Tonight as I rode home from a dinner out with my parents, I was so uncomfortably full I thought I could puke. I ate well. A tad too much, but well nonetheless. As I started to feel just how bloated my stomach really was, I found myself shedding a tear; because you see, it hasn't always been so easy for me to eat like that. Looking at me now you'd have no idea, because I am 198 pounds of beautiful, but at one time, I was 133 pounds of starving.

When I started my junior year of high school I had absolutely no idea that it would be the year my relationship with food and my weight would get so out of control that I would be completely consumed by a restrictive eating disorder. Looking back now it's hard to pin point what exactly triggered my mind set, maybe it was just the social pressures of high school, maybe it was that I had acquired a rail-thin track-star boyfriend, maybe I was just tired of being the duff of my friend circle; but the reason doesn't matter. What matters is that it happened. What matters is that for two whole years of my life I restricted my eating to the point that I would eat just enough to not pass out at daily softball practices or weekend tournaments. Even in recovery during my senior year, I was binding my own stomach every single day with ace bandages to appear thinner. I got so many "compliments" as I started to lose weight, "You look so thin!" "You've gotten so skinny!" and a few "You look good!" remarks were thrown in. All of these things people started saying to me sounded so nice, like they were telling me I got prettier, that I was more beautiful now that I was 4 pant sizes smaller. Little did these same people know, they were only adding kerosene to the flame that had made me lose nearly 40 pounds in a two month time-span. Sure, 40 pounds in two months is nothing for a client on "My Six-Hundred Pound Life," but for a then-180-pound, 16-year-old girl, it was sickeningly unhealthy to state the least.

Two days before my junior prom I went for my final dress fitting, and it was perfectly snug, a truly lovely fit. Come prom day, I had to safety pin the dress up because I lost too much weight in just 48 hours. As I was in a full blown panic attack over how fat and ugly the ill fitting dress made me look, my mom decided to tell me my habits had become unhealthy. At this point she wasn't telling me anything I hadn't already known, but I had been getting such positive reinforcement that at that point it wasn't about me. It wasn't about how hungry I was all the time or that my body legitimately craved and ached for more nourishment, it was about the fact that more people talked to me and that I was being invited more places. Looking back now, it could have been that I was thinner, or it could have been that I was interacting more during the times I was supposed to be eating just to distract the people around me from the fact that I wasn't.

A vast majority of people reading this article now will say they had no idea the things I was doing to my body, but that's the thing, eating disorders aren't loud. Eating disorders don't demand to be seen, but for some reason, everyone sees them happening. Those people saying, "You look so thin!" "You've gotten so skinny!" they saw it happening. My parents and sisters, they saw it happening. Yet no one knew quite why or how. And that's where the ever true phrase, "It takes one to know one," comes in play.

I truly do not mean to belittle anyone who tries to help those with eating disorders, but the truth is, people who haven't been through that hell just don't get it. Just last spring (nearly a year after recovery) I was speaking to my, then boyfriend, telling him how I wanted to lose a few pounds but needed some advice on how to do so healthfully. To which he gave me some advice I knew I couldn't follow because of my restrictive past, but when I told him I couldn't carry out his suggestions because I didn't want to fall back into an unhealthy place, he responded with "but you looked so good then." Now before you start thinking, "What a terrible guy!" he had no idea my "unhealthy" approach was anorexia, but I have never felt a shot in my chest so absolutely malicious. That is, until just a few weeks ago. This summer I had joined a "getting fit" type challenge with my sister and a few friends, when three weeks into the eight week challenge I realized I had gained three pounds. Being the strong, self-confident woman I am now, the three pounds wasn't what bothered me, I know I'm gorgeous. The problem came from my competitiveness and the faintest voice in my head that progressively grew louder over nearly a 10 minute span until it was screams in my head. Screams saying, "You could just not eat!" "You know how to not eat and get away with it!" "You could win this challenge if you just stop!"

It was during that full blown anxiety attack that snowballed into a panic attack that I realized the malicious shot I had felt in my chest the year prior and all the terrible things I did to my body were not my fault, or my boyfriend's fault, or my friends' fault. In fact, they were no ones' fault besides that truly sinister voice inside my mind that made me sick to look at a full plate of food. But trying to explain that to someone who doesn't have that voice is one of the most difficult and frustrating things to do. I get hit a lot with, "I won't let that happen to you again." Or, "I'm here to help you be healthy." And while I truly do appreciate the offers and the care you have for me, it's not up to you, there is nothing you can do to stop that voice from talking to me.

There is something you can do however, and I mean anyone and everyone reading this very article, you can stop using skinny and thin as compliments because to some people they're triggers. Skinny, thin, triggers that cause people to eat a little less that day or use an extra ace bandage for binding. Thin, skinny, these words do not mean beautiful or sexy. Skinny, thin, a combination of letters that do not determine worth.

I fell the the voice. I fell to skinny. I fell to thin. But I'll be damned if I ever fall again.