Natalie Esarey

After the time I spent alone, and the time I spent healing and rebuilding myself—I am left with one belief stronger than everything that’s happened. I believe that despite all odds that say otherwise, that people are inherently good.

It won’t tell you the way your eyes light up when you talk about the things you love. It won’t tell you that your laugh is a noise that makes the rest of us not feel so alone. You’ll never be told your worth.

We must be patient, and be trusting, for God has a plan for each one of us. So as hard as it is to put our humanly agendas to the side, and focus all our energy into God, it’s the only way to the feeling of complete love that we so desperately crave.

My eating disorder is unrelenting, terrible, and LOUD. It’s so loud that even if you want to hear truth and even if you want to break free, you cannot hear anything anyone is trying to tell you because you are drowning in the shrieks of its anger.

We became best friends in what felt like an instant. I loved her with my whole heart, and I know full well that she loved me with all of hers. I promised her that I was not just going to keep getting help while she was alive, but that I would continue to fight once she was gone.

As a recovering hard-core dieter turned bulimic, and then turned anorexic, I feel fairly qualified to speak about the diet industry. I’ve been overweight, I’ve been underweight, and I’ve been everywhere in between. Dieting won’t work.

It’s funny isn’t it? How the one thing we fear most in this world, that we try desperately with all we have to avoid, tends to be the one thing that never fails to come our way?

The truth is, you are stronger than all of this. You’re smarter than your demons.

On August 13, 2016, my life changed forever. Actually, my life began. I was reborn. Only nine months prior, I had just gotten out of my fifth treatment center. And now, finally, I was truly happy.

Choosing recovery doesn’t necessarily mean you will be cured, or never struggle again, but what it does mean is that you are making the conscious decision to fight. To not be a victim. To walk in the light of life, instead of in the shadows of darkness of death.

You’re the one with enough life in you to take something unseen and give it a face.

My dad didn’t teach me that love is patient, and love is kind. He didn’t teach me that love is beautiful, or that the power of love is more powerful than anything else on this earth. The picture of love I had painted in my head was that love was made to be painful, it was full of loss, and it was destructive.