Now I’m not going to say I have or had an eating disorder. I was never officially diagnosed with that. But for the past 3 years I have had a very complicated relationship with the food I put into my body. This is something I very rarely talk about this, but I have learned how to accept myself better recently even if that means I have to accept my flaws.
It all started my sophomore year. I was geeky, insecure, and I was completely in my head. I hated the way I looked. Every compliment I got felt like a cruel joke someone was trying to play on me. Like if I accepted it they would immediately laugh at me and make me feel like a fool for believing that someone thought I was beautiful. So I would shove any compliment given to me away, even if it came from my best friend. So I started being more conscious of what I ate. Every bite of food made me feel fat and like I didn’t deserve the food going into my body.
Fast forward to junior year. The summer going into junior year I was diagnosed with anxiety and depression. Those illnesses didn’t help the thoughts in my head. I was also dealing with a very difficult breakup that did a toll on me. I was spiraling. I tried to keep it together, but I felt like everything in my life was breaking slowly and I didn’t have control over any of it. But what I did have control over was what I put in my body, or lack thereof. So I started limiting what I ate. Every bite I took was carefully thought out and every calorie was counted and tracked. At the same time as all of this, a person I was very close with was suffering with anorexia. While I was destroying myself, I was trying to save her. I was so confused as to why she kept doing this to herself. In my eyes, she was beautiful. I knew things were rough for her, so I tried to keep most of my problems out of it. I wanted to help her, even if it meant destroying myself further. Looking back on it, as much as I wanted to help, I should have tried to help myself too. I should have saw myself the same way I saw her: beautiful.
This all mainly happened during the winter of my junior year. While my life was spinning out of control, one thing came together. I got a lead in my schools winter musical. I was ecstatic, it was all I ever dreamed of. I worked so hard to get to this place and I did it. It meant I spent extra hours practicing dance moves and running lines and stressing over being as perfect as I could possibly be. I had so much going on that I barely ate. It was a mixture of not wanting to eat and having so much going on that I just forgot about eating meals. There were days I would eat only 200 calories worth of food and drinks. It got to the point where I was having a breakdown every other day. I knew I was a mess. I knew people probably thought I was insane or doing it for attention, but this pain and suffering is nothing I would ever do for attention. If it was, I would have stopped as soon as people noticed. People told me that I looked sick and like my legs would snap with every step.
It wasn’t until my opening night of the show I realized I had to change. That day, I only ate a few bites of pizza and drank an entire can of Monster to keep myself awake. And then the anxiety kicked in. On my way to get my microphone, my head started to spin. I was so dizzy I had to sit down. One of the student directors, who was also one of my closest friends, came up to me and immediately went into mom-mode. I told her I barely ate and that I the nerves I had was not helping. My director came over shortly after and told the other girl to take me to the back hallway where it was cool, hoping that the cool are would help me regain myself. We went back there, Gina (one of the student directors) and my other friend Brigid on either side of me supporting me. They got me fruit snacks and forced me to eat and drink a bottle of water. Eventually, I was able to slightly pull myself together and finish getting dressed and put my makeup on in time for warm ups. All throughout the show, another friend of mine who was working on costumes stood side stage while I was acting with a large water bottle that I would take sips of after every scene. I felt like such a mess. All the attention was on me and I hated it.
So I got help. I finally got help for the anxiety and depression and once that started, my tendencies to not eat started to subside.
My senior year, things got better. There were times I felt fat and felt like starving myself, but it wasn’t as bad anymore. I even got new friends who made sure I would eat. My best friend, Katie, would yell at me any time I tried to avoid a meal. She was always and always is looking out for me. While we would joke a lot that we were disgusting and gross and we would call each other names, we always saw how beautiful each other are. Any time she says she looks gross in a picture, I tell her she is beautiful. She never lets me forget that I have “chicken legs” even though there are times I see them as larger than normal. She is my person and accepts my never ending mental illnesses and is always there to help me through them.
While I still don’t eat the same amount as most people my age, I don’t do it on purpose. It’s just become something I do. I just wasn’t hungry as much, but as time goes on I see myself getting better and better. I am eating more normally and feeling more like a normal person. I went from being so close to underweight to being a very normal, healthy weight that I am proud of. Now I am going off to college and I have never felt more proud of myself. I have become so confident in my own skin that I don’t even care about the numbers on the scale. While there are still times when my confidence will shrink and I will turn away a meal or feel the urge to throw up after I eat something very unhealthy, those times are very rare now. Those are thoughts of the past.
And to the people who struggled like me: you are not alone. I know sometimes it might feel easier to just skip a meal just once or stick your fingers down your throat, but it leads to such a slippery slope. It leads to a life of hating yourself more than you could possibly imagine. And I know it’s not possible to just “stop”, but sometimes the first step is trying to get help.
My relationship with food will never be the same as it was before everything got out of whack, but I am getting as close to normal as I can. And for that I can be proud.
