Healing My Marriage and Life After an Eating Disorder (Part 1 of 2)

I was just standing in my kitchen feeling like I'm going to purge again, and I just in my heart thought, I want to let go of God because I want this. And that actually scared me a little bit because I know the Bible well enough to know you don't let go of God, you know, and he doesn't let go of you.

So that kind of spun in my brain, like, how is this happening right now? Well, that's an honest confession from Krista Dunham, who struggled with an eating disorder for more than a decade. We're highlighting her remarkable story because it's National Eating Disorder Awareness Week, and we're so grateful that Krista and her husband David are with us today.

Thanks for joining us. I'm John Fuller, and this is Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. John, research shows that in the United States, think of this, someone will die from an eating disorder every 52 minutes.

Wow. That's an interesting way to state that, but it's far more common than we realize. I know Jean's cousin passed away from anorexia. We visited her one time in the hospital. We were dating at the time, or maybe just married, and we went to the hospital and she was complaining that they had put a little pooch on her tummy with all the IV fluids.

She literally weighed probably 65 pounds, and it wasn't a couple of weeks later that she passed away. So this cuts really close to our extended family, and it is a more common problem today than ever before. I think the idea of eating disorders are heightened because of social media and all the pressures. It affects mostly women, but some men and definitely children too. So this is something today that we want to talk about with two very special guests who went through it. And if you're saying, no, why are we talking about this? Be equipped if you're not the person struggling with it, so you can tell the signs of somebody who is struggling, a family member, et cetera, and you will be better informed at the end of this program to help.

Yeah. And if you're struggling or you know somebody who you think is struggling with this kind of thing, give us a call. We have a team of caring Christian counselors.

They are so good. They'll listen to you. They'll provide some guidance. They'll pray with you. And they're a free phone call away, 800, the letter A and the word family.

And then we've got details in the show notes as well. And David and Christa are in pastoral ministry at Cornerstone Baptist Church in Roseville, Michigan. Together, they've walked through the devastating impact of Christa's 10-year battle with an eating disorder. And this is really a phenomenal story, Jim. David and Christa, welcome to Focus. Thank you for having us. Thank you so much.

Really appreciate it. Christa, let's start with you. Let's start with the roots of that eating disorder. I think it might be helpful for people who aren't in this orbit.

They don't know someone or they're unaware of someone around them that might be struggling with this. So where did it begin as best as you can assess for your journey? I think there were signs of it definitely when I was a kid. I wanted everything to be exactly perfect.

I wanted to see everything done ahead of time so I knew exactly how to do it. Even my socks had to match kind of obsessively. And there's some of that that goes along with eating disorders. But just as I got into college, it really kind of took over. And I saw a lot of that coming out and just magnified in what I was doing. The book kind of described that as a perfect storm that when you went to college, everything kind of, I don't know what the right adjective would be kind of folded in on you or what did you feel like? Yeah, I had always been a really good student, valedictorian of my class in high school. But when I got to college, it was a totally different story.

I just, I couldn't keep up. I was getting C's on papers and it was freaking me out. And you probably had never received a C before, right?

No. And yeah, so there was just the friendships, the change in environment. I didn't have a great community quite yet when it all started happening. So yeah, it was just kind of a perfect storm. Would you say back then you were aware that you were leaning toward an eating disorder?

Would you have even thought that or? I didn't really know definitely what an eating disorder was. Like I had definitely heard about it because it was just during that time there was a lot of talk about it, but I really had to look things up in order to know what was going on with me because it really just, it freaked me out. And I was like, I don't know why I'm doing this. You know, what's so interesting with that is I think that's common with just about any kind of thing that we're struggling with as human beings. We're kind of in a fog because we can't see it clearly. That's one of the reasons we're going down a road that's unhealthy, right?

Because we didn't understand the warning signs and what our body was telling us, perhaps even what our intellect was telling us. You just, you go in a direction. Most addictions are that way. You don't just wake up and go, hey, I want to be addicted to something.

You fall into it and then it like captures you. You normalize so much of what you do. This is just what I'm comfortable with, familiar with, and that normalcy creates that problem where I'm unaware of even the damage that I'm doing. Yeah. And we'll get into that. That's what's so good about your willingness to share the story.

And David, I'm going to come to you in just one second. The night that you actually binged and purged was kind of the awareness for you. Describe that and how you translated that for yourself. Yeah, it was coming off of the heels of just a really traumatic event and I didn't know how to deal with it. And I just came back into my dorm room and I just started eating everything in the dorm room. And it was just an out of control feeling that I felt like I'm not in my own body.

I'm just acting and it's somebody else acting. And yeah, and of course when then I did just feel the need to get rid of that food somehow, it was just, I felt guilty. I felt like, you know, I was going to gain more weight and that was kind of my goal was not to do that. And so it just felt like a natural thing that that's what I was supposed to do.

No one had told me to do that. It's interesting because it, again, that sounds like a coping mechanism to start, you know, you go to the dorm, you've been squeezing down your food intake, if I remember the book correctly, and then something triggered that desire to just eat everything in sight. David, at this point, Krista, I don't know if you guys were engaged or just dating, but she was at a college pretty far away from you and you were going to school at a different university it sounds like. How did that long distance confession come to you? This was the first time, Krista, you had told anybody, right, that you had a problem. Yeah.

And you're at these different schools, eight hours away, I think. And how did you react? I don't know how I would have reacted to something like that.

You know, honestly, it's all sort of surreal to me. I don't remember. I remember we had the conversation. I don't remember much about the conversation.

I mean, I just, I knew I needed to do something to be helpful, but I know that I had no clue what I, what she was really even saying. I mean, I was a nerd. I was a dorky kid.

I didn't run around with people who had problems and addictions. And so, you know, my world was this little bubble that you knew of. Yes, that's right. You probably did.

Yes, that's right. And so, you know, the concept for me was just so foreign. I had no categories for even understanding what she was talking about, what she was sharing with me, or what that meant, or how I would have to be helpful. Krista, let me ask you the courage that it must have taken. You hadn't told a soul, David, your boyfriend, there's a risk here.

If he really knows me, he may not love me. I mean, I would think that was echoing in your brain, but you did it. So I think the question is, A, why did you tell David? And then we'll talk about how you two kept that kind of secret for a while.

Yeah, yeah. Um, so I actually wrote it all out because I knew that if I didn't do that, I was gonna chicken out and not do it. And so I wrote every word out on a piece of paper, and I read it to him over the phone.

And it was, it was actually easier to tell him because he was eight hours away. I didn't want to tell anybody that was right in my circle that I could really do something. But I had, like, a large amount of fear over what was happening. It was kind of taking over my social life. And I didn't have any friends, like I was losing friends. And so I wanted, I wanted some kind of help just for those areas. I didn't want all the help, just some of it. And I knew there was just sort of that anonymity of he's over there.

I'm right here. That's interesting. So you felt a little safer.

Yeah, that you could tell David and obviously, David, not really equipped. You know, like, what? But how did that then over the next few days and weeks? Did it become the thing you talked about?

Or? And if you could address why, then you you kind of stopped seeking help in that you kept it quiet, I guess. Yeah, um, I, there wasn't really anything after that for a long time anyways. It was like, I gave the confession and then a lot of time passed because he did have a solution for it.

And I think in our minds, that was kind of fixing it, at least for now. And he he wanted me to move where he was, so that he could help me like be right there with me. So reel you closer in. Yeah, go to the school that he's going to. And how did that work out? I'm not super well, I was at a small Christian college of about 1500. And then I moved to a large, like State University, and it was probably 15,000. So it compounded Yeah, all the fear and I didn't have any friends.

And I only knew him. And so, yeah, it took away all of the community that I did have, and kind of threw me into a whirlwind of no help, no nothing much worse before we move in the story a little bit. And the next one is important. But I want to lay a little more foundation about those feelings because as I've looked at it, shame and guilt are certainly a part of it. Control to me, as I've talked to people that have struggled in this area of eating disorders, tends to be one of the high reasons.

Explain what that means. I don't know that we all understand that, that you can actually control something. And the euphoria that comes from that, that I've got control over what I can eat, and then you just keep dwindling it down. Yeah. And somehow you get kind of a high from that.

Yeah. So I think it's kind of started as like, I knew that was a way that I could control my life. If I couldn't control my grades, I couldn't control my friends, I couldn't control a lot of other things that were kind of coming at me. I think at least subconsciously, there was something that was like, I can do this, I've already done some of this, I've been dieting, I've been exercising, and I can see that just happening right in front of me. And I think a lot of people don't necessarily put that into that category. But if you dig a little deeper, then it's kind of like, okay, that's going on there. And so it did help me to feel at least in one area that I could hold on to something and keep control over it. But I think also, there just is, I mean, it's human nature to feel like, you know, we want to have a little bit of power over something in our lives.

And so, yeah. And you know, we concentrate this on a woman or a girl. And, you know, I think it disproportionately affects women and girls. But guys, we have a different vocabulary about this. You know, we talk about going to the gym and kind of dieting in a different way so we can cut fat to get more muscle tone. It's interesting that it too is kind of a control issue, but it seems to be maybe a little more acceptable for a guy.

You're really mindful of controlling your physique. Is there a parallel to that? Yeah, we see, I mean, you know, we meet with a lot of people who have eating disorders and we've seen an increase in the number of men who've requested help. Do we use a different vocabulary for the guys?

I guess is what I'm driving at. Do we need to be more aware? Not necessarily, but I think I am, you know, everybody's story is certainly their own and so it manifests with certain, you know, particulars that are going to be different. And so, you know, the important part about anybody is listening to the individual. So, you know, we always talk about we don't treat problems, we care for people.

Treating problems is a sort of uniform, oh, you have an eating disorder, I know how to do that, let me walk you through these steps. Caring for people means you have your own story. And so the vocabulary I use is going to be dependent on the vocabulary you use. What are the things that are dominant for you? What are the themes that manifest for you? What are the pressures that are driving your behavior? So that'll be the vocabulary that I adopt in our conversation.

No, that's really good. And the other thing that I appreciate what you just said is formula. Formulas, I mean, they don't work in parenting, they don't work in eating disorders.

There's not a formula. You can't do A plus B plus C gives you D because, oh, we're human beings, we have our own will, you know, all those things work into it. Getting back to your story, there was a decision made, I don't know if you guys talked about it, but I think, David, you went to your pastor and confessed this situation, which created some conflict for you guys. Describe what happened. I did not ask Krista. I mean, I had been urging her to talk to somebody for a while. Some of that was probably selfish. I just, I didn't know what else to do or say.

And so I didn't want to be like the person who felt the most responsible for this. How long had that passed since when she moved to the college and you got married and yeah. So I mean, at least a year, at least maybe a little more, maybe a little more than that.

So it was a long period. You know, I, I was, uh, naively under the impression that if I just, you know, was with her and was talking with her, that she would get better and that was not realistic. Um, so then, yeah, I went to our pastor and told him and God loved him.

He was a good pastor, but he didn't know any more about eating disorders than we did. And so he tried his best to be helpful, but, um, yeah, that was a starting place at least for moving beyond our relationship. All right, Krista, that would make me feel somewhat violated maybe. How did you feel? Was it relief or was it fear? Um, there was a little bit of a mixture of both. Like it was, um, yeah, it did kind of feel like there was a weight lifted off of me that, you know, I had been carrying a lot.

He had been carrying a lot. And just to kind of hand that a little bit over to someone else, even if they didn't know how to help specifically, it just was helpful for someone else to know. But there was also just kind of, yeah, like a violation. And I think for a little while I didn't really want to show my face at church.

I kind of, um, yeah, there was one particular week I remember that I was just like, I sat in the car for a while and then I was like, I don't want to be in there. But it got better over time. Just the understanding that the people had and they didn't know what to say directly. But, um, some of the church members, um, I ended up talking to and it just kind of opened up the situation a little more and made it just... It's difficult, I would think, David, for you because you're at the end of your ability to help. You're concerned about Christa, your wife. You don't know what to do. If you ask her, is it okay if we share this with the pastor? She might say no.

And that leaves you in a dead end. So you had to kind of risk that vulnerability and then take the heat a little bit. Did you ever, Christa, did you, I'm sorry, this is really interesting to me. Did you ever say, how could you do that to us? Um, yeah. I mean, I'm sure that we had words with each other at the time.

Um, because it was normal. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

And then David, again, um, did you feel like in the box canyon, like he had nowhere to go? Yeah. I mean, I definitely, you know, I'll say this isn't a strategy we advise people with, you know, there are certain ways to disclose information that are appropriate when you see the risk to the other person dramatically increase. But you know, it's best if the person suffering discloses their own struggle.

But if you, if they're not, what do you do? Yeah. There, there comes a point where, you know, health, you know, sort of supersedes the quality of the relationship at that moment. The danger to Christa might have reached a point where I said, okay, it doesn't matter anymore that you're going to get mad at me.

I have to do something. It's very akin, if I could say this, you know, Jean's family has suffered a couple of tragedies, um, with her two brothers taking their lives. And the one thing that I've seen and learned from that experience is just being her spouse is mental illness puts you in a fog. Those around you are in that fog too, because you don't know what is going on and you sometimes make excuses even as the person alongside the person that's hurting. And you just don't realize what's really going on, how desperate the reality is.

Yeah. And I think, you know, unfortunately, sometimes our own selfishness as the person outside clouds it too. So there can be that tendency like, if I disclose this to someone, how does that make our family look? And so, you know, there comes that point where my love for this person is great and I want to help them, but I also have some of those own, my own insecurities that color how I respond to the situation.

And so that can keep us from asking for help. You know, one thing that's really critical, Krista, you mentioned in the book, it felt like at this point it was three steps forward, two steps back. I think that is true of most recovery of any nature. Um, but you can get discouraged in that. So how did you keep the momentum going to continue to gain ground even when sometimes you were losing ground?

There's points that I think I really have no idea how I did that. But I do know, like, the Holy Spirit was definitely in that with me. And there was just really, I think, a mixture of having people from the church close by. There's, I didn't stop reading my Bible, and a lot of prayer. But I think the church counseling along the way, there was always something there in my path that wasn't leaving me all alone to myself. Yeah. But that awareness had to be a source of strength for you. Not everybody has that awareness for some reason. When you look at that, I mean, in my mind, I'm seeing like a rope with knots in it, and you're trying to work your way up.

You get tired, you might slip down one or two of those knots. How did God sustain you? How did you turn to your faith? Where was the Lord? Did you feel His presence or did you feel His abandonment?

Or both? Yeah, I think there was a mixture of both. I actually, I think this is in the book where I was just standing in my kitchen feeling like I'm going to purge again. And I just, in my heart, thought, I don't, I want to let go of God because I want this. And that actually scared me a little bit, because I know the Bible well enough to know you don't let go of God, you know, like, and He doesn't let go of you. So that kind of spun in my brain, like, how is this happening right now? And I think later steps that went on, I could see what was really happening was that, you know, God wasn't going to let me go in that moment.

And so I did still purge in that moment. And I think when we were writing the book, our editor was like, I don't think this part of the story goes there because you, you know, you obviously are kind of backtracking. And I'm like, no, it exactly goes that way. That's exactly how it happened. That's real life. Yeah, that is what happens.

And, you know, and people can get discouraged and kind of move off the highway of recovery at that point, take the off ramp and fall into a worse situation. I think, you know, one of the ultimate questions for you is why did you stay married? I knew that I loved Christa. I knew there was no way I wanted to leave her. I knew that, you know, this was a tall task. And I was also, I have my own issues, one of which is tended to be arrogance and overconfidence.

And so I was just certain that I could help her. And, you know, I think I didn't know what I didn't know. And I didn't know what I needed to learn. And that's been a very humbling experience to look back and think. There's a lot of ways in which my lack of knowledge was really unhelpful to Christa and a lot of things I wish I could go back and do differently. But, you know, I knew that she needed support and that was the most important thing at that moment. Even if I wasn't helpful, I just needed to keep plugging along. Yeah, I so appreciate that. I mean, you're just laying it out there. Christa, why I would think that thought may have crossed your mind.

It'd be safer for me not to be married so I can deal with this in a different way. I mean, is that honest or? Yeah. And I think I wanted sometimes to let him go so that he didn't have to deal with me. The guilt thing?

Yeah. And I think if it were possible, he would have wanted to divorce from my eating disorder and have me back the way, you know, but he didn't really know me any other way. So that was also kind of frustrating. It was like, I want what I thought I was getting into in the first place, probably.

But, yeah, there is... Well, look, here's the bottom line. You fought through this and we're all so proud of both of you. What a great illustration of how God can work in your lives to bring about a godly change, right? That you didn't have to follow those dark feelings and escape each other, but you stuck with it. I mean, it's a great example of the wedding vow, right? For better or for worse in sickness or in health.

That's what that means and you're illustrating it. Let me end with Ecclesiastes 4. It's a scripture that really you took great solace in.

What is it and why did it connect for both of you? Yeah, Ecclesiastes 4, 9 through 12, which is the verse we kind of unpack or start the book with, it says, two are better than one because they have a good reward for their labor. For if they fall, one will lift up his companion. But woe to him who is alone when he falls, for he has no one to help him up. Again, if two lie down together, they will keep warm. But how can one be warm alone?

Though one may be overpowered by another, two can withstand him and a threefold cord is not quickly broken. And I think for us, as we were writing the book and kind of looking back, like, how did we get here? You know, I think we realized, you know, the heart of the book table for two is this idea that support, companionship, working together really is the key difference in recovery. So anyone who gets better gets better because other people help them.

And anyone who learns how to be helpful, learns how to be helpful because someone helped them. And so there's this idea of community as a foundational piece to any change for any problem, especially eating disorders. Such personal, powerful insights from our guests today, David and Krista Dunham, about the very difficult and dangerous journey that they experienced. And we're so grateful for their transparency and vulnerability in sharing that story with us on Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. John, the research shows that about 20 percent or one in five women will experience some kind of eating disorder by age 40. And the vast majority of those disorders begin before age 25. So this is a profoundly serious issue. And if you or someone you know is at risk, I can't say this firmly enough. Get help.

Get the help you need right away. Focus on the Family is here as a resource for you. And we have Christian counselors who are available to answer your questions and concerns about this very topic. And I want to urge you to contact us as soon as possible. We also recommend the Dunham's book, Table for Two, Biblical Counsel for Eating Disorders.

It's an eye-opening resource that I know can help you. And we can send this book to you when you send a gift of any amount to Focus on the Family. That's our way of saying thank you for helping us strengthen and support today's families. And of course, we're a Christian ministry. If you're not in a place where you can send a gift and you need the book, we're going to get that to you.

So get in touch with us and we'll work that out. Yeah, our number is 800, the letter A in the word family, 800-232-6459. You can also donate and get a copy of the book, Table for Two.

We'll have the links for you in the show notes. Coming up tomorrow, we'll hear more of David and Christa's remarkable story and the powerful ways God has blessed and healed their family. For now, thanks for listening to Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. I'm John Fuller inviting you back as we once again help you and your family thrive in Christ. Your marriage can be redeemed, even if the fights seem constant, even if there's been an affair, even if you haven't felt close in years, no matter how deep the wounds are, you can take a step toward healing them with a hope restored marriage intensive. Our biblically based counseling will help you find the root of your problems and face challenges together. We'll talk with you, pray with you and help you find out which program will work best. Call us at 1-866-875-2915.