I've always had issues with my body. Since kindergarten, I've been bullied by others about it. The person I considered to be my best friend was the main perpetrator of it. She tormented me mercilessly, kicking, slapping, and handing out backhanded compliments about my weight like candy. At her birthday party she got all the other kids to gang up on me and beat me up--and that was in fifth grade.
Needless to say, I got depressed. Like really depressed. By middle school, I was wanting to die. There was an evening I sat down with a bottle of pills and a letter of apology to my parents scratched out on a piece of notebook paper, detailing why I felt I had to do it. That I was a burden, that I was too worthless for this world.
I don't recall the shift now, but things started to get better. I met my actual best friend, the kind that actually supports you instead of bringing you down all the time. I met my now boyfriend of nearly two years. I still had issues with my weight, but I could handle it. Somehow, for a brief couple years, I was okay.
My desire to lose weight never left me, though, tugging at me most in the middle of the night when I couldn't sleep. So finally I decided to do something about it. I started exercising and downloaded a calorie counter app to try and eat less.
That was the beginning of the end.
I started exercising several times a day. All of my normal food intakes was being sliced in half to make sure I didn't go over my calorie count. I became obsessed with being under the amount allowed for the day. My intake went from 1500 to 1200 to 1000 calories a day or less. There was a certain thrill to receiving the message from the app saying I was needing more calories.
I dropped around 25 lbs.
People started to notice me and compliment my weight loss. I felt like I was doing the right thing then. After all, I wasn't eating. I was just eating less.
The raw and hollow feeling of my stomach when I went to bed made me smile. It meant I was doing a good job, right? I was going to lose more weight, right? Yet even as I dropped the weight off, the voice telling me that it wasn't enough, was only growing stronger.
My father, a mental health first aid trained teacher, started to spot the signs of an eating disorder. There were interventions. There were tears. And at the end of it, I was a wreck. I wanted to starve to be pretty, but I didn't want to die as a result of it.
I went to the doctor's office and my heartbeat was now irregular. They told me that I didn't have to look like all the stereotypical girls you see when talking about anorexia to die. That if I kept it up, I would.
So I tried.
It's been nearly a year since my diagnosis, and there have been times where it's felt okay. That I could eat and the voice would be quieted, even if just for a little bit. Then there are moments where someone says something, or I look too closely, and it begins all over again.
My favorite dress did not zip up today.
It was like the room was collapsing around me as the realization hit. I had gotten too fat for the dress. The dress that had fit me only a couple months ago when I last wore it. Immediately, I was sent into a tizzy. The calorie app was redownloaded. I started doing pushups and sit ups and planks as if in that amount of time it would all just melt off. I wanted to force myself to throw up the hearty dinner I'd just had. To start swallowing the diet aid pills my mother kept in her medicine cabinet.
An eating disorder can't be cured. It can be treated. It can be made manageable, but it is now something I will have to live with the rest of my life. Recovery is hard. Every day is a fight to get that fork to my lips. But I do it. I do it because there is so much to live for in this life. I have a loving family, boyfriend, and dreams of being a novelist.
I'm not going to let my ED take that from me.
If you are struggling yourself, reach out. Reach out to me. Reach out to anyone you can trust. ED's are not to be taken lightly. They can and they will kill.
Keep dreaming my lovelies, and keep eating.
