Emily: Everything Has Changed
By Emily Grannemann
I always knew I wanted music in my life.
I started taking piano lessons when I was five years old. I remember I plunked out a simple tune like “Humpty Dumpty” on the piano and I asked my mom if I could take piano lessons. The piano teacher in town did not want to take me because of my young age, but eventually, he agreed and I was his best student through high school.
In high school, my band director recognized my musical talent and asked me if I wanted to play the bassoon. I didn’t know what the instrument was, but I agreed, and I took to the bassoon. It became my instrument.
Music and band became my life. Playing brought me happiness and pleasure. It gave me a sense of purpose.
I knew applying to colleges I wanted to pursue music as a career. I didn’t even entertain another option.
The first couple years in college, playing became a safe space for me. I’m not religious or spiritual, but sometimes music feels very transcendent. Like my fingers would move and the music would be happening around me. Playing filled my soul in ways nothing else ever had or really ever would.
Starting my third year in college, I took lessons from the second bassoonist in the St. Louis Symphony. What a drastic shift in expectations from those of my high school teacher.
My new teacher demanded excellence and I went from practicing a few hours a day to eight hours a day. I know now that was excessive, but back then I was praised for practicing so much. I thought this was what I must do if I wanted to make it as a musician.
Upon studying with her, I quickly realized that I knew very little about playing my instrument, so we did a complete overhaul of my playing techniques. I felt like a beginner again.
I had so much anxiety, worrying I was not good enough.
I often felt inadequate with this teacher. She was training me for a career in performance, so lessons were demanding. I was scared to make mistakes and felt like a failure when I did.
My teacher would rip apart my playing in sessions. I would play the same measure for an hour to try to make the music as perfect as possible. Little did I know the repetitive finger movements would ruin my playing.
The playing adjustments my teacher implemented caused problems.
It got to the point I didn’t know where to put my hand on my instrument. I remember the day I tried to play a simple E-flat major scale, and I could not do it. It was devastating. I broke down in the practice room and cried. I had many sessions in the practice room that followed that ended in tears.
Ultimately, I sustained several injuries. The anxiety combined with the overuse caused me to injure my hand and arm. I developed severe tendonitis and experienced sharp shooting pains up and down my arm.
I also developed what I know now is a neurological condition known as focal dystonia. It is a debilitating condition that causes my fingers to curl and spasm uncontrollably. It happens often to professional musicians, and it is career-ending. It destroyed my playing, ended my playing career, and at that point, my whole world came crashing down.
I had to go from practicing eight hours a day to 15 minutes a day and reteach myself how to play. I was crushed, feeling the loss of what I once loved. Heartbroken, I grew to be resentful at playing. I repeatedly said, “I loved it so much I killed it.”
At the same time this was happening, I guess I was not eating much. I suppose it was an unconscious way to cope with the stress. I had friends tell me to eat more. Friends also grew concerned about my appearance. I looked unwell.
I know it seems odd, but I was completely unaware I had lost weight. I was so focused on making it through my senior recital and concerto with the orchestra that I couldn’t see anything else. It was only after these concerts were over that I realized I had lost weight, and I liked it. I had the thought “I don’t want to gain the weight back.” That’s when the eating disorder clicked.
I graduated undergrad with a 4.0 GPA and top recognition in the music department. The Chair of the music department said in his letter of recommendation to my graduate school that I was the best student he’d ever known. But now that I knew I could not pursue music professionally, I had to find another direction to go. One of my music history professors said I could write well and that I should try musicology. I didn’t know what musicology was or what it entailed, but I sent out applications and got accepted to Washington University in St. Louis (Wash U), where I was offered a full ride and a stipend. I was burnt out from playing so I thought, why not try it?
Graduate school was where the eating disorder took hold of me.
If I didn’t have an eating disorder before then, the stress and pressure of graduate school solidified it. But it took many years before I realized I had a problem and before I received any sort of help.
When I left graduate school after four years in the PhD program, I quickly entered treatment for my eating disorder. This was the first time I received help and was diagnosed with an eating disorder.
I wish I could say I found my way back to music or that I reconnected with the bassoon, but that’s not the case. Even today my hand engages in involuntary movements when I hold my bassoon, so it makes me sad to play. Maybe one day I’ll be able to enjoy music again, but for now, I’ve had to find passion and joy in other things.
After graduate school, I cycled through treatment over the next decade. Going in when it was medically necessary and coming out when insurance deemed me stable enough, only to go right back to restricting and drinking soon after discharge. In all the years I struggled, I never sustained anything close to recovery.
I had no idea how hard treatment would be. I had a hard time letting go of control and committing to treatment recommendations. I wanted to do it on my terms, which is not how recovery works.
Fast forward to COVID. The pandemic was a time that was both really challenging but also allowed me to make considerable progress for the first time in the history of my disorders.
I also struggled with alcohol use disorder ever since graduate school, which was intricately linked with my eating disorder. By June of 2020, drinking was still a problem.
Despite the ongoing pandemic, my company was returning to the office. I knew I could not maintain the level of drinking I was engaging in and do the work I needed to. I decided that my first day back in the office would be my first day sober. Of course, I drank up until that day, but I was sober that first day back and I have not had a drink since.
At that point, I found something I valued more than the drinking and realized I could lose it. I had already lost two jobs to my addictions and I did not want to lose one more.
I could not have achieved sobriety without getting my depression under control. My depression had progressed to suicidal thinking and it was debilitating. Over the years, my psychiatrist and I had tried a variety of depression medications. We were about to move on to another form of treatment, when we tried one last medication and it worked. The suicidal thoughts just stopped. No other word for it than magical. My mood has never been better.
These last few years were the first time in my whole eating disorder history that I made any sort of progress toward recovery.
A few years ago, I took my first steps towards real recovery. I ate my full meal plan for an extended period of time. I had never made such a commitment to recovery before. It was scary and uncomfortable, but something in me had shifted. And that launched me to be able to do the meal plan for longer and longer over the next months. I say that gesture was the start of my entering eating disorder recovery.
Two other key elements that supported my recovery included working with my own eating disorder recovery coach and participating in the mentorship program through ANAD as a mentee. Coaching provided in the moment support that was missing from all my treatment. The mentorship program along with coaching provided support from someone who had been where I was, offering that direct connection to recovery that I never experienced before.
Ultimately, I was able to recover because I found internal motivation to do recovery for myself. I felt like I didn’t have a choice but to recover.
Perhaps the biggest thing that has changed now recovered is I can give back to the recovery community and help others. I just want something good to come out of struggling for so long.
One of my biggest goals with my recovery is to help inspire those in it that recovery is possible.
Now in recovery, I became a mentor myself. Using that experience, I decided I wanted to go even further to become a recovery coach. Even just a few years ago I never thought this would be my path. But my coach was very impactful on my journey and I believe coaching really can be that missing piece in treatment. I made the decision that when I had two years in eating disorder recovery, I would enroll in the Carolyn Costin Institute to become a certified eating disorder coach.
I finished the program and am excited to say I now have my own coaching business. I have decided this is what I want to do with my life. A friend told me that I took what was the worst part of my life and turned it into the best part. Using my recovery for good feels as good as playing music.
One of my biggest goals with my recovery is to help inspire those in it that recovery is possible. When I was sick, I never believed I would recover. The hopelessness at the possibility of recovery was one of the reasons why I was so suicidal. One of the benefits of coaching is talking with those who have made it to the other side, which offers hope to those still struggling.
Recovery has been by far the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do, but it’s also been the most rewarding. I have meaningful relationships, I’m doing something valuable to me with the coaching, and my cognition and health back. I have opportunities presenting themselves to me that I would not have if I wasn’t in recovery. Each day brings joy and gifts that come because I’ve put in the work to get here.
In my disorder, I didn’t think I’d make it to age 40 and this past January I turned 40. Birthdays used to make me sad because they marked another year I had not recovered. Now there was so much to celebrate. It is the first decade I am not sick, and I have a long future ahead of me.
Emily Grannemann
(she/her)
Emily Grannemann, from St. Louis, Missouri, is a survivor of an eating disorder, alcoholism, body dysmorphic disorder, and severe depression. An advocate for eating disorder awareness and passionate about helping others get the support they need and deserve, she serves on the Board of the Missouri Eating Disorders Association and volunteers with the Eating Disorder Foundation, where she mentors others. She has her own coaching business, We Do RecoverED Coaching, where she is a Carolyn Costin Institute (CCI) certified eating disorder coach. As a recovered coach, she wants people to realize recovery really is possible.