It all started in seventh grade when Katie, whose name has been changed at her request, moved with her family due to her father’s occupation. Moving was common for her and she was always referred to as “the new girl” in school. However, little did she know that she would immediately be sexually harassed.
“After that, I have had social anxiety for a while. People weren’t receptive to me and the sexual harassment took a toll. Because I was the new girl, I became friends with people I wouldn’t usually socialize with otherwise. Other than that, I didn’t hangout with anyone after school and I was stuck between a rock and a hard place,” Katie said.
She would walk through the hallways with classmates calling her fat, worthless, a waste of oxygen, and a waste of space. There would be constant booking and tripping and it didn’t stop there. In the winter time, kids would throw snowballs at her with rocks in them and in one instance, a cherry bomb. Worst of all, the kids would come up to her and touch her inappropriately during gym class.
Katie gradually stopped eating and instead of attending lunch with her classmates, she would make her way to the library instead. “It was constant inside and outside the classroom and the kids who were the aggravators lived in my neighborhood. The abuse was verbal, physical, sexual, everything in a can of worms,” Katie said.
In eight grade, she became suicidal and a danger to herself. “My parents knew that I was being bullied, but they didn’t know until my senior year of high school about how it effected me physically and emotionally,” she said.
During one visit to her grandparent’s house, she thought that she could play off being a picky eater. “We were at dinner, it was pot roast and I didn’t mind it but it wasn’t my favorite. I took a couple bites and excused myself to the bathroom. Being at the dinner table caused me anxiety. The thought of eating made me sick and I sat in the bathroom and took deep breathes.”
Katie was almost on the vicious path to anorexia, but her mom and grandfather caught her at the right time. Her mother went to the bathroom and told Katie that her grandfather asked if she had an eating disorder. This is when she realized that there was a name for the disorder. After this incident, she started to eat snacks more and her mom would pack her lunch.“My main focus was to not worry my family. I still had all of the guilty feelings there, but I would eat more at dinner when they could see me eating. Even people who didn’t care about me as much started to care.”
Though Katie never had to be hospitalized and is currently continuing to eat regularly, her depressive episodes and thoughts will come back. She has dealt with depression now for 10 years. “Everything becomes a problem in my episodes. I will look at myself in the mirror and say I shouldn’t eat dinner,” she said.
The summer of 2015 took another turn however. Katie had a relapse when she realized that her summer job selling snacks at a pool and working six days a week was effecting her weight and she could see that she couldn't fit into some of her pants anymore. “It sucks to say that this summer, it kicked back in a little.” Due to the long hours at work and her physical condition with her legs, she wasn’t able to get in shape. “I was going through my closest, and nearly none of my pants fit. This effected me in a way that I didn’t think it would. Didn’t touch food for two more days.”
At this point, she was forced into a dependent state. “In my head, I was thinking that I am gaining weight. The only way to do this is to fast again.” Then she clarified, “It’s not like I gained that much weight, it was just enough to go over the edge so that I would be able to fit into pants or skirts.”
Overtime, Katie developed a fear of talking to people and it was not until she attended college that she started making friends and opening up. “I started embracing who I am and not trying to put on a mask. I feel totally comfortable with being myself,” Katie said. To deal with her anxiety, she always carries her rosary and will say some hall marries when she needs to. But a goal that she is still striving for is to be able to fit into those same pairs of pants again soon.
