You are the one thing I never thought I could possibly have. Girls like me couldn’t have eating disorders: I wasn’t a walking skeleton like the pictures they show in health class, so it couldn’t be me. I was fine. But a few months ago, I was sitting across from the doctor and there you were. And this is what I finally have to say:

I’ll admit it. You won. For two long years, you won. You took what I saw in the mirror and distorted it to something I could see only as disgusting and undesirable. You locked the door of my freshman dorm while I spent hours alone with anxiety, doubt and self-loathing as they took over my mind. You told me that if my collarbones would show that much more, they would notice me. You said that if I lost this much weight, then I could be what they wanted. You convinced me that what was keeping me from being loved was the food I ate. You held my seat at the restaurant while I excused myself to the bathroom so I could get rid of what I had eaten. You held the calculator while I counted every calorie I thought about eating. You sat and watched as I got weak and eventually passed out in rehearsals. You patted me on the back each time I told someone I was okay, or that I’d already eaten, or that I was just stressed out. You consoled me: I was doing the right thing even as I tore apart the best friendships I’d ever had.

You were the loudest voice in every decision I made.

But not anymore. Today I am taking back what I should have a long time ago.

You’re wrong. I am beautiful. I am worthy of love. It’s not because you tell me I am, the number on scale tells me I am, or a casting director tells me I am, or a boy tells me I am. I am beautiful because it’s a choice. I wake up and choose to see that my reflection is of something so much greater than what’s in the mirror. I wake up and choose the words of Psalm 139, that I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Did you get that? Fearfully and wonderfully made. That means I was made as one of the clearest mirror images of God’s love and creativity. Tell me where you find disgusting or undesirable in that? Genesis 1:27 says, “So God created man in his own image..male and female he created them.” In his own image. Why did you let me push away more than the food in front me? You let me push away the truth that I am made in the likeness of something so great that I can’t even comprehend the reality of it.

So yes, I could choose your way. I could break, distort, starve and obsess over the image in the mirror. I could chase the ever-changing standard you set for me. Or I could stop. I could take a second to love the world around me. There I may find a family who reflects strength and support, friends who reflect joy and loyalty and a life that reflects the way I should have been loving myself from the start.

And to me, that’s the only reflection worth focusing on. That’s the one I choose.

I know you’re not going down without a fight. But I want to tell you that I’m ready and this is one battle you’re not going to win. Not anymore.

Yours truly,

Me.