In honor of National Eating Disorder Awareness Week, I wanted to share a story that so few people, even those I consider closest to me, are aware of. I had written this years ago, and each year in honor of this week, I go back and reread and edit and reread again and debate whether or not I'm ready to make this part of my life public. After those years of inner turmoil and ultimately acceptance, I’ve come to realize this week is about more than just me and my feelings, it’s about public awareness and that is what I hope to accomplish.
It had begun as a simple attempt to eat healthier. I had wanted to cut out junk food from my diet as was suggested by the teachers at my dance studio. But slowly, I began to associate more foods as unhealthy than healthy and I would deprive myself of more and more of the things I loved to eat.
After about a month or so, I began to split all of my foods into two separate groups, a “safe” and an “unsafe” category. Almost all foods began to fall into the “unsafe” category. I was counting my calories incessantly and competing with myself to eat less than I had the day before. Soon, I was consuming less than 800 calories per day while dancing more than 4 hours a day every day after school. I threw out half of my lunches and would pick at the foods I decided to keep. I wanted to be stronger; better, I was testing my self-control. During dinner, in order to slip past my mother’s skeptical stares, I would move my food around the plate and take extremely small bites to make it look like I was eating more than I was. I knew I had enough of a problem that I felt the need hide my eating habits from friends and family, but not enough of a problem to stop myself from pushing further, from eating less and less.
While finishing my homework for the night, I would hear my stomach screaming at me. I was in so much physical pain. My stomach begged for something, anything, to coat the burning, rotting lining of my insides. I tried to refuse, but I sometimes I slipped and I would binge in secret. Immediately, a wave of self- hate would crash over me. I would try to make myself sick and throw up for hours and hours to no success until I would break down and feel numb. There were times I grabbed a razor blade and held it over my wrists; I just didn’t want to feel this way anymore, I wanted the constant pit in my chest and the pain to just stop. I cried myself to sleep most nights, hating myself for eating things I didn’t deserve. I would grab at my stomach, my thighs, my arms, despising the “fat” that I could still pull. I wanted to take a knife and just cut it all off. I was never happy. I was miserable, everything in my life felt out of control when control is what I craved the most. Even when the numbers dropped on the scale, I wanted to go further, lose more weight, and become invisible. Nothing was ever good enough or small enough. Both physically and mentally, I was falling apart.
Months went by and the weight continued to peel off of my body. I became fragile and emaciated. That’s all I was- skin and bones and nothing else. Yet it wasn’t good enough. I had become skeletal, a shell of what and who I used to be. When I looked in the mirror, I didn’t see the bones protruding through my skin. I had developed horrible body dysmorphia and even though I never saw myself as fat, I never saw myself as thin either. There was always another pound to lose. I didn’t see myself spiraling towards death; I saw myself as heading towards success. Nothing could stop me; I finally felt in control.
My friends started to notice what I was doing to myself. When someone tried to bring my eating up, I would quickly snap. I began to isolate myself from my friends, so I wouldn’t have to talk about my problems with them. I hated sleeping over at my best friends houses because I didn’t want them to realize how little amount of food I was allowing myself to eat. I would chew gum to stop myself from binging on snacks with my friends on the weekends. I wanted so badly to tell somebody what was going on with me just to see if they’d care, but I also didn’t want to because I knew if I did, things would have to change. I knew what I was doing was not healthy, but I could not admit to myself that I was suffering from anorexia. To be anorexic meant not being in control, it meant being weak and scared and crazy and sad.
Before I could admit to myself what I already knew, my friends and dance teachers began to tell my parents what I was doing to myself. In a meeting my dance teachers arranged with my mom and I, I remember her saying that when I danced, she could see the muscles and bones moving beneath my skin, I had gotten so thin.
I told my parents I was fine, I would getter better, I promised. They constantly begged me to gain weight and I told them I would, but I just couldn’t. I didn’t want to. I could not bring myself to undo all the work I had done. I could see the numbers on the scale in my head going up and I refused to let that happen.
Finally, by January, my mom was done waiting for me to gain back the weight. She no longer bought into my promises. She brought me to my pediatrician. Standing 5’5’’ tall and weighing 80 pounds, my doctor warned that I be taken to a treatment center immediately or I would die, but I still didn’t believe her. How could I die? I wasn’t that bad. I wasn’t even that skinny. People with anorexia are supposed to look sick, I didn’t look sick. I looked and felt fine. My doctor ordered that I get an EKG performed, a test that checks for problems with the activity of the heart. Only she understood the real damage I was doing to my body. I received the results of my EKG, and they revealed that I had developed premature atrial contractions (PAC heart) and was beginning to fail. While normally not dangerous in healthy individuals, I had developed a PAC heart because my cardiac muscle had begun wasting away; my heart wasn’t functioning properly, and it was working against me. I was told I was putting myself at risk for heart failure and cardiac arrest and if I did not get help, I would die. I was slowly killing myself.
I’m not sure if I really cared that I was going to die. I wanted to get better, to feel happy again, but I also didn’t. I could not bring myself to start eating again, watch the numbers on the scale go up. The doctor wanted to send me away for treatment, but I refused, so instead, I was immediately forced into an outpatient treatment center that I had to attend 4 days a week after school. I screamed nasty, hurtful things to my nutritionist. Refused to speak to my therapist. I’d rather die than eat; I wanted to die rather than eat. I could not comprehend how forcing myself to eat, the one thing that I was petrified of, would help me feel happy and whole again.
But slowly it did. I started to like myself. My body. My mind. I began to feel happy again.
That was 7 years ago. Recovery was one of the hardest things I have ever done; one of the hardest things I will ever do. To this day, I still struggle. It’s an everyday mental battle, but I fight it because I want to. It’s ok to feel vulnerable and scared and allowing ourselves to feel weak and sad and out of control is what makes us human. It’s allowing ourselves to enjoy the things that bring us pleasure. And that’s what my ultimate goal is now, not numbers on a scale, but being irrevocably content in myself and who I am as a person. I am finally comfortable in my own skin. It took my years to feel this way, but I no longer feel shame in having suffered from anorexia nervosa, a debilitating, controlling mental illness, as that will always be a piece of me, for it made me who I am today and I will not apologize for that.
Eating disorders have the highest mortality rate out of any mental illness. The mortality rate of those suffering from anorexia nervosa is 12 times higher than the death rate of ALL causes of death for females between the ages of 15 to 24 years old. Without treatment, 1 out of 5 people suffering from severe eating disorders will die. By sharing my story, I want to help those struggling realize that they are not alone. That they too can get the help they so need and deserve. Beauty comes from within, and loving yourself for who you truly are. You are in control of your ultimate happiness; do not let others prevent you from seeing your true worth and value. People are put into this life because they are strong enough to live it. And it’s not worth giving up on. When that day comes for someone to say, “I have recovered,” I swear it will change your life forever.
