**I am including a trigger warning in this for sensitive content surrounding eating disorders

Some days I honestly and truly did not think that I could make it to see another day. When I was twelve, if you would have asked me about what I wanted to be when I grew up, I probably would have laughed a little out of the pure fact that I wasn't sure if I was going to make it to be a “grown up”. Sometimes I wanted to die. Sometimes I wanted to disappear.

My life was full of fake friends who I kept around so that I looked “normal”. I never talked to any of them though. They were there as a front. A facade. A tool to show that some sanity existed behind the protruding collar bones and defined cheeks.

My eating disorder began as a strange admiration for those who had the self control to restrict themselves. That plus the fact that my mom eats pure vegetables and practically no carbohydrates, fats or proteins. Call it a “raw” diet.

I went down hill pretty fast. Most people will describe their eating disorders as a steady decline until one day they just hit rock bottom. No. Not me. I was a special case. The first day that I didn't eat anything, I sat in sixth grade english clutching my stomach because it was making some strange noises I hadn't heard before. You know the ones when you're getting pretty hungry and it sounds like a tiger may be hiding inside your stomach? Yeah, it was that sound penetrating through the silence of individual reading time.

The rush of throwing my lunch away was something that I will never forget. I was being a devil. I was being bad: something I had never been before.

I began to crave the empty feeling in the pit of my stomach. I began to crave the sight of my ribs and hips poking through the thin layer of paper skin. These cravings got stronger and stronger and consumed my entire life until they were the only thing I would think about.

My grades began to drop. I went from a high A student to a straight B+ student which I absolutely hated. I felt as though I was letting people down by not getting good grades, so, in my mind, the only way to deal with this was to punish myself more. An endless cycle began. A cycle of pain and fear. My world was spinning out of control, beyond what I could handle, but I was also past the point of no return. This spinning, both literally and figuratively, is what landed me in Cambridge Eating Disorder Center in downtown Cambridge.

My mother had been in communication with the school guidance counselor who had been hearing multiple concerns from my peers for many months.

And while I wouldn't wish my worst enemy to have to go through the hell that I went through in treatment, I am not resentful. In a strange way, I am happy that I had this experience. I now feel as if I am able to have a stronger connection with people on an emotional level. I am able to understand many of the difficulties of those who are struggling. I am able to recognize the slight differences in someones mood or behavior that may actually be the presence of a larger issue.

This disorder, has made me who I am today, and continues to challenge me every day to be a better person than I was the day before.