If you didn’t know me you would most likely just assume I had super high metabolism, but that was not the case. I was diagnosed, by many physicians and psychiatrists with Anorexia Nervosa. Anorexia Nervosa is an eating disorder characterized by low weight, fear of gaining weight, and a strong desire to be thin, resulting in food restriction.

I was very much in denial when I was constantly being told that I was dangerously underweight until one day it made me severely ill. It was late July of 2016 and I was home alone while my family was out running errands. I started to feel sick and disoriented.

I was hearing and seeing things that were in fact not there and called my mom freaking out. She reassured me nothing was in the house with me and that I was just being ridiculous. Little did I know she called my dad to check up on me because she was worried that something might’ve been wrong. My head started shaking and I couldn’t keep it upright. My speech began to slur and I couldn’t talk. I began to get scared, but my body wouldn’t move, so I sat there in a catatonic state until my mom got home.

She was scared when she found me on the couch not in my right mind so she drove me to the Children’s Emergency Room. Doctors ran tests and found that my vitals were alarmingly low. They put saline into an IV and hooked me up. I was still disoriented until the saline was good in my system. The doctor came back in 10 minutes later and said I was severely malnourished and continued to bring up my weight. He asked my mom if I had been eating and as far as she knew I had been.

That was clearly not the case. I eventually told the doctor I hadn’t eaten in about 4 days, and his eyes got as wide as quarters. He wanted to admit me into a psych ward for starving myself, but after much begging and a new diet plan, I thankfully didn’t have to go there. My disorder caused me lots of health problems in the long run. I cheered at the time this was going on so my body became weaker because I was never eating and my immune system became weaker and weaker and became a hindrance to my cheer life. It has caused me to be short of breath by doing just simple things like brushing my hair, or putting on my clothes.

My stomach is constantly growling even when I just ate a four course meal. Every where I went I would go to the bathroom and try to throw up whatever I ate, knowing good and well I hadn’t eaten enough to throw it up, so my throat would become raw, and nothing but blood would come up. When people see me, whether it be friends or family, they will say little comments like “oh honey, do you eat?” “You need to eat, you look like you’re dying”, like I already didn’t know.

When people have a real life disease, like Anorexia Nervosa , It restricts them from being the person they truly are. They want to be this lively person who always gets invited to things because they're so fun to be around, but they don’t get invited to things because they’re always tired or always sick.

Never tell a person that they need to look a certain way, or that they look like something is wrong with them because that person already believes they aren’t perfect as they are. They feel they need to go to greater lengths to look a certain way. I’ve been told all my life I was little, and for the most part I just grew up skinny, but as I got into the mentality of I had to be bone thin, it started to consume me, literally killing me almost. If you are going through the same thing or know of someone going through this too, Please contact this help hotline and they would be more than happy to talk to you and help you!

National Eating Disorder Hotline–1-800-931-2237