Three hundred and fifty calories, 85 pounds. I lived by these numbers for many years. I wrote down what I had eaten that day, how many calories were in it, and how many calories I needed to burn at the gym. One apple was 95 calories, one cup of lactose-free milk was 110 calories; that was my normal lunch, half the calories I would eat a day. Then for dinner, it was rice and more milk, I had spent 8 years of my life staring in the mirror and wishing I looked differently. Every single time I stepped on the scale I squeezed my eyes shut hoping when I opened them the number did not change. This week, February 21-27, is National Eating Disorder Awareness week.
No, an eating disorder is not something people should be romanticizing, I cannot find one thing romantic about the idea of starving yourself, or making yourself throw up to lose weight. Having nails so brittle they chip at anything, or having skin with a tint of yellow because you were so malnourished is far from beautiful, it is terrifying. How do people find it beautiful that some people are binge eating without being able to control themselves. Eating disorders come in many different shapes and sizes; some people are over weight, and others are to the bone skinny, but these are not the limits. I have run into my far share of people who claim they have an eating disorder, just because they want the attention it brings. Living a life of worry is not beautiful, it is tragic.
My name is Kristen, and I have an eating disorder; I have come to terms with the fact that I will constantly have to force myself to eat, just so I am healthy. I can no longer see the number that shows up on the scale at my doctors office without it possibly triggering me. Along this long road of pain and torture, I have made some wonderful friends who have helped me through my eating disorder. Friends who would show up at my house with food and make sure I eat it just because I had not eating that day. But not enough people know about this terrible disease that controls so many peoples lives.
Personally, I never looked at a magazine and thought "I hope one day to be that unhealthy/skinny," but this is because I never thought I looked like them, and never wanted to. I looked at my friends and thought "I am not good enough to be their friends because I am 'fat.'" No my friends were not underweight with their collar bones showing, they were beautiful 12 year olds who were confident. I never saw myself the way that they saw me, I would look at myself in the mirror and grab my fat wishing it would disappear. Somedays it was more of a struggle than others to get myself out of bed and go out in public because I thought I looked fat.
It is not a choice that anyone makes, no one wakes up in the morning one day and thinks, "hmm... I will no longer be able to control how much I eat because I am sad." It just happens, when they get stressed or depressed, they are no longer able to control how much food they consume. I have never meet anyone in my life who wanted to have an eating disorder. But, I have had friends claim to be bulimic or anorexic because they wanted to relate to me. Why would you wish this upon yourself let alone anyone, it controls your life and you cannot stop it by yourself.
I have gotten the "I never knew you had an eating disorder," or the "but you are beautiful as it is why stave yourself," stereotypical comments before. I have heard people say, "why would you ever stick your finger down your throat on purpose?" or the "I ate so much today, I must have binge eating disorder." These aren't even the worst of it. When someone looks at us and says "wow you look amazing today," or "I wish I was as skinny as you," those are worse, because those people are unknowingly cheering us on. When in reality all we want is for someone to grab us by the hand and shake us out of this dream.
I wish more people knew how terrible it was to live day-by-day scared to eat because you might gain weight. Or to having to plan where you eat around if there is a bathroom close by that you can slip into to force the food out of you. Some people are terrified to start eating, because they might not be able to stop. Eating disorders consume your every thought, we will sit here and constantly drive ourselves, ware ourselves down to the bone overthinking about how much we weight or how much we ate.
It has been 8 years since the first time I thought poorly of myself, since I started to check my weight every time I ate or went to the bathroom. I am far from recovery, but I have made a huge amount of progress, when I first started starving myself, I hit the all time low. I was 5'7" and I weight maybe 85 pounds, being that height I was 40 pounds under weight. Now, I am just hitting the healthy mark, but I still struggle everyday. However, I am trying my best!
We will go to the gym for hours, count the calories we ate and make sure we burn more than that amount. We will eat food that makes us or others happy, then force ourselves throw it up. We will eat as much food as possible, then hate ourselves for it. So we wont eat for days. We are eating disorders, and we need to be recognized.
It takes only a few minutes to screen yourself online if you are worried you might have an eating disorder, and only a few more minutes to educate yourself more about the different kinds of eating disorders. Continue to focus on the future, love the body you were given, you only get one and trust me you are beautiful, not matter what your mirror is telling you. Throw away that scale that is controlling your life, eat that food you think might make you gain weight and keep it down. Go to the gym, but don't go to burn calories, go to gain muscle. Love yourself for who you are.
