In my last post, I opened up on how I got to my lowest point during college. In this portion, I'm going to discuss the last bit of my struggles and how I finally accepted my condition and reached out for help.

Beginning of February 2020, I was still practicing my bad eating habits. I was still consistently exercising and damaging my body more and more each day. I was still running and I was still restricting so many things. My parents visited me one weekend and I remember that entire day my mom constantly kept saying, "Kris, you're too small" or "Kris, please do something about your weight". But I would ignore her, as I usually would whenever she made those comments. I had not accepted my disorder yet and didn't want to anytime soon. (Later on after I started recovery, my mom told me that seeing me this small on that day almost brought her to the point where she was going to take me out of college).

Days go by and I start to notice a huge change. My runs were becoming increasingly more difficult, my workouts would quickly leave me out of breath, and overall I just started to feel weaker and weaker. Walking up stairs to classes started to become a chore, as my legs were so small and I had little to no energy from malnourishment. I would have shortness of breath just from walking from one class to the next. It got to the point where I couldn't walk correctly, I would wobble. Getting into my bed at night started to become difficult, focusing in classes became difficult, and I ignored every bit of it.

I ignored the more serious signs as well. I had not gotten my period for over a year, my hair was slowly falling out, I was constantly cold in every setting, and other bodily function were severely irregular. My disorder became a growing concern to everyone in my family, but I chose to ignore their worry. I chose to ignore the signs. This is how an eating disorder takes over your brain. It makes you believe nothing is wrong and that being so thin is a good thing.

By the end of February, I finally had enough. I was tired of the way I was living and finally accepted my disorder. What made me change suddenly? Well, I decided to challenge myself with a chicken nugget meal from McDonalds to prove to my mom I would eat anything. A meal like this would usually terrify me, but for once I wanted to show that I could beat my disorder. I finished the whole meal, but afterwards I felt that instant guilt and shame. I had a mental breakdown right there in my dorm room over a chicken nugget meal. Yeah, pretty pathetic if you ask me. But that breakdown made me realize I had a huge problem, and I needed to change.

I called my mom and asked her what I should do and she suggested I talk to a friend of ours who is a pediatrician. Later that night, the pediatrician gave me a call and what she said terrified me.

"Krista, you need to go to the ER right away and get blood work done."

I was scared, but I knew if I wanted to recover and be healthier, I had to do it. So, I drove 30 minutes by myself to Columbus and checked myself in to the ER. They weighed me and it finally hit me how severe the situation was. I was 82 pounds. Being a 5'3" 19 year old, that's SEVERELY underweight. I was shocked. I was mad at myself that I ignored everyone and let myself get this way. Later on they took my blood and I patiently waited all alone to get the results. The doctor came back and read my results to me. I found out that night that my liver, heart, and kidneys were close to failure and if I didn't come in sooner, it would've been too late. The damage I did was already terrible, but it could've been A LOT worse. The doctor then told me to come back the next day for a follow up appointment. This appointment would determine what would happen to me next.

Part 3 will be posted soon. In the next part I will discuss what happened at my follow up appointment and how I finally started my journey to a healthy happy life.

Thanks for reading!