Goodbye (And I wish you all well!)

I'm both happy and sad right now.

Happy because I have landed my dream job. Sad because that means I will no longer be writing this blog.

It's been a tumultuous, frustrating, and yet rewarding two years since I started writing Surviving ED.Two years ago, I was approached through my personal blog, The Spirit Within, to be interviewed about "Deromanticizing Anorexia." That video was the start of Surviving ED.

I didn't know it was going to be such a difficult two years. All of you have seen me through several separations and the ultimate demise of my marriage, a descent into alcoholism and prescription drug abuse, and several hospitalizations.

But there also have been bright moments. Like recovery.

I think I can safely say that I am recovering, and that I am hopeful that I will be fully recovered some day. My psychiatrist and I recently decided that I am doing so well that I will be able to terminate treatment this month — after almost five years of therapy.

Anorexia, any eating disorder, is hard to beat. I have met many people in treatment, and sadly I have seen many of them relapsed. As I have relapsed myself many times.

There was a time I didn't think that I could recover. There was a time I didn't think I wanted to recover.

And now I'm living it.

I want to leave all of you with this: you can recover. I was very resistant to recovery, but I am doing it every day. I credit my wonderful eating disorders psychiatrist; he says it was all my work and that I'm a hard worker. So perhaps he was the guide that lead me out of the abyss of anorexia.

Anorexia and other eating disorders sometimes almost have a pathological hold over many of us. For a long time, I embraced the eating disorder identity. I was an anorexic. And nothing more. I didn't know anything more.

And that was odd for someone who developed anorexia in her early forties. I was amazed and appalled at how strong of a hold this illness took on me. I was very frightened.

In the five-plus years I've battled anorexia, I've often wondered what causes it. Why did I develop it? Why does anyone develop an eating disorder?

I have speculated about this question through this blog. I have written about society's demanding expectations on women. I have written about the addictive nature of these illnesses. I have written that some clinicians think that eating disorders have a genetic component. I have stressed that for me, anorexia was a coping mechanism, something that came along when I could not cope with all the stresses and demands of my life.

I have searched for answers, and yet I am still as puzzled as when I started writing this blog two years ago. Maybe I will never find the answers; maybe no one will ever find any one answer to why people develop eating disorders.

Why did I develop anorexia? I still really don't know.

But does it even matter? My psychiatrist put it this way: if I was in a building and it was on fire, would I stand there and speculate about why the fire started? No. I get out of the building and save my life. So that's what I did — I worked on recovering from an illness that I didn't really I know why I had.

The reason I will no longer be writing Surviving ED is that my new job is writing, and my contract states I can't write for other venues. That's pretty standard for writing jobs, as they don't want your focus to be on writing for someone else.

It is my dream job. I am very fortunate. I have come out on the other side of anorexia and I am thriving, starting work doing something I love and living a life of recovery.

I still will be around on Facebook, Google+, and @angelaegambrel on Twitter. Please contact me if any of you need anything or just want to chat. I feel very grateful for the two years I have had at HealthyPlace and am happy that I might have been able to help some of you.

I wish you all well and I pray for each one of you to recover fully from your eating disorders. It is possible. Please remember that.