The other day, as I was out to dinner, my friend dissected her meal taking off her bun and ate a ground beef patty without condiments. She stated that she, "couldn't eat THAT." My mind automatically assumed she was suddenly allergic to gluten, but I soon realized that was not the case.

In my head, for a quick five seconds, I slowed down on eating my bun and thought I too needed to diet. If only I was skinnier, life would be a million times better for me also.

But, suddenly a flush of memories flooded my mind of when I was stripped from having a choice of eating or drinking anything - anything at all. I couldn't swallow and my life for six months was a living nightmare.

My mind had been poisoned and my body was simply an existence, one that had been robbed and no longer one I cared to own. I was adrift in a strange place I now became very familiar with. A place of bare white walls, and strangers hovering over me. I hadn’t committed a crime yet, but I sure felt like I had. I was confined to a life of poverty that I never knew existed. I was plundered from what I had thought were my human rights, but I figured out quickly, I was wrong.

I had been laying in a bed that wasn’t my own and covered in basic white sheets for an entire two months. A smell that could easily make me vomit at just the thought of it, smothered me daily. I wore a gown that wasn’t mine and stayed in a place that I’ll never in a million years call home. My privacy was dictated by raggedy curtains. There was not a door to knock, so one could come in as they pleased.

I had raised the amulet to stare at it. It was now a piece of me, attached to my cold frail and bony skin. While raising it, my skin burned as I failed to remember, it didn’t belong here and it wasn’t supposed to be on me. A tan instrument drilled into my stomach, a vital tool to keep me alive. A long plastic tube, I found myself fondling with often was attached to the circular ball on my body. At the end of the tube was a bag filled with a brown liquid substance that gave me a daily source of “nutrients”. The milk like constancy always left me full rather quickly. As the time went on, the amount of liquid in the bag decreased until there was nothing left to give me. I attribute my ability to be “full” quickly due to my disgust with how far down the tube my life had become. I wanted more than anything to devour a good meal, but my body wouldn’t let me. Just like the liquid slowly making its way down the tube, my life was too.

This world places so much value on looks and the number on the scale. Let's change that. Use food as a way to bond with friends and family. Food is meant to be an experience, not just a supplement. Like me, I soon remembered how much I focus on my looks daily. I realized that when I die, being one who emphasized on weight won't even matter, and there are so many unhealthy foods I'd rather enjoy than to worry about a summer body I will unlikely have anyway.

Among the changes in my life during those six months, all the many circumstances I had absolutely no control over regardless of what I or someone else did, I learned innumerable lessons. But, above all, I've learned food is the way to anyone’s heart.

I know what it is like to adjust to dietary habits and my life dictated by a machine in order to stay alive. I know what it's like to not be understood and to sit at a dinner table unable to eat. My body was rejecting me and while some days I crave a great body, not one day will I take it over the ability to eat.

On that day when my muscles were strong enough to swallow again, the cacophony around me was raised as I was excited to get my first glimpse of freedom. A cacophony of bleats drowned out my words. I could swallow again and I will never take it for granted. I ask that you don't either.