Mental health can be summarized in one word: difficult. Mental health is hard to understand, manage and talk about for a lot of people. I believe it is perplexing for some because mental health, unlike physical health, can have various issues within itself that are unable to be seen, only felt. If you break your arm, for instance, you can feel the pain and also see the real, tangible evidence of the injury. You can drive yourself to the hospital and have the arm casted, and nobody will question you for feeling that something was wrong and for seeking assistance in fixing the issue. Your arm is bruised and disfigured, and requires obvious attention.
Mental health problems aren’t always physically evident, and because of this, we tend to categorize these issues as being unimportant when compared to physical illnesses and injuries. We do not seek treatment often enough for these problems, and they become burdens that many people decide to carry secretly, afraid that others may cast judgement. I believe that mental health and mental illness should be discussed more freely in our society, so that people who are struggling with their health may feel validated and become more willing to seek treatment. Just like one should not sit around with a broken arm, doing nothing to fix it, one should also not feel the need to hide a mental illness out of shame or fear and never get help.
To open up this discussion about mental illness, I am going to brave up and share some of my story about my mental health and how it has wavered throughout the years. I hope that by imparting some of my experience with you, you will in turn feel inspired to think more of your own mental health and possibly share your personal experiences with others that you care about- for again, there is a stigma surrounding the subject despite it being a somewhat common part of many people’s lives.
What most people do not know about me is that I have struggled with an eating disorder for a third of my life. I was diagnosed less than a year ago when I finally began counseling, but for many years I allowed the issue to build up inside of me, believing it was not something that could be fixed.
Having been on the thinner side in my youth, I was accustomed to being called a “skinny minnie” and other well-meaning nicknames by the adult figures in my life. Until fifth grade, I never questioned my fitness or my appearance at all, for I had been constantly reassured that I looked healthy through being called these names.
When I was told my first "fat joke" at the age of 12, I remember feeling absolutely mortified. I could not accept what I had heard and immediately took it to heart - I had never heard such a comment aimed toward me. Noticing my unexpected reaction, my classmate apologized immediately and stated that I was obviously not fat and that it was just a friendly joke. It seems ironic that a single comment, a single lighthearted childhood joke, made a lasting impact in my mind and in my life.
From that moment on, habits began to form. I did not eat lunch that day, and I decided to start running as often as my father allowed me to join him. I could not become fat, I had to prove my classmate wrong. Besides, I was planning on becoming a successful and talented dancer when I was older and no ballerina I had seen was full-figured. Fat could not become my future.
Dancing and exercising in general quickly became my focal point from that time on. By the time I was in tenth grade, I was taking at least twelve dance classes a week and also exercising in my room before and after classes for hours, trying to maintain a slim figure and fighting the curves puberty so badly wanted to provide. Not only was I exercising daily to the point of extreme fatigue, I was also trying out different diets without the guidance of anyone but famous dancers I followed on Instagram.
I went from being ‘paleo,’ to gluten-free, to vegetarian within a year’s time. I became impatient with each passing fad, but always tracked my calories and kept them as low as possible. If I went over the set amount, I would become very irritated and force myself to exercise harder. By now I knew that something inside of my head was off - my body image was the exact opposite of what it had been and I couldn’t help but restrict my calories in order to combat that change. I believed that I was bound to become super overweight, and began to constantly weigh myself and take body check pictures, lifting my shirt to look at my stomach whenever I passed a mirror in private. I was losing any ounce of confidence I had in my appearance, and soon my entire sense of self was turned upside down.
In eleventh grade I cut back on dance classes, unable to feel good about being a dancer anymore now that my ballet body had “disappeared.” I gained a few pounds despite dieting all this time, likely due to the fact that my metabolism was becoming seriously damaged and also that I was growing. To combat this, I took up more running and joined the track and cross country teams at school with the knowledge that this type of exercise, combined with caloric deficit, would help me shed pounds quicker.
Luckily for my body- not so much for my self-esteem; I only lost about 10 pounds through this experience. Mentally I reached extremism, but my body chose not to fail me despite how hard I worked at damaging it. These bad habits ruined my energy levels and increased my chances of injury and illness, but I still managed to appear healthy on the outside. Rarely would I hear comments from others saying that I looked tired or sick, or that they were worried about my running, but for the most part I only received compliments. These neither encouraged nor discouraged me to pursue the disordered habits; by this point my eating disorder was my entire life.
It wasn’t until my senior year that the mentality of the disease truly hit me hard. Fighting my body all of this time led me into a deep depression. Every aspect of myself was suffering due to lack of attention: my social life, academics, athletics and spirituality. I stopped believing in myself and just let the weight start to come on at this point. I became too sad to do anything with full enthusiasm anymore. Rather than going to dance classes, I would sleep from the time I got home from school until the next morning. I was too lethargic to even come up with excuses for this behavior anymore. When teachers or friends at school asked me what was happening, I did not have anything to say. Life became extremely dreary and often I would try to skip school just so I would not have to pretend I still felt alive. What was the point in carrying out the daily actions of life if I did not feel alive? The only thing I felt was fat, and I no longer could do a thing about it. I wanted to kill myself. I wanted to die.
Luckily for me, someone at my school saw through everything that was going on inside of me and forced me to get help through the school counselor. This person did not know the extent of my mental illness, but they truly saved me in doing what they did. Talking with a health professional about my secret eating disorder opened me up to living again. I realized that I had the power to change this part of me and that I was so much more than just my size. For so long, I was focused on my weight and my physical flaws when my mentality was the thing that was truly flawed. Once I realized this, life changed for me and I began to look into recovery from my anorexia and depression. I no longer needed to fuel this secret part of me nor keep it hidden. I needed to be strong for myself and make the choice to fix my mental health.
Writing this article and making my story known fulfills a long-awaited step in my recovery journey. I am becoming my true self again, after many years of living with secret illness. I hope that those who are dealing with similar scenarios can also find the courage to do the same. We will never be quite like the person we were before mental illnesses took over our lives… No, we will be even better.
