The stigma of mental illness is unfortunately still alive and well, but I fully understood the severity of living with one when I struggled with anorexia for over a year. It’s definitely a sensitive subject: some people may believe mental illness is fake or that it's a choice, others may advise seeking help as a solution. Anyone that knew me in high school knew I had a problem, since the evidence manifested itself physically. For some with eating disorders, it can be a rapid process. For others it may be a very slow descent into it, like I had. There was no switch in my mind that chose to starve myself. Many things had led to it, though even today I still wouldn’t be able to determine the main reason.
I remember I first saw my body negatively when I was 10 years old. I was at a summer camp that took a day trip to the local pool. Although I was one of the oldest there, I compared myself to the other girls, thinking I looked different in a bad way. That’s far too young to feel that way, since at that age no one has developed and grown fully. From that moment there has always been a part of my self esteem that has been defined by how I look. I hate to say that, since now I try to put more self worth in what I can create and provide for others, not things that are temporary and superficial.
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It was the summer before junior year that I faced many changes. First breakup, problems with friends, bullying and the same repressed self esteem issues. At that time I’d never truly had a good relationship with my body, so I decided to change my diet from junk food with friends to mainly healthy options. While doing so, I would read websites that had tips for losing weight fast and cutting calories. I thought if I ate anything considered “bad”, I would undo all the “good” things I had done. Soon I was obsessively measuring food and counting calories, thinking if I went above a certain number I had no self control and weight would magically reappear. It was very illogical, but that was the tape running through my mind. My mom didn’t recognize what was really going on, because from her perspective I was doing everything doctors recommend. However at the end of the day, I wasn’t eating enough to keep my organs functioning for very long.
Initially, receiving compliments were flattering. As time went on I began to hate when anyone would comment on my body, whether it was positive or negative. School administrators stepped in because of an anonymous concern, where I was called into a room of about seven people surrounding me. I was terrified, although it was a well intended intervention, but I felt trapped and shrunken inwards. When I was at my lowest weight, a few insensitive girls asked me if I was taking diet pills or throwing up anything I ate. Another time while I was walking down the hall, someone I had never met yelled “Anorexic! She used to be so fat!” at me in front of his friends. I then missed my morning class because I was hiding in the bathroom sobbing. It’s not only physical torture, it’s mental torture. Constantly being freezing, fingers turning purple, losing hair and distancing yourself from friends. Feeling guilty for eating something and restricting more, or throwing a fit when you bought the wrong kind of yogurt. I always knew I wasn’t happy going through it, but I wanted the nasty comments I received for a long time to stop. However, they just fell on the other side of the spectrum, from being “too big” to “too skinny”.
I started eating more because I knew I needed to, but I was running it off anyway. I thought I could be healthy that way and stay at a low weight, although it was still not enough. For months each day was the exact same. I would go to school, run, do homework and sleep. The days blended together. My senior year I joined the school cross-country team and though that was not good for me at first, it helped me in the end. It loosened my rigidity and opened me back up to others. At the end of the season, I finally had a change of mind. I knew I couldn’t live forever like that, not that one could really survive for long that way. Having read numerous stories from others about their recovery, it seemed long and arduous, involving routine doctor visits and weigh-ins. I did not want to undergo that, so I decided to just let go and never look back.
It was the best decision I have ever made. Not that it was smooth and easy -- there would be days I became so sick from eating again that I missed school, or the paranoid feeling of my body changing so rapidly. Regardless, it saved my life. If you or someone you know are struggling, I promise it is not the end of the world to get better. Gaining weight back is the best thing you can do for yourself. Now I appreciate my friends more, especially those that stayed with me through it, but especially living without constantly thinking about what I’m eating or beating myself up mentally. There is no reason to feel ashamed because of the way you look. We put too much focus on being thin that we forget to be healthy. Eating too much junk food is not good, but neither is eating nothing at all. We all have a different body type and are meant to look a certain way. Comparing yourself to someone else is like comparing a diamond to an emerald- both beautiful in their own way. Keep in mind that extremes are easy and balance is hard.
