On July 7, 2014, Kelly arrived at Monte Nido Vista. On July 7, 2015, she celebrated her first year in recovery. When we spoke just before her anniversary, she marveled at everything being in recovery has afforded her.

Originally from New Jersey, Kelly stayed in California after finishing residential treatment in order to complete her college degree at Pepperdine University, where she is now a senior.

Kelly developed anorexia when she was just thirteen years old. She spent the following nine years cycling in and out of eating disorder treatment, trying to manage her primary behaviors of restriction and over-exercising. Told by her doctors that she would never fully recover, Kelly became intensely focused on maintaining her identity as a person with an eating disorder, which provided her with a meaning and a purpose. She excelled at her eating disorder. Furthermore, the treatment centers felt like safe havens, retreats from the challenges and uncertainties in life. But eventually Kelly’s behaviors took too great a toll: her body, her mind, her spirit, and her family needed to be freed from the depleting cycle.

In her story, Kelly speaks about the impossible desire to have just a “little bit” of an eating disorder, shares the challenges she has encountered in trying to strike a balance between recovery work and social life, and identifies what keeps her committed to recovery when the road gets bumpy. She acknowledges that recovery is a long process, but she harbors the essential faith that becoming fully recovered one day is absolutely possible."