When I was 15 years old, I was a healthy and fit girl. I ate a balanced diet of proteins, fruits, veggies, carbs, and fats. I was playing volleyball and tennis and was always active. I had a fast metabolism and my sleeping schedule was nearly perfect. I had friends and life was great.

That all changed, one day when I was in dance class and in the locker room, an older popular girl was changing. The girl put on her leggings and all I could stare at was her slim thighs and flat stomach.

I then looked at my thighs and realized they were more muscular and big and not thin like hers. I looked at myself in the many mirrors there were, and I realized I did not like what I saw. That day, I decided I was going to go on a diet just to lose a little bit of weight and look like the girl.

I first started off by eating less of my lunch. I would only eat half of the hamburger and fries. I also stopped drinking juice and only drank water and worked out every day for an hour in addition to my sports.

I did this for a couple of weeks and started seeing some results but nothing drastic. I was not satisfied with my appearance just yet. I knew if I wanted to reach my ideal weight I had to make more changes in my diet and exercise.

I started increasing my workout time. I went from working out one hour to two to three hours. I stopped eating school lunch and instead would only eat half a green apple, 7 carrots, and water.

As for breakfast, I would make a green smoothie that consisted of spinach, kale, and green apple. I did not add bananas to my smoothie because I thought carbs would make me gain weight. For dinner, I would only eat less than half of my plate my mother would serve me. I was eating less than 700 calories a day and exercising for a total of more than 3 hours.

I would cook and bake but only sample the food and sometimes I would just smell it instead of eating it. I also became obsessed with counting calories and anytime I would eat something I would check the label and make sure it was low in calories.

While all this was going on, I was also losing some of my friends because I was always too busy working out. I would avoid going to any social gatherings where food was involved. I isolated myself. I was always in a bad mood because I was starving; I needed food. Even though I was skinny, I was very cold, depressed, and lonely.

As a result of all this, I dropped 20 pounds and I became underweight. At school people would make comments like "you're so skinny" "you should be a model" and "what is your diet and workout regime?", these comments gave me validation that what I was doing was right and they made me want to keep going.

On the contrary, my family was very concerned about my weight loss and my mother wanted me to get help. However, I denied all accusations of me having an eating disorder, and I thought that everyone was just jealous that I was skinny. I had a very twisted way of thinking.

When I was at my lowest weight, my clothes were super baggy, and I had to go buy clothes in the smallest size possible. Because I was super underweight, I was always cold and developed insomnia. There were also periods in which I would feel weak and very light-headed.

At the doctor’s office one day, I was to have my blood drawn because I was low in iron. As I got my blood drawn, I start seeing little dots going in circles, until everything went pitch black. At this point, I had passed out and had an IV tube connected to my veins.

While I was passed out, I had memories of when I was a little girl and memories of my family. I remember it was like a realistic dream of my life, all these memories were flowing through my mind in a very bizarre manner. When I woke up, I cried tears of joy because I was happy to be alive. My mother hugged me and started crying as well.

Even to this day, my mother gets really scared when I have to get blood drawn. This near-death experience is what caused for me to end my eating disorder.

We live in a society were skinny is glorified and being a little plump is frowned upon. Sadly, many people including myself, fall into this trap of forcing oneself to look a certain way by taking extreme measures.

I am lucky that I am still alive because many of these stories, unfortunately, end in death. If you know someone struggling with an eating disorder or you yourself are, get help before it’s too late.