Two tales from Arabella House

In the three-year history of Arabella House, roughly 160 women with eating disorders have come seeking help.

Named for the Italian word for "answered prayer," Arabella House provides a transition from the rigidity of treatment to the freedom of home. It's run by Linden Oaks at Edward Hospital in Naperville.

The house can accommodate eight women at a time, giving them some freedoms - cell phone and laptop use - and some responsibilities - daily chores and walking Arabella's dog, Logan.

The main goal is to get well, with the help of therapists and other experts.

Women stay in the safe, supportive environment for weeks or months, learning skills that will help them manage their illness once they leave.

Here are the stories of two women who turned to Arabella House.

'I never thought that was me'Ella is a perfectionist.When she was a child, she focused almost entirely on her grades. As she began high school, though, there were new pressures, this time from friends and fellow athletes, that centered on her body instead of her mind."With my perfectionism already being revved up with all the school pressure (I thought to myself), 'You always have some body-image problems, let's act on it,'" the 16-year-old Naperville girl said.She began exercising more, always watching what she ate. What seemed innocent enough at first soon became something far more. "I was able to sort of put up the facade I was eating by munching on two (celery) sticks for lunch, but then I'd be exercising so much it wouldn't matter anyway," she said. "Even if I wasn't exercising much, the amount of food I was eating wasn't sufficient for someone who was just walking around the school. I had very distorted ideas."Ella weighed herself constantly but was even more obsessed with the figure she saw in the mirror.Looking back, she realizes it only took about two months to spin out of control. "It spiraled and I didn't know what I was doing," she said. "I had heard of eating disorders and never thought that was me."Her family and friends couldn't help but notice her already thin frame rapidly shrinking away. She began to find pamphlets about eating disorders around her house - not-so-subtle reminders from people who loved her. Her parents practically had to drag her to her first assessment at Linden Oaks at Edward Hospital in Naperville, but once she got there she slowly began believing someone understood her, someone understood the feelings she tried to hide. Still, the first go-round with therapy didn't stick and she relapsed, leading her parents to take the next step - sending her to La Europa Academy just outside Salt Lake City, which treats young women struggling with issues ranging from anxiety to drug addiction."People at (La Europa) would ask, 'So why is a girl who has never taken a drink, never smoked a cigarette and all she's done is starve herself for a couple months, in the same place where - heroin addicts (are),'" she said. "Then people saw my body and said, 'Oh, that's why.'"Diagnosed with anorexia and exercise bulimia, she realized she and the heroin addicts had something in common - a lack of emotional strength. La Europa, she says, challenged her way of thinking. It helped her separate thinness from beauty and straight A's from perfection. She realized she was living a lie."The day I finally realized I was happy without it and it really was wrong was the day things really changed," she said.After 11 months in the program, she moved in January into Linden Oaks at Edward Hospital's Arabella House in Naperville as a transition back into her regular life. The program at Arabella, she said, provided a balance of support and freedom, catering to her individual needs. The youngest in the house during her stay, she also gained a group of older sisters who she hopes always will be part of her life.Recovery has been difficult."This is a long year I've spent and there have been some very painful moments, but I don't regret a single one of them because they led me to where I am right now and I can honestly say I'm happy now," she said. "There's still work to be done, of course, but I wouldn't take it back for the world. It's possible for everyone."She left Arabella House just days after talking to the Daily Herald, excited to return to family, friends and school with a new outlook and new tools to help keep her emotions from becoming compulsions.Ella's brown eyes glimmer as she talks about the future."It's a nice feeling of completion and a nice feeling of starting a new chapter in my life and ending the one that has been tormenting me for so long," she said, a smile spreading across her face. "I think there's a lot of promising things coming in the future and I'm excited to have the additional support this place provides."'I lost a lot of passions in my life'Death. Rape. Illness.Something had to numb the pain. Something had to provide some comfort. For Jennae, it was food.The 27-year-old Naperville woman grew up in Bloomingdale. When she was just 7, three relatives died within about a year of each other, each death driving her a little deeper into despair, each driving her a little deeper into a life of seesawing emotions and eating habits. She speaks of her experiences openly, matter-of-factly, but with an occasional twinge in her voice that hints at the pain they caused, the wounds they left behind. Unable to cope with so much loss at such a young age, Jennae began binge eating on and off until she became obese. When puberty hit, the last thing she wanted to do was to mature. She began starving herself, hoping to halt the inevitable. She was diagnosed with anorexia nervosa at 12 and a very brief stint in therapy did nothing to stop her overwhelming preoccupation with food.At 15 she was raped, sending her straight back to binge eating and even further into the depths of her own private hell. "In my mind I equate thin with beautiful and I didn't want to be beautiful," she said. "So I started overeating again." By the time she graduated from high school, Jennae was overweight once again and being an adult was far from what she dreamed. "Nothing really went the way I wanted it to," she said. "I always imagined after high school I'd get the dream job and the dream house. There was always the next thing that would make me happy. Then I realized one day that next thing isn't really going to make me happy. So I stopped eating out of pure depression."Several years later, when her mom was diagnosed with brain cancer, the seesaw tipped again and she started binging and purging."It's been a spiral down to the point where it got pretty extreme and I was drinking a lot on top of it," she said.Last fall, hope for a better life seemed to have disappeared. She attempted suicide. Finally, it was time to get help. For 45 days she went through both inpatient and outpatient treatment for bulimia at Linden Oaks at Edward Hospital in Naperville. When her insurance ran out, she had no choice but to try to continue her recovery at home.She quickly learned she wasn't ready to do it on her own.As soon as the insurance kicked back in on Jan. 1, she returned to Linden Oaks and then made her way to Arabella House, a residential program that eases recovering women back into their regular lives while providing a support team of therapists who assist with everything from psychological struggles to meal planning."I really needed a better transition from inpatient to nothing," Jennae said. "I needed a step down, you could say. And that is what Arabella House is providing for me - a nice middle ground to learn the life skills I clearly was lacking."She says she is fortunate to have the support of her family. Her husband has always known the depths of her trouble with food and has been standing by her as she tries to recover. Facing her father was more difficult."I was very nervous he was going to be disappointed in me for going to the first treatment and not getting better," she said. "I was petrified."When her father heard she was returning to treatment, he arrived at the hospital the very next day - giving her the acceptance she hoped for, the acceptance she craved. He quickly became a member of her support team, even joining her husband during the first family night at Arabella House.With the encouragement of her family and tough love from her therapists, she says she's working through her issues, trying to separate her identity from her eating disorder. "I feel like I lost a lot of passions in my life because of my eating disorder and I don't know what to fill that void with now," she said. "The healthier I get the emptier I get and I don't know what to put in there to fill it up again."She still faces physical hurdles. Years of purging have taken a toll, including damage to her lungs and esophagus, and at least one surgery is in her future to fix those problems. She has been suffering from walking pneumonia for the past six months.Still, there are things to look forward to. An accountant by trade, she is working on her bachelor's degree and wants to adopt a child with her husband.She hopes other people struggling with eating disorders won't wait as long as she did to get help."Get treatment as soon as possible," she advises. "The longer you wait, the harder it really is. And not to be ashamed of it. There should not be a stigma around a mental disorder."False20001366Jennae, left, and Ella prepare lunch at Arabella House in Naperville, a residence for women being treated for eating disorders.Tanit Jarusan | Staff PhotographerFalse