Mental Health Awareness: Eating Disorder Edition
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Health and Wellness

Mental Health Awareness: Eating Disorder Edition

What happens when eating becomes a paralyzing fear? The second installment of a miniseries of articles concerning mental health.

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Mental Health Awareness: Eating Disorder Edition
Intervention Service

Food. One of the bare necessities to all life on this planet. Most of us don't think twice about eating; the undeniable force of hunger is a signal that we need to eat, so we do. This isn't the case for some, as other factors can hinder a person from eating such as a lack of resources, physically not being able to, and mental disorders. Over 20 million women and 10 million men in the United States will experience an eating disorder at some point in their lives. Among those millions of people, one of them happened to be my best friend. This is an interview on the journey of a teenager who suffered and recovered from disordered eating.


O: If at any point in time you need to stop talking about this just let me know and we can take a break or stop altogether, okay?

M: No I won't need to stop talking about it, it's just the talking about it is making me snervous – make sure you write that down, first sentence, "I'm snervous!"

Will do. Okay, let's start. Can you please state your name, age, and what mental disorder we are going to be talking about?

My name is Melia Markham, I am 19-years-old, and disordered eating.

And what eating disorder did you suffer from?

It's called eating disorder not otherwise specified or EDNOS.

Okay, let's backtrack for a second. What was your life like before you developed your eating disorder?

Well, I've always had the worst body image ever. I was always "the fat kid" and "the overweight girl" and there was the stigma that you have to make up for being overweight, so you always have that thought stuck in your mind when you grow up being a larger child, and I feel like I was set up for an eating disorder because that's just how my life was. I had terrible relationships with food, terrible relationships with my body, and terrible confidence in myself from the minute that I can remember.

So you were 17 when you were diagnosed?

Right.

Which would've made you a junior in high school, correct?

It became a serious problem the summer before senior year.

Was there any specific event that was the catalyst to your eating disorder?

I think it was a slow-building process because I wanted to stop having to make up for being overweight, so it's like you just decide to get it [feelings towards weight] all away because you think it will make your life better. Never having boys pay attention to me until I lost weight was a huge thing because I figured if I lost weight then they would like me...which was a little gratified so that's kind of bad. And then always being the one picked on in our friend group was me thinking, "It's because I'm the fat kid." That's what my brain always thought it was, even though it wasn't at all. Now I know it's because I react to your guys' shit-talk so aggressively. Even when I was very skinny it was still me thinking the fat kid thing. And then stress in general and wanting to control everything thinking that [losing weight] would make my life better and easier.

How did you feel when you were diagnosed and realized what was going on?

It was the hardest thing in the entire world to admit to myself. For me it went in stages, it wasn't like I had this major realization or anything. May of senior year I remember telling our friend that I wasn't going to calorie count anymore and having so much stress because I didn't know what I was going to do without it. And then in September when college started and there was a bunch of stuff going on in our lives with school and friends and stuff I just told myself that I just need to deal with everything right now, and once I was able to admit [that I had an eating disorder] to myself it was the worst thing ever because I could never stop thinking about it; I was constantly thinking about my disorder every second. But now it's gotten a lot better where it'll pop into my head maybe once a day but it's just a passing thought and I don't dwell on it.

What symptoms did you experience? Like when you were first going through the motions of disordered eating what were you feeling on a day-to-day basis and what was going on in your mind?

Mentally, I was showing signs of depression and I was obsessed with planning my meals five days in advance because I felt like I had to be under the calorie limit every single day. And I was thinking about food all the time. I would look at food, I would talk about food, I would think about food even though I wasn't eating it because when you don't eat that's all that's on your mind because you're depriving yourself. And I had constant fears of gaining weight and feeling sick and getting fat. I was never scared of people wondering if I had an issue because the only people who ever told me to stop losing weight were your (author's) grandparents. Other than that, it was a congratulatory thing that I was losing weight. I thought that if I gained one pound people would notice and think that I had a problem. I was beating myself up all the time. I specifically remember an incident in high school after I had eaten my usually small lunch I allowed myself to eat a cupcake, and I was in class writing things like, "You fat (expletive), how could you do this to yourself?" It was constant freaking out about stuff. I wanted to feel like I was the smallest person in the room so I was always comparing myself to others and putting a number to everyone else in the room because I only viewed myself as a number (meaning weight). Physically, I lost feeling in my leg, I would lose chunks of hair, my bones were sticking out everywhere, I was constantly cold, and I lost my period for extended amounts of time.

Do you have any habits that have stuck with you after all this?

Yeah I have both physical and mental symptoms that have stuck. Physically, my hormones are all kinds of screwed up, and I gain weight easily even if I just eat one bad thing. And sometimes that pushes me back into that mental state of disordered eating; it's not a huge deal because I continuously work to get myself out of it, but weight gain forces me to get back into the habit of thinking that way.

Did you ever have any episodes/attacks with the eating disorder?

I would say they were more like symptoms, not episodes. I had anger issues because of a lack of glucose, so I was irritable all the time and it affected my relationships with friends and my parents. I never had an attack in the sense of a panic attack or anything, but I had habits of my mind being plagued with thoughts of what I had eaten for hours on end.

So once you started getting out of disordered eating, how did you manage the symptoms you were experiencing?

Informing myself that I was not the only person suffering was a big thing. I became vegan and found that there is a huge community online in support of eating healthy and not calorie counting. Being around people who have never had issues with eating and don't get stressed out about food was like, "That's a possible life for me to have?" It was just a huge motivator and being around those people was helping me live by example. And the fact that you (author) and other people told me that you were worried about me [helped]. Talking to people helped immensely, if I had kept it to myself I would probably still be in a really bad place.

You didn't have any medications or therapy though?

No, I'm still thinking about getting therapy but I don't know. I probably will, it's just I can't get myself to make the call right now.

I get that. Has the disorder affected your friendships, personal life, or professional life?

Yes. I broke up with my boyfriend; I wasn't in the right mindset to even have a boyfriend because I was unhappy with myself. And it caused symptoms of depression later on to worsen which some friends couldn't take so they left, but it also made the friendships I have now so much stronger because I was able to talk to people and kind of weed out the bad ones. I never had a job while I was in the deepest mental part of my eating disorder, but I was in an unhealthy state before the disorder started because of the way I looked affected me professionally which was part of the reason why I had to quit my job. I had the worst relationship with my parents ever, especially my dad. Once I told my mom, she started understanding more and our relationship has gotten ten million times better. But for a while I was having break downs thinking, "I don't know what's wrong with me." It was really difficult because no one knew what was wrong with me and my parents didn't like the idea of therapy since I was misdiagnosed when I was a kid once. Also, in my family, therapy equals crazy, that's the other bad thing.

What is life like for you now?

So much better [laughs]. There are still bad days, but the good days outweigh the bad. I still think about food in a different way than someone would if they didn't go through what I did, but you also just get through it. If I hadn't gone through this I probably wouldn't have found veganism and obviously I'm in love with that. It just gets so much better, my life is prime right now. I feel that I am a better person now than I ever have been.

How do you think society treats people with eating disorders?

People don't understand the mental root of it, they only think of the physical root. They see someone really skinny and might assume they have anorexia or they see someone who's really big and don't think that an eating disorder is possible. Doctors couldn't see that I had an eating disorder in the beginning because I was overweight. I think that the whole "just eat" thing, just like there's the whole "just calm down" thing with anxiety, is something that you can't say because there is a paralyzing fear behind [eating]. I don't think people are educated enough on [eating disorders], but I also don't think people look down on them either, they just don't understand so they kind of push it away.

Have you ever felt discriminated against or looked poorly upon because of your disorder?

Not really?

It almost seems like it was the opposite for you.

Yeah! People wanted to talk to me because they always wanted to know how I lost weight, they always wanted advice from me, but they were never mean to me because of it. But even when they knew about the disorder they would still ask me for advice on losing weight which was too much.

Do you have any messages or words of advice you want to give?

Hmm, what are my inspiring words to change lives. Um, I would say don't listen to anyone in the diet industry. Carbs are your best friend eat plants!

Oh my god...

Just put my Instagram bio in there, "Save the Cows. Save the Earth." But seriously, I would say you are not a number, that's the biggest thing. You have to give yourself value because it all stems from not valuing your own life. When I didn't even see myself as another human being and when I saw myself as just a box that had a number on the scale, nothing got better. Once you start valuing yourself, that's when things can start looking up.


The strength required to battle a mental disorder is immense, but things do get better. I personally want to thank Melia for confiding in me the details of her experience to share with the public. It's a trend now to be very guarded when it comes to almost anything, so for her to be so open and willing to talk is admirable. Building stable relationships with friends and family is essential to the beginnings of finding help, and there are many websites and support groups online to help as well. If you know someone with a mental disorder, sit and listen to them before you take matters into your own hands to find them help. Sensitive matters such as this should not be taken lightly, and I hope that by writing these articles on mental health people will begin to see the importance of not only caring for yourself and seeking the help that you feel you may need, but understanding that you are not alone. You are never alone.

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This article has not been reviewed by Odyssey HQ and solely reflects the ideas and opinions of the creator.
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