"You look so skinny!"
"You lost so much weight!"
"How did you lose so much weight?"
These are just some of the things I heard when I saw my friends after my first semester of college. I never thought I was fat, so I did't realize how much weight I lost. I wasn't fat, but now I look super skinny. I was told from friends I graduated with that I looked great, but from my close friends some thought I looked sick. I wasn't physically sick, I was dealing with anxiety and stress.
I now weigh about 20 pounds less than I did the summer of 2016 and I lost all the weight in about three months. Trust me I wasn't trying. I just got too busy to eat. I was trying to balance a new life style. I started college, started a new relationship and worked a lot. I had to deal with losing some friends. I completely shut down first semester because of how overwhelmed I was.
I would go to class, do homework, go to work and repeat. I would skip breakfast and lunch. I ate dinner most nights after work around 8:30pm. Then I would do more homework. I lived off of Gatorade and crackers. I was exhausted all the time. I would be hungry, but I would just say, "I'll get something later." Later never came. Everyone thinks it's easy just to eat something, for me it's not. I'm working on the whole not eating thing, but it takes time.
Eventually I realized I did not eat enough so I tried eating more, but at this point my stomach was shrunken and I would take 3 bites of something and be full. Every time I ate I would feel nausea and my stomach would hurt. I started thinking maybe I was physically sick. I went to the doctor and all my test results were good. He gave me medicine to stop the nausea and build up my appetite. The semester was over and I finally was eating a little more. Then spring semester came and I had the same symptoms, this time I didn't drop 20 pounds. I was and still have more control over my anxiety then I did last year.
Anxiety is not something that can be controlled easily. I have been eating, but not as much as I used to. I have to keep building up my appetite. I don't need people idolizing my weight lost and I don't need people looking at me like I'm sick. I have anxiety. I realized it's not curable, but it is manageable.
As Brooke Davis from One Tree Hill said, "You think you know me, but you don't." Now you know my name and my story.