You have torn my life apart. Utterly and completely. Yet, here I am slowly piecing myself together from your destruction.

When I was younger I never understood that I carried a few extra pounds than my female peers - I was generally happy and unaware. Into high school, I entered excited that I could grow out of my little town in four short years and focus on myself. From a popular family in my county people wouldn't assume that I came to meet you due to a family member's harsh joke on my appearance. Suddenly shattered in heartbreak you crept into me and slowly built a weight on my soul.

Conscious of my calories and forcing myself to walk on the treadmill daily, I and everyone else were under the assumption that I was being healthy. Due to my weight loss I found confidence and my first boyfriend. I entered a complete teenage dream. My self esteem firstly skyrocketed off of the high of a new love interest and the inches falling from my waste. For the first time in my life people complimented me without having to ask them first if I looked nice. I was noticed.

However, your fangs began to sink into me. They cut deep. My self esteem fell when I realized I still have pounds of fat I could potentially drop in order to achieve the standard of beauty I now idealized. I wanted to achieve perfection. As I lost the pounds it seemed perfection got farther away from me. I walked on the treadmill exceedingly longer amounts of time, making my boyfriend wait for me by my side. I started to oppose dates, social functions, etc. Your toxic venom made me overly self aware of my flaws and incredibly less social.

I began to have problems with my boyfriend, my parents, lost all of my friends, and unawarely you became my top priority in life. I thought more about the food I was going to consume that day than the people who I loved. Arguably I loved you more.

Depression. Your underlying evil that haunted me from the start reached the peak my senior year. Confused and upset, I wanted to end my life. I didn't understand the root cause of this feeling, perhaps I was pushing my body too hard with my obsession of you. I reached out to my boyfriend who felt offended by this sickness growing in me. Honestly I see now depression is your best friend and was lurking with you the entirety of this journey - attached to you. I relied on him to fix me, but no one can fix a person who is already broken other than that person themselves. Goodbye, my first love.

I graduated as salutatorian in my senior class and was on route to university. It was picture perfect, but inwardly I was crumbling. When I lost my only remaining friend I began to confide in my family about my depression and finally coming to terms with my eating disorder as well. Everyone surrounding me denied everything. My only remaining support system left me without one.

"You can't be depressed. You can't have an eating disorder. You are just confused."

These words hurt me. I needed to be believed. It was a cry for help, but every single person tossed me to the side.

The summer before college I began to drink. A lot. Partying became my habit. It masked my pain that I felt from never feeling adequate, the time I spent walking on a treadmill everyday, and the only thing I ever though about - food. After I would get drunk, I would begin to binge eat which caused excessively more problems with how I viewed myself, my depression, etc... It was like I was on a ferris wheel, numbing my soul and damaging it excessively more.

My horrible habits I was creating lead me to the worst decision of my life when I decided to meet with three older guys after the gym one day. They were fairly popular in town and I knew of them but not to where I would have necessarily considered them friends. My intention was to hangout for 30 minutes and go home. I wasn't feeling confident that night because I was sweaty from the gym.

Shortly after I arrived they decided they wanted to take shots and asked if I wanted to join. I wanted to look "cool" so I took one thinking that it wouldn't harm me. We listened to music and they proceeded to ask again. I turned them down on the offer initially and finally gave back in when teased me. Keep in mind, I am at the time a petite 18 year old who was too naive to understand how alcoholic shots would affect me and how quickly. I got drunk. So drunk that this infamous night I do not recall...

This is what I do remember:

I woke up at 4am that morning in my driveway frantically ringing on the doorbell for someone to let me in because I was freezing. My mother brought me inside and helped clean me up because puke was all down my clothes. In the morning we would find that there was more on the driveway and in the backseat of my car.

The next morning I messaged one of the boys and he told me that we engaged in intercourse and that he knew I was too inebriated at the time - that he'd understand if quote, "I was mad." I got out of bed and noticed sore spots all over my body and bruises in many places. I checked my leggings and noticed that the puke that was dried on them was on the inside of them. Meaning he quickly put my leggings back on me inside-out after he took advantage of my body, where I later puked on them.

One of the three men admitted over the phone but I will never know if any of the other two were involved. Never know if the other two entered my body without consent.

Bam. Two weeks later I was shipped off to college. I just went through trauma that I discussed with no one and was about to live on my own. At college my social anxiety came about and I found myself never leaving my dorm unless it was for parties or the gym. I walked 4 hours every night when I went to this university. My grades suffered and for the very first time my parents recognized all these issues that I was telling them I had lived with for the past four years.

They pulled me out of that particular university and I started one closer to home. I eventually started to go to therapy and was finally discussing what all had happened to me, altered me. All that I wanted in the world was to acknowledge the pain you brought me, the trauma, and grow from it, becoming stronger from it. Yet, as you do, you kept me in my own dark cell.

I still had no friends and was living by myself for a year. I stopped going to the gym which helped a lot with my sanity. I was finally learning ways to loosen your nouse.

I liked my new college better after a while when I got used to my surroundings. And then progressed from there. Less restriction on calories, more self love, more realizing my worth.

I am still in recovery but today I feel so much better than the day you entered my life and leading to your poisonous course. You stripped apart many years of my young life in a way I can't even totally comprehend. From the days I wanted to hang myself to my present mindset has such a vast difference. I am so proud of myself for taking the necessary steps of overcoming you. I am stronger than you.

I don't blame my rape on you. Although, I feel like I wouldn't have ever been in such a vulnerable position if I wasn't utterly broken by you.

I am done with victim blaming. I am done with thinking I am not adequate. I am done of the self isolation. I am done of you. You were the worst thing to ever happen to me, but due to the despair you made me endure I am stronger and hope to reflect that onto my future children and others.

For the first time in my life I understand my self worth.

So,

Dear Eating Disorder,

You are not f**king welcome here.

If you are suffering with anything, please get help. I have lived with this monster during such formative years of my life that I am still having to work to fix the time and bonds that I lost. Don't ignore it and let the problem worsen. There is a beautiful life out there waiting for you.