Disclaimer: The following article may be triggering to individuals that struggle with eating disorders and/or body dysmorphia.

Seventh grade was extremely difficult for me, specifically because everyone was developing and maturing in a way I could only dream to. They grew breasts and butts, while I grew my stomach and my thighs. From this growth, I went days without eating. I remember a cold January day in seventh grade, when all I had to eat was a string cheese all day. I recall the dizziness and almost collapsing, and in a sense, I fell in love with the way I felt when I was hungry. I liked myself better when I was hungry. I finally felt like I was becoming what I was destined to become -- skinny. From the obsession with hunger forward, I began to self-mutilate my body, specifically because I told myself that if I ate, I was at fault - I was flawed. I had to destroy my flaws in the only way I knew how. With a razor.

Mental hospital after mental hospital, tenth grade was the real turning point for me, when I realized just how messed up I had become. This realization changed things for a while. I became obsessed with either eating healthy, or binging on the foods I really wanted, and then purging the food out of pure insecurity and disappointment in myself for allowing myself to eat what I really wanted (and deserved). I always had gum in my bag, just in case I needed to hide what I had spent the past 10 minutes in the bathroom doing.

College was no exception. The "Freshman 15" was my biggest fear, and I was by no means going to allow myself to get FAT. My parents purposefully recommended that I avoid bringing a scale to school, to avoid weighing myself on a daily basis. This restriction made it so that I was unsure of how much weight and fat I had really gained, allowing my only scale of measurement to be the mirror -- which was probably much meaner to me than the scale would have been. It was difficult to restrict myself from eating, especially when so many of my friends found our only social events to be ones that we needed to be eating at. I began the school year by eating three meals a day, slowly each week, I began restricting my food intake. By the middle of the school year, I had gotten pneumonia, and had lost so much weight that I refused to eat anything out of fear of gaining the weight back. I slowly ate two meals a day. By the end of my freshman year, it had gotten to the point where all I ate throughout the day was granola and cashews. I was lucky if I let myself drink enough water to not pass out. The occasional binge eating made me feel useless, and it showed me just how in control I really had to be if I wanted to stay "pretty" and "skinny".

An image from April of my freshman year of college -- proud of my body, after not having eaten for days.Mia Messinger

Over the past summer, yoga became a way for me to release the negative emotions I had towards my body in a positive way. While it took a while, I began eating normally again, with the occasional restriction. Yoga not only showed me what my body was capable of, but how much it needed to be nourished and loved and taken care of each day -- because it loves me, so why shouldn't I love it back?

While yoga is not something I actively do anymore, I am beyond grateful for the experience and knowledge I gained from yoga, because I am now able to recognize just how unhealthy these self-mutilating behaviors can become. In a sense, they become who you are, and everything you think about. They become an addiction, and begin to define everything you want to be.

Through the many realizations I have had over the years, I am still able to recognize that I am not perfect, nor do I need to be. I am no exception to the occasional relapse, and when relapses occur, I am blessed to have a supportive group of friends and family to love me through it.