Stories of Healing: Tim

As a man, Tim had no idea where to start when it came to finding support and recovery from his eating disorder. Tim came to Rock Recovery desperate for healing. After months of waiting for a spot to open in Rock Recovery’s Bridge to Life program, Tim joined the group and began his battle toward recovery. On that first night, after three years of pain, Tim found the hope to heal.

It’s hard for me to write this. But every Psalm seems to say, If You save me, I will sing of it, and I’ve been saved—so here is my song.

I was never supposed to have an eating disorder. I’m male, I had self-control, and I had friends. They were in the next room, even—the first time that I purged—but they’d never thought it possible. Neither had I.

And I still didn’t think so the next time, or the times after that, and I didn’t care that my self-control had turned against me or that I’d been avoiding those friends or that my thoughts didn’t feel like mine anymore, because I’d forgotten there was any other way to feel.

By the time I found Rock Recovery it was too late: they had a waiting list. But I had no other options. The months I spent on that list were the worst of my life.

Then, I got in. And on that first night, after 3 years of pain, something changed. I never purged again.

The group met on Sundays, but during the week I’d think of the people there. They weren’t supposed to have eating disorders either. But they did, and now they were looking at my life for proof that recovery was possible—that we didn’t have to be this way forever—and I was looking at them. What I saw saved me.

It’s hard for me to write this, but there were 17 people on that waiting list. Now that list has almost doubled. I know what their lives look like, and that is why I write: they aren’t supposed to be this way. They don’t have to be. I can’t wait to hear their songs. – Tim, Program Graduate

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Stories of Healing: Teresa