Victory over eating disorder empowers Ireland woman to create a community
There came a moment for Charlotte Olson when she realized her concerns for her weight had become an obsession.
Her grandfather, Sigmund Cichos, had whispered not so quietly to Charlotte’s mom Lauri, “Why is she so skinny? Is she not eating?”
It was a breaking moment for Charlotte who had started skipping meals her sophomore year at Jasper High School to lose weight. “I was very active in dance and track and cross country and I believed if I was skinnier my performance would be better,” the now 22-year-old college senior said about that time. “My goal was to be around 118, 115 actually, and I dropped 18 to 20 pounds.”
The weight-loss became a point of control in her life as things became more stressful. “That’s the time in your life when you begin to look at what you are going to do with the rest of your life,” she explained. “I took controlling my weight and body as a way to control my stress.”
Anorexic tendencies include an unhealthy body image as well as a strong need to control their body shape and weight.
Charlotte started losing weight by skipping meals. She wouldn’t eat breakfast and then skipped dinner in the evening. “I was basically eating a few snacks and drinking a bottle of water a day,” she said.
She was weighing herself obsessively in the morning and evening and adjusting her diet to continue to lose weight. Unfortunately, the weight loss plateaued and her anorexia transitioned to include bulimia. She began purging — inducing vomiting immediately after eating to empty the stomach — to continue to lose weight.
Her parents noticed and were very concerned but according to Charlotte, they couldn’t control what she did while she was at school.
Her weight and health dropped precipitously. “I could sleep for very long periods of time. I couldn’t make it through a full day of school without taking a nap in one of my classes,” she said. “I was very weak, pale and brittle.”
The purging has had some long term impacts on her health. “I was purging so much that I started to get cavities on the back side of my teeth,” she said. “Luckily, the damage wasn’t too extreme.”
It was in that frail and weakened state that her grandfather found her when the family traveled to Michigan for a visit. Across from him at the table at Red Lobster was the pale and sunken-eyed results of nearly two years of Charlotte’s mental illness.
Her parents and friends had confronted her in the past but it was her grandfather’s concern that truly caused her to realize what she was doing to herself. “He taught me my faith and a lot of valuable life lessons. He was an inspiration for me and for him to see me like that, it made me really check my habits and what I was doing,” Charlotte said.
She went to her parents who entered her into a treatment program for eating disorders. Over a year, Charlotte was able to heal her self-image.
Now, the 5-foot 6-inch, 135 pound dance major at the University of Alabama enters beauty contests. She was named Miss Strassenfest in 2012, Miss Liberty at the University of Alabama in 2013 and Miss Indiana All-Star in 2014. In June, she will compete for Miss Indiana and a chance to represent the state in the Miss USA pageant.
Being on the stage in these contests is her own testimony to being able to overcome her personal demons. “It’s proof you can overcome something and you can do anything you put your mind to as long as you’re strong enough to let yourself do it,” she said.
In the same vein, the swimsuit competition is her favorite part of the pageant because it is the moment that most epitomizes her victory. “I have just accepted that this is the body I have. This is what I have to work with but this is still me,” she said. “That part of the competition really allows me to show how strong I am both physically and mentally.”
In 2013, Sigmund, the man who put her on the path to healing, passed away. Charlotte decided she needed to do something to commemorate his mantra of empowerment, strength and inner beauty. A month after his death, Charlotte founded Sigmund’s Love: Empowering Strength and Inner Beauty, an organization devoted to supporting men and women with eating disorders.
She is accomplishing this by creating an online community in which individuals can find a support network. “It is a community of people who have dealt with eating disorders or are still dealing with those problems,” Charlotte explained.
As she is growing the community, her short term goals are to speak before at least ten groups by June. She feels that her age will allow for a better connection to teens dealing with the same issues she did. “Studies show that girls at six years old start hating something about their bodies,” she said. “We had many people talk to us at school, but you don’t really relate to somebody that is twice your age.”
Those groups can be girl scouts, youth groups or other community organizations. “I just want to connect with someone to personally show them what they can accomplish if they put the eating disorder behind them,” she said.
Interested groups or individuals can find information at Charlotte’s Sigmund’s Love: Empowering Strength and Inner Beauty Facebook Page. She can also be contacte by email at cnolson@crimson.ua.edu or by phone at 812-481-1407.
The statistics on eating disorders are frightening.
According to the National Association of Annorexia Nervosa and Other Eating Disorders, over 24 million people are affected by eating disorders. Anorexia is the third most common chronic illness among adolescents. Over 95 percent of those who have eating disorders are between the ages of 12 and 25. Over one-half of teenage girls and nearly one-third of teenage boys use unhealthy weight control behaviors such as skipping meals, fasting, smoking cigarettes, vomiting, and taking laxatives.
Editor’s note: Although Sigmund is the inspiration for the new organization, he did not battle an eating disorder.