I Have an Eating Disorder: Rachel & Campbell Faulkner-Brown

When my eating disorder started, I wanted anorexia. I wanted that thinness. I wanted that praise from my family members. And I got it.

I got praised for being skinny and like thin and beautiful. Welcome to Family Life Today where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I'm Shelby Abbott and your hosts are Dave and Anne Wilson. You can find us at familylifetoday.com.

This is Family Life Today. When you hear the name Rachel Faulkner Brown, what do you think? Amazing. Wonderful.

Beautiful. And a survivor. Yeah, totally. I mean, we're laughing because we're so excited to have her back in the studio.

And not just by herself. That's right. You have your daughter, Campbell, here.

I do. Welcome to both of you to Family Life Today. Oh, we're so honored. We just love y'all so much.

We love you too. This is a gift. Totally a gift. And you were on not too long ago. Share a little snippet of what we talked about the last time you were on. Yeah. Because you've been on quite a journey.

Yeah. Quite a story. You know, my life has been totally unconventional. I lost my first husband when I was 23 to an aneurysm and remarried two years later. I lost my second husband in an Air Force plane crash when I was 31. I had Campbell who was five months old and Davis who was two years old and was widowed for six years. Remarried a pastor from Atlanta 10 years ago.

And we've been on a journey of just ministry and blending and trying to figure out how to raise kids in a world that is difficult. You know, I would say, and I was telling you the last time I was here, death made what we've been through this last year look easy. By the way, I mean, there's people that didn't hear the last time you were here.

They're like, whoa, whoa, wait. Did she just say she lost her first two husbands? So, you talk about traumatic and yet the last time you were here, you said the hardest year of your life. I was in the hardest year of my life. Yeah, absolutely. And I've dealt with shame.

I mean, and we both share a story of abuse and how that affected our life as Christians who were trying to like self protect and we really self imploded. And you know, at the end of the day though, this past year dealing with the illness of a child has just opened my eyes to like supernatural compassion for parents who are dealing with sick children and kids who don't want to be sick. Nobody's like, please, I want depression. I want an eating disorder. I want cancer. I mean, like, nobody signs up for this.

There's not like a place where you go, yes, I want this. And I told the Lord, not even 15 months ago, I was like, I really don't want any more stories. Like I have enough, you know, like I have enough to write 20 books.

I could help widows and people in shame. And I'm just like, I don't need any more stories. And yet, this is our story.

Yeah. And you've had a whole ministry with what you've been through. We have Never Alone Widows.

And I will say we just finished one of our retreats this past weekend. And I look at those 20 women and I haven't personally raised someone from the dead, but I have. I've been a part of resurrection of a woman who came in dead and one of our widows, even this past weekend, she said, my husband may have died, but I didn't have to.

And I tell you what, it gives me chills even saying it because so many widows feel like a part of me died or I died, you know, when he died. And that just doesn't have to be the case because I look at Ruth and I look at Naomi and I look at Mary and I'm kind of like, we're still talking about them. And they were widows and they did great and mighty things in the kingdom. I know that the Lord is using Never Alone Widows to resurrect a generation of widows who thought their life was over and who think that because maybe their husband was in ministry or, you know, they did things together that that is over and it doesn't have to be over and their life doesn't have to be over and they can do. We are just as capable, if not more capable of releasing the kingdom in that loss than we are even before when our life seemed quote unquote perfect and everything was going good. And the reality is that a lot of times in these widows lives, things weren't going good. But when a husband dies, there is this shame takes over and you're like, well, he's gone, so I can't talk about the hard things. And that is just not the truth.

To me, it opens up the ability. And so we've got 80 local chapters across the country now of widows helping widows. And I'm like, how is this my life? I never thought I would ever be in ministry.

And yet God just keeps opening doors. And, you know, I feel like that's why we're here today is to talk about something that there is so much shame wrapped around. I mean, it's unbelievable how little people are willing to talk about eating disorders. Like I'm just, I'm shocked.

And it's so funny when Campbell was diagnosed, she said, there is more shame wrapped around eating disorders than a daughter getting pregnant at a wedlock. Wow. So Campbell, tell our audience, how old are you? Give us a little of your story and your history. So I'm 15 years old, but I mean, I'm turning 16 this week.

So that's so fun. But I was five months old. My dad died in a plane crash. And that in itself was really traumatic. More so growing up than at the time, because my mom, I mean, I know you told me that he died, but I was like, okay, whatever. Like, I mean, I was- You never knew him.

Literally four years old. I was just like la-dee-da. My life is so great.

And when's the next Barbie doll coming out? So that was like the only thing on the top of my brain at the time. And then I got a stepdad and Rod, I mean, he's amazing. He's like the greatest human being I've ever met in my whole life.

And he helped a lot. But around like my 11th birthday and things like that, I like totally rejected him. And I think I just needed a reason to be mad because I was like, you're not my real dad. And I think I equate that to my rebellious teenager face because that was really rough for me.

And I said some incredibly hurtful things to him. But I mean, I'm really grateful for it because I don't think we would be as close as we are today without it. And it takes a while for family to blend.

There's all different seasons with that. Let me do this. I want to read, Rachael, what you posted on your Instagram recently.

And then I'd love for you both to respond to that. There's several pictures attached to that. But it says, a year ago this week, we checked into the hospital as Campbell had been diagnosed with anorexia and we were at the end of ourselves watching her waste away. Even under the care of a treatment team, we were losing her. It was ravaging her frail body. Even though we had been so confident the therapies would help, Campbell's heart rate was lower than a patient near death and we were utterly terrified. From diagnosis until we pulled her into treatment center, the terror in our family was palpable. Ask my friends, it affected all of us. And Campbell has been taken over by an outside force called an eating disorder.

And we felt insanely helpless. But then you say one year later, she's almost fully restored, healthy, partnered with her body, nourished and thriving. I have so much more to say, but for now I will celebrate my daughter. She's my hero. She has truly been resurrected into a new life and she's a completely different person. Her life will never be the same nor ours.

Everything about her faith, God, relationships, life, and her future has shifted and it's so good, but it's not conventional. So that makes me emotional reading it because I can sense the pain, the trauma. So Campbell, as you hear that, what goes through your mind?

Well, I mean, it's definitely like super real for me. You know, it's a walk through memory lane for us. I mean, it is our truth and we, it was a lot. It still is a lot and we aren't over it completely. It's left us with some scars that are still needing to heal, but... And yet you want to talk about it.

Oh, of course. You came in like, I'm so excited to talk about this. It is probably one of my most passionate things to talk about because like, I love getting people aware and like, I love talking about it and making people aware that they need to address their relationship with their food and body in general. It's such a big thing. Our culture is so wrapped around like diets and weight loss and fitness and all of these things to the point where it can become an obsession, which sometimes it's not always an eating disorder. It's disordered eating, but that is so normalized in our culture. Like just because something is common does not mean it is normal. So yeah.

So take us back to the Valley. I mean, when I hear the first part of that post, I'm like, whoa, it's dark. Yeah. I made a post actually that's something that's really dear to my heart. You know, my mom was sitting in the car and she was like, do you want social media back?

And I was like, that's random, but yes, I would love that. And I was like... So you wait, you went off of it for a while. I went off of social media for over a year and a half. Because? Because my mom thought it was draining me. And this is back in the hospital and I didn't get it back even after I got back. Were you comparing yourself to other...

I wouldn't say it was really big. Instagram is not a big part of my eating disorder. So for some people it is. I just don't really think social media is conducive in general to anybody's mental health. So I mean, I agree with my mom. I think it was a great decision to get off social media just so I couldn't feel like FOMO or anything like that while I was missing out on life per se. But once I decided to go back, I wanted to be like, okay.

I was posting some like really damaging things. I was like, it's called body checking. It's like a really common eating disorder symptom. And I would literally post body checks on my Instagram, which is just... What's that mean, body checks?

So a body check can be different for anybody, but my body checks were just making sure I still had a thigh gap or making sure my arms looked super skinny or I just really wanted to be skinny. And my collarbone, dips in my collarbone are just random things like that. And I would take pictures of it. This is so disgusting.

I would take pictures of it and post it on my Instagram. But I didn't know what she was doing. She didn't know. So you saw the pictures.

I did, but I wasn't... That's suspicious. She just looked like a teenage girl posting a picture. I mean, it's like, I think if you don't know what's inside their head, I was just really uneducated about eating disorders. I think that's part of it. Are most of us as parents uneducated?

Yes, 100%. The amount of people who are completely uneducated on eating disorder, my friends are so confused. My friends still think I just like didn't like food. Even though they read and listen to everything I say, they still don't know what it is.

That's why I was so excited to come on here today. But that's another thing when you said you didn't notice my body checks is because the behavior isn't a behavior until the intention is behind it. So rice cakes, like those are a quote unquote diet food, but if you're not using them in a diet way with a diet mentality, it doesn't have to be diet food. But my dietitian might not agree with that.

I love caramel rice cakes and chocolate covered rice cakes. So I mean, I'll digress. But anyway, so returning to my return to Instagram, I went on Instagram and I like archived, deleted, whatever, all of my posts with body checks in them. And I decided to just like go out with a bang and have like this return post. So I got a bunch of pictures of like, I don't think it's important to post pictures of my unhealthy body. So I just posted a bunch of pictures of my healthy body and like me enjoying food and life and you know, genuine happiness. And so I posted a bunch of that and I did this long paragraph kind of like talking about my eating disorder and like apologizing for the body checks and everything like that.

But it was very similar to my mom's post and I posted that and then my mom posted her post. Yeah, because it was, this is her story. I feel really dedicated to the fact that this is her story and yes, it affected us, but this is her story. That night we were, she just finished Bible study and she said, I'm ready to tell my story. And I was like, ooh, ooh, you can't go back. Like you can't untie your story. You know, like once it's out there and once I knew, you know, she posted it, like I was like, I said, there's no coming back from this. Like, you know, they will know. And she was like, let's do it.

I'm ready. And she said, if it helps one person, then it's worth it. You know, there's this part of me that wanted to protect her, you know, and protect her from just, you know, people, not necessarily people knowing that she had an eating disorder, but just protect the questions, protect. And she was so confident, you know, she was just so confident that it was, it was time and tell them what happened. I got flooded with DMs, comments, likes, shares, all of saves, all of these things.

I was like within an hour of posting it at 9 p.m. at night. Girls, moms, friends, sisters, brothers, everyone heads. So, Campbell, is this like a secret? Like girls are, it's kind of boiling inside. That is something I really wanted to talk about today is that eating disorders are the most secretive and it is the second deadliest mental illness, only second to like, I think it's suicide.

That is the only thing it's like second to and I survived it. So, I feel like who's going to speak for their lives? I want to share my story so that their stories can be told. You know, it's just like, it comes from such a place of secrecy. Rachel, what are some of the statistics that you guys found as you went through this?

It's scary. Yeah, and it's more the statistics of 42% of first through third graders want to be thinner. That is so disheartening to me, but, you know, Campbell's first through third graders.

I was one of those first through third graders. Yeah, and 81% of 10-year-old children are afraid of being fat. 46% of 9 to 11-year-olds are sometimes or very often on diets. 35 to 57% of adolescent girls engage in crash dieting, fasting, self-induced vomiting, diet pills, laxatives. And on college campuses, 91% of women admitted to controlling their weight through dieting. I mean, every mom listening is like, hell no, am I contributing?

Am I affecting my daughter? We were talking about this yesterday. Yeah, that was like a big thing. Like, I don't sit in circles and with women where someone is not on a diet or trying to lose weight. It is rampant in our culture. And that is something that I kind of wanted to speak to. Not every single eating disorder is hereditary, but you are born with a certain amount of switches. This is a thing that my therapist kind of used to explain it to me. Everyone has like a switchboard and to have an eating disorder, you need a certain amount of switches turned on.

You're born with like maybe zero or one switch, but throughout your life, you can get more switches turned on. But when your mother, grandmother, family member had an eating disorder and you're related to them directly, more switches are turned on. Or like if your mother engaged in dieting. And I know that this almond mom trend is going on right now. And I know lots of the viewers probably know what that is.

What did you call it? An almond mom. An almond mom is someone who is pushing diet culture on their daughter. So it's like, you're eating again?

Can you eat all that? And it's typically someone who cuts out certain food groups or like a diet mom. And then they have this thing called like a butter dad, which is like a keto dad. Only meat or no carbs.

Do you know how many carbs are in that? It's just like somebody who's so preoccupied with body exercise, diet, et cetera. But it's like pushing that on your kids. I'm not going to pretend like you didn't have almond mom tendencies. Oh no, I totally did. Yeah. Because that's part of our story.

I don't know if there's a woman that doesn't in America. Well, and that's the thing. When Rod and I got married, I was feeding them Lunchables. I'm just going to be really honest before Rod and I got married. Oh, and breakfast dessert. Oh, I married Rod. And Rod grew up in a very holistic household, like- Chicken liver.

And the orange juice. And I became a lot more aware of health and wellness. And that was about the time she was in this developmental phase where she was noticing. How old were you? Do you remember that, Campbell?

I actually do. I was like five. And you remember? Oh yeah. And the sugars got limited. Called it one sugar a day. One sugar a day. That was, we tried- One sugar a day.

... limited sugar. These are all good things. Okay. Okay. Right. I did that too with my kids.

Well, when you have switches turned on- So you're saying that was switching. Yeah. I have family members. Yeah. So preoccupied with diets and weight and commenting on other people's plates.

Unsolicited dinner comments got to me as a young kid. I was like, oh, this is a healthy choice. And that's pretty common. Another switch. That's another switch.

I'm thinking about our Thanksgiving meal and her dad. And I mean, he commented on everybody. I mean, most Americans at least that I know are conscious about fitness. They are. Especially in the last 25, 30 years. 100%.

Diet. I mean, there's more information than we've ever had. Ever had. And so in some ways that's a good thing, but it can be obviously bad. Well, it is.

And that's the thing. Orthorexia is an obsession with healthy eating. So I had orthorexia. And it defined what that is. Never even heard that term.

Okay. So orthorexia is a preoccupation or an obsession with healthy eating. And that can mean anything from cutting out certain food groups to being obsessive about exercise. Orthorexia is one of probably the most, I would say it's one of the most common eating disorders in adults.

So I'm sure you guys are already thinking you got that fit friend, you know, that one who probably like counts macros or lives, breathes and dies by the amount of sweat they burn or like just never misses a workout. Always ordering the healthy option or like getting just lettuce at a restaurant or like just like grilled chicken or something like that in itself isn't orthorexia, but it can be. So all of these things, all of these healthy things, all of these diet things don't have to be an eating disorder. And some of them aren't eating disorders. But it can be an eating disorder when it gets to the point where you can't pull yourself away from that anymore.

That is you. You are diet. Like when your mentality goes from, I'm just going to get in shape for like six months because in all honesty, fitness isn't about like a six month diet. Fitness is about a lifestyle and it's like wellness is a lifestyle. And I believe in having a balanced diet. Don't even like put percentages on it. People are like, I live by the 80-20 rule, like 80% healthy, 20% not.

I'm like, it's not about that. It's everything in moderation and whatever fits your health and wellness goals because I know lots of people have like diabetes or insulin resistance or what's the thing? High cholesterol or things like that. But all of these things, it's like address your personal health goals and make that a lifestyle.

Well, let me ask you, we're almost out of time, but how did you come out of it? You have all these switches on to the point where you're hospitalized. When my eating disorder started, I was like so unaware. Like I wanted anorexia.

I know that sounds really terrible, but I've never, I wanted to be thin so bad that I wanted anorexia. I wanted that thinness. I wanted that praise from my family members.

And I got it. I went to Christmas that year and I got praised for being skinny and like thin and beautiful. And I don't think anybody had ever praised my body like that except for when I had an eating disorder. And so from there, it just progressed. And then I weighed myself every morning, every night.

And depending on what my weight was at night would determine how much food I ate later that day. And that just went on for until I almost died. And then one day I stepped on the scale and I was like, when is it going to be enough? I thought to myself, when is it going to be enough? Because I looked at my body and I was just kind of like, there's nothing left to lose.

You did recognize that. I didn't know how much more I could lose without dying. That is incredibly heavy and heartbreaking. And we're going to hear more in just a second from Anne on how to process this well as women and men who probably in one form or fashion are familiar with what Campbell has been sharing today about her life. I'm Shelby Abbott and you've been listening to Dave and Anne Wilson with Rachel Faulkner Brown and Campbell Brown on Family Life Today. Rachel and Campbell are not unique in this world. And what they've been sharing today maybe has sparked in you some thoughts about your own life, maybe someone who's close to you, or maybe you know someone who struggles with what we've been talking about today.

And you could really use some help. Well, Sissy Goff, a licensed therapist and author, has written a book called The Worry-Free Parent, Living in Confidence So Your Kids Can Too. This book is really ideal for parents who are kind of seeking practical guidance and the tools necessary to break free from things like anxiety, who want to create a worry-free family environment and raise confident, courageous children in the face of really a nature of anxiety that exists in the culture today. And this book by Sissy Goff is going to be our gift to you when you give today. So you can get your copy with any donation that you make by going online to familylifetoday.com, clicking on the donate now button at the top of the page. Or you can give us a call with your donation at 800-358-6329. Again, that number is 800, F as in family, L as in life, and then the word today. And feel free to drop us something in the mail if you'd like to.

Our address is Family Life 100 Lakehart Drive, Orlando, Florida 32832. Okay, let's hear more from Anne on how to process what we've heard today. As a listener, if you're a woman, you have experienced something about this, of even the pressure of wanting to be thin or people talking about it. And so this is totally true for me.

I mean, everything you've said like, yep, yep, yep. And there's a part of me that's like, I'm almost glad that I didn't have girls because I wonder how much that would have affected them. So I'm glad that we're going to continue this conversation because we really want to bring help to women, to daughters, and to guys. There's a number of guys. It's not as high of a percentage.

But we want to have a healthy lifestyle. And I also want to hear as we talk tomorrow, how did you bring Jesus into this? What does that look like? So when was the turning point in Campbell's life? And what happened when she realized she was so much more than her body image? Well, coming up tomorrow, Dave and Anne Wilson are joined again by Rachel Faulkner Brown and Campbell Brown to talk about and share that piece of her story. We hope you'll join us. On behalf of Dave and Anne Wilson, I'm Shelby Abbott. We'll see you back next time for another edition of Family Life Today. Family Life Today is a donor supported production of Family Life, a crew ministry helping you pursue the relationships that matter most.