This is going to be one of the hardest articles to write for me because it’s going to come straight from my personal experience. No little girl ever grows up striving to be the girl with an eating disorder. My experience is a little different than what most people think, or at least it starts out that way. I guess I should begin by saying I was diagnosed with anxiety and OCD in the third grade. This played a large factor in my eating disorder.

I managed my anxiety for most of my life with little to no problems. There were days where I didn’t feel like eating because my anxiety was acting up but for the majority of my teenage years I was a very normal girl. I played a bunch of sports, I was student council president ever since I can remember, and I was even in the musicals and plays at my school. I was always working, and always out with friends. It was rare to find me sitting around doing nothing.

However, junior year of high school is when the stresses all came crashing down. AP tests, college choices, prom, schoolwork, everything was adding up and to top it off, my anxiety came back. To those who don’t have anxiety, it’s hard to truly understand what I mean, but it goes something like this: you’ll always have your anxiety with you, but some days it’s better than others. I went years without having my anxiety bring me down and finally it was coming back. I worked so hard to not let it get to me but eventually I lost the battle.

I need to note that my anorexia didn’t start off like how you would think. I didn’t have the goal of losing weight in mind. I was always below the average weighing child no matter how much I ate. I loved and still do love food. But now, my anxiety was so bad I wasn’t eating. The longest I went without eating anything was four days. I was doing a good job of hiding this. I would do work during lunch or eat a small snack to throw off my friends, and I skipped breakfast completely. Dinners were the hardest because that’s when my family all sat down for a meal and talked about our day. I would sit with my family and just lie and say I didn’t like whatever we were having even though I used to eat it with no problem. If that didn’t work I would just eat little bits of food and rearrange my plate, or I would just skip dinner all together.

I started looking sickly, and you could tell I was losing weight. Yet, this is when all the compliments started coming in. People started noticing my weight loss and complimenting me. It started to feel really good that in my worst time people were giving me compliments. If I had just asked for help, I could have gotten the love I needed from people, but instead I was taking compliments on my weight loss . I liked the way I looked, and even worse I started liking the way I felt. I liked pushing my body to the max to see how long I could go without eating.

Physically, I felt like crap. I was dehydrated and sick all of the time and had constant hunger pains in my stomach, but at a time when there was no control in my life, this was the one thing I could really have power over.

I used to constantly look at pictures of food and mentally eat because I was so hungry but I wouldn’t let my body have what it needed. I remember once it got to a point where I was so dehydrated and sick, I needed to leave school. I sat on my couch at home all day and night, with dry cracked lips, and pale white, clammy skin feeling nauseous and depressed. My parents were scared, upset and confused which made me feel even worse.

My mom sat me down and told me that if I didn’t start eating she was going to drive me to the hospital where I’d be hooked up with IVs until I ate. She explained to me that this is how people die, and I should be lucky I have such an amazing life. She told me I was strong, and she’s supported me my entire life and been there through it all and by my doing this, I was allowing my anxiety to win.

After seeing a bunch of therapists and a nutritionist, slowly my appetite came back. When the whole thing was said and done I lost about 16 pounds. I went from being 120 pounds to 104 pounds at my worst. My doctors told me if I went any lower than what I weighed I needed to be hospitalized. I was constantly being monitored. My mom told my friends to keep an eye out and make me eat when we went out to places. I felt like a child.

But despite feeling immature and babied it worked. I gained all of my weight back and then some. I’ve never looked healthier than I do now. I have to credit the freshman 15 somewhere here but college has helped a lot. My mom didn’t want to send me to college because she was scared I wasn’t going to eat, and the first semester I wasn’t eating much. But I am proud to say that today, I eat constantly. I also work out a healthy amount and even though my body isn’t perfect, I’m proud of myself.

I beat the odds. I didn’t let my anxiety and my eating disorder take over me. I realized I am proud of my body and I don’t need to be 100 pounds in order to feel good about myself. I think I’ll always have days where I think about not eating, but when I have these moments I think about my favorite foods and I tell myself how horrible I felt that day on my couch, and I go grab something to eat.

If you or a friend is suffering from Anorexia or any eating disorder talk to them. Make them feel loved and comfortable and get help. Not eating will mess up your body. I still suffer from some of the consequences such as becoming lactose intolerant for a long time afterwards, becoming easily bloated and struggling with constant hunger. The bottom line is please get help before it’s too late -- you are beautiful, you are loved, and you are strong enough to make it through.