Thirty years after facing the toughest battle of her life, an Okotoks woman is sharing the story of her struggle with anorexia.
It’s taken Brenda Sheets decades to replace the shame she’s felt from having anorexia with pride for overcoming it and she’s sharing her story through her self-published book This!... Is Where Love Grows.
Sheets will talk about her book, experiences and anorexia during a free presentation at the Okotoks Public Library Oct. 20 from 6:30 p.m. to 8 p.m.
“The purpose of publishing my book was not fame or fortune, my goal was to bring awareness and compassion to eating disorders,” she said. “I wanted to really show how eating disorders can absolutely, totally take over someone’s life and from a sufferer’s point of view.”
It began for Sheets during her first year of university in Winnipeg. She gained 10 pounds and decided to cut out certain foods and run to lose the weight.
She also struggled with the feeling of not belonging, both in her family and at school.
Sheets’ father was killed when she was a baby and her mom remarried and had other children. Although Sheets wasn’t treated differently, she felt different inside.
Even in high school, where she was popular, she had that same feeling.
“It was my internal angst that nobody saw,” she said.
When Sheets returned home the summer following her first year of university, she made excuses not to join family events and was rarely home for supper.
The following summer her disease was harder to hide.
“I had lost a lot of weight,” she said. “I would eat less and less and I would run further and further.”
Although her boyfriend and close friends sat her down a couple of times for an intervention, Sheets was in denial.
When she fainted that summer, her mom took her to a hospital where she was told she had anorexia. Sheets convinced her mom she was okay and returned to university to start her third year.
When she collapsed at a school dance that October, Sheets returned home for treatment.
“The disease takes over the mind and it takes over the body,” she said. “There was the odd time I thought ‘this is horrible, I have to stop. Why am I acting this way?’ I had no ability to change it.”
Two months later she realized it was a life or death situation.
“I decided the beginning of December it was either I get treatment or I die,” she said. “I had no energy. I couldn’t do anything. I made the decision to get help.”
When Sheets checked into the hospital she had lost 60 per cent of her original body weight.
“My organs were on the verge of shutting down,” she said. “It was the steepest most jagged mountain I ever had to climb. Just to be able to lift the fork to my mouth I had to metaphorically climb my way over a 12 foot tall concrete wall.”
It took Sheets about 10 years to recover from anorexia.
She returned to university to complete her degree, got married and had four children. In the meantime, she kept that part of her past to herself.
“I managed to recover physically from it, but since that time I carried the shame of having an eating disorder to the point where nobody from my current life knew about it,” she said.
It was only last year that she told her daughters, following six months of soul searching with help from a life coach.
“I knew that I had to do it and whatever the outcome was I would deal with it,” she said. “I felt a bit of apprehension not knowing whether they would be embarrassed or feel shameful.”
Sheets said her daughters hugged her and told her they were proud of her not only recovering from anorexia, but having the courage to share it with them.
“It was a liberating experience,” she recalls.
Sheets then felt empowered to write about her experience.
“I wrote it out on paper and my hand couldn’t keep up,” she said. “The words just kept coming.”
Sheets’ mom suggested she publish her story.
This!... Is Where Love Grows was published last spring and Sheets since has been sharing her story through the Canadian Mental Health Association to CALM classes in Calgary schools once a month.
She talks about the different types of eating disorders, myths and stigmas, statistics, how to initiate conversations around eating disorders, how loved ones can support those with the disease as well as themselves and the various resources available in the area.
“It’s really become a very strong passion in my life,” she said. “I remember when I was in treatment with the psychiatrist thinking it’s really easy for you to tell me what to do when you’re reading it from a textbook, but you have no idea what I’m going through. I wanted to get the story of the sufferers out there.
“They really feel there is no hope and this is the way they are going to spend their lives. I want to be a symbol of hope for recovery.”
This!... Is Where Love Grows will be sold during Sheets’ presentation and can also be purchased online at Indigo and Amazon at a cost of $12.
Sheets will also make an appearance at Shoppers Drug Mart in Okotoks Oct. 26 and 27 from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. and Oct. 29 from noon to 2 p.m.
