years old.

Happy go-lucky on the outside, but constantly never feeling “good enough,” pretty enough, or smart enough on the inside. I grew up in a loving home, with two wonderful parents, a younger brother and sister who looked up to me, a great school and tons of friends and activities to keep me busy! The world was at my fingertips. However, inside at this age, I began to believe the lies of the world that I needed to be something more… Little did I know what was to come.

Me at my 10 year old birthday party: right before my eating disorder began.

One day during recess in the 4th grade, the “Queen Bee” of middle school told me she was “so fat” at 69 pounds….and then asked me how much I weighed.

I was about 10 pounds heavier and, ashamed, I lied.

“I don’t know what I weigh”, I told her, but from that day on, I made up my mind that, no matter what, I was going to lose about 10 pounds to be as pretty, popular and thin as her.

Long story short, an innocent childhood diet turned into a full blown eating disorder that would soon wreak havoc on my health for years to come.

As soon as my diet began at age 10, NO ONE knew what was up…except me.

I dieted for 6 months straight, before anyone realized something deeper was going on.

My eyes got dark circles around them, my skin became pale, hair started falling out in the shower, and an odd peach fuzz type hair began to grow on my body…

Finally, when I was “diagnosed,” my identity QUICKLY transitioned to “Lauryn: The girl with an eating disorder.” My parents tried everything they knew how to get me to eat.

The doctors sent me to the hospital, telling me, “Lauryn, you could die from this.” (Words that fell on deaf ears. I was young!). This hospitalization was the first of 12 more to come, and the total 4 years that I spent living inside treatment centers.

Middle-school, brace-face smirks. Fake happiness on the outside. Feeling completely broken and alone on the inside.

I made it out of my first hospitalization: alive and “better” on the outside (at least according to the doctors, the scale and my parents), but “cured?” Far from it!

Eating disorder recovery is about FAR MUCH MORE than a number on a scale.

I worked with countless nutritionists, therapists and psychatrists who prescribed me a “healing recovery diet”: Pop-tarts, pizza and Prozac.

In turn, I sunk lower. I felt awful on the inside, and my life became devoted to the eating disorder and recovery process.

This picture was snapped the week before my parents “surprised” me with a trip to Arizona to live at an eating disorder treatment center for 2 months. We had 10-minutes to say “goodbye” and I felt more alone than ever.

Everytime I got out of treatment, I’d come back home a “brand new Lauryn” (on the outside), but despeately struggling to adjust to my “new body,” and new habits on the inside.

As I fought to shed my eating disorder “cloak,” I still felt very fuzzy and gray about “HOW TO” live without ED dominating my thoughts.

While I could go through the motions of eating mom’s spaghetti and following a meal plan, I was STILL obsessed with reading food labels, counting fat grams, working out, and constanting thinking about food. I was present…but NOT present.

It was only a matter of time before, once more, ED fully crept back in, and I’d go back to treatment or the hospital again.

On the verge of my 16th birthday here, I hit another low. My doctor prescribed my mom to insert a feeding tube down my nose every night to “put weight on me” and dad made me sign a contract: in order to drive, I needed to weigh above 3 digits on the scale for safety.

I cried myself to sleep most nights and prayed for freedom. Would I ever be FREE?!

Sweet 16 was oh so sweet. After at least 6 years of struggling with “ED”, I had a breakthrough.

Ironically, it all came in the form of a personal trainer.

My doctors and parents were skeptical, but I begged, “Give me a chance.”

They eventually gave in, on one condition: “If it doesn’t work, you’re going to go back into treatment.”

Those words alone were enough to make me decide right away: It WAS going to work.

I started meeting with my personal trainer 3 times per week and, instantly, I came ALIVE.

FINALLY, someone saw me as a PERSON (not a patient). My trainer began to gradually teach me new insights and truths about my body, food and fitness. (debunking my old myths). Sweet 16 was a sweet, sweet year that lasted for about 12 months...Until, something else happened…

Orthorexia took over.

The summer before senior year of high school, I moved “abroad” to New York City to study journalism at Columbia University.

It was the first time I’d been away from home, my “safe foods” and my personal trainer since my new recovery had begun, and I made it my goal that summer to become the “fittest version of myself ever.” I began working out 3 hours per day and jumped onto the cool low carb bandwagon.

2 months later, I’d lost nearly 15 pounds without trying and found myself immersed in a completely new eating disorder: Orthorexia--the obsession with healthy eating.

When I returned home, it became a war zone! My parents, scared for my life, restricted my gym memberships and grounded me for not eating enough carbs...but somehow my working out managed to creep up to 5-6 hours per day, while subsisting off very little food (other than turkey patties, egg whites and vegetables).

You can’t run away from your problems…

I moved to Austin for college at UT-Austin, thinking I’d experience “best years of my life” (college)...but the eating disorder obsessions did not get better.

This was a picture taken from my first and last sorority rush party.

The next day, even before my Freshman year classes officially started, I went to a routine doctor check up, where he discovered I had a heart rate in the 30’s.

Back to the hospital I went...

Round 3 of inpatient eating disorder treatment began in the Fall of 2006. Instead of going to frat parties, pulling all-nighters or UT football games, I spent my days, marching from group therapy to group therapy, and watching the clock tick by between my 6 daily meals.

I lived off prunes, TUMS and Miralax between meals to help with the bloating and constipation…wore Ted Hose with my daily sweatpants as my body swelling continued… and was prescribed anti-anxiety medication that made me feel completely numb.

The clincher? My overweight Russian nutritionist told me one of her top goals was to “give me big breasts like her”...even though the doctors always told me recovery was “not about the weight!”

I could deal with the actual weight gain, but the constipation, bloating, swelling and “feeling flat” did not feel good at all.

I spent another 4 months in patient and got out in time to start my spring semester at college...Once more, “better” on the outside, but feeling miserable on the inside.

I managed to graduate undergrad from college without any more treatment centers.

After school, I accepted my first job as a TV news producer and reporter back in Little Rock, Arkansas (my hometown).

However, my eating disorder habits continued to keep me stuck. I felt cramped back at home, where my parents still monitored everything I ate and my gym time.

My ticket out? Move away and go to grad school of course on student loan money!

I applied to occupational therapy school at Belmont University in Nashville, got in and fled--fast, believing that running away would help me heal…

Reality: You can take the girl out of her environment, but you can’t take the ED habits magically out of the girl (until she is READY).

Rock bottom.

I survived my first full year through grad school. But it was not easy. Despite my daily 6 to 8 hour long workouts, I managed to get straight A’s in all my classes, work 2 part time jobs and survive off 4 hours of sleep and under 1000 calories each day.

However, although I smiled on the outside, it was obvious to everyone that I was struggling. BIG time.

Then “it” happened—the morning I will never forget.

The morning before my second-year fall semester classes started, I stepped on the scale (like always) only to see a number that I had not seen since I was 10 years old….back when my eating disorder first began. And, now at age 23, for the first time…it scared me.

To cope I got in my car, fled to the gym to work off my stress, and prayed OUT LOUD, “God, please help me make a change today!"

4:45 a.m. I whipped into the YMCA parking lot. Just in time to get first dibs on my favorite Stairmaster!

However, as I gathered my gym bag in my trunk for my morning sweat session, a voice came up behind me: “Good morning Lauryn…” to which I whipped my head around and saw not one…but 7 other usual gym goers, who walked up and circled around me...

Louise stepped forward. “Lauryn, we’re worried about you…we’ve been watching you over the past year…and it doesn’t seem like you’re well…”

Another said, “We just don’t know what we would do if we saw you collapse on that Stair Master…we care about you!”

One more said, “Lauryn, we want to help you…can we take you to the hospital and make sure everything is ok?”

Long story short, I did not make it my workout that day.

48 hours later, I found myself in the CCU with a heart rate in the 30’s and doctors saying I may not make it. I spent the next 4 weeks on heart rate monitors, feeding tubes and IV fluids, as the doctors, my family and friends fought to keep me alive.

After 4 weeks in the hospital, I had 1 of 2 choices: (a.) continue staying the hospital for another 8 weeks and “refeeding” OR (b.) go back to eating disorder treatment. Which would you choose?

I wanted neither, but I wanted OUT. I booked a ticket to Miami, and told them I’d go on ONE condition...I’d ONLY stay the minimum stay (42 days)...12 months later, I laughed reflecting back on the statement.

The one thing, the ONLY thing that got me through that LONG 12 months? My hope and faith in things unseen.

Jeremiah 29:11 became my battle cry: “For I know the plans I have for you declares the Lord, plans to prosper you (not harm you). Plans to give you a hope and a future.” I was NOT going to give up (and He wasn’t either).

The guy who NEVER gave up on me. My dad and mom were my #1 cheerleaders throughout every single up and down throughout my…well ENTIRE life.

Without their fight FOR me (and belief in me), I would not be here today. Dad came to visit a few months in to my stay in Miami and, for the first time, I got to break FREE for a few hours from treatment for a special outing—to the beach.

Eating disorders and diseases wreak havoc on MORE than just the individual they inflict. They affect the whole family. Slowly we began to restore.

Although, I still felt very inflamed, constipated, bloated and uncomfortable physically, inside myself (mentally and emotionally) EVERYTHING had changed—and that’s what kept me going. Time with dad that weekend, outside of treatment’s 4 walls, was a breath of fresh air to know that there was LIFE outside treatment.

I made up my mind that, no matter what happened during treatment, life after treatment was going to be 100% different on the other side!

I emerged from treatment a completely different human.

It felt like I got a brand new chance at life...and I finally started living again.

I stayed in Miami 6 more months where I found CrossFit, functional medicine, an amazing church and community of friends I’d never had before returning to Nashville to finish what I started: Complete my Doctorate in Occupational Therapy as well as Nutritional Therapy School and Functional Medicine Practitioner Training.

My original holistic health clinic “Thrive Wellness & Recovery” was born and, as soon as graduation hit, I was on a mission to help women worldwide who have “done it all” finally get to their root causes and turn their greatest health setbacks into their biggest comebacks.

Life was amazing...until...

Everything was going great in recovery until...I got sick. Really sick. By age 29, I joined the 60% of Americans that have a chronic condition. Doctors diagnosed me with Colitis, Osteoporosis, Hashimoto’s, Lupus, Diabetes, Amennorhea, Asthma, Migraines, Anemia, Celiac Disease, Mold Illness, Mast Cell Activation Syndrome, Lyme Disease...just to name a few things.

Both my eating disorder, years of conventional treatment and chronic dieting destroyed my gut health! My immune system and hormone balance was shot because of it!

I saw over 50 different “specialists” and spent $1000’s upon $1000’s of dollars on doctors who had no clue what was going on. Then of course, there was Dr. Google!

The “solution”? Take boatloads of supplements and go on a Low FODMAP, keto diet, of course! However, did you know that long term restrictive elimination diets are just as bad for your gut and health as processed foods?

I lost 15 pounds in a matter of months...was limited to only 5 to 10 foods because it’s all my body could handle.

I felt stuck… Perhaps like many of you ...