About three months ago I published an article describing my struggles with anorexia and the beginning of my journey through recovery, essentially dropping this information bomb on most of my family and friends.

You can read that article here.

Since then, countless people have reached out to me – friends, acquaintances and even complete strangers – to share with me their own stories and words of encouragement. They told me reading my story helped them, which, in turn, helped me. They read something that validated their experience, showed them they were not alone, and they showed me I was doing something worthwhile, something that could make a difference.

This week, Feb. 21-27, is National Eating Disorder Awareness Week, or NEDAwareness Week. The goal of NEDAwareness Week is to spread awareness about the severity and frequency of eating disorders. This year's theme is "3 Minutes Can Save a Life." The idea is to take three minutes out of your day and take the online screening to determine if you may be at risk for an eating disorder.

The screening is confidential and can be accessed here.

Early intervention is extremely important in making a full recovery from an eating disorder. I battled anorexia for seven years before reaching out for professional help, but I'm receptive to treatment and the prospect of a full recovery is possible. This isn't always the case for someone struggling with anorexia or a related disorder.

If you or someone you know is struggling with an eating disorder, I am begging you to reach out for help. I said it in my last article on the subject, but this is not a battle you can win on your own.

Building a support system in life is important; surrounding yourself with people who love and encourage you is essential to living a complete and happy life. It is especially important when going on an emotionally draining journey, such as recovery. If I didn't surround myself with the people I do, I don't know where I would be or if I'd even be on this path. Though my parents only found out during the summer, they have supported me through each and every step, and my friends who knew way before have always provided me with the full capacity of their love and support. It's a learning process for all of us – what to say and how to address certain things – but the most important thing is we're doing it; I'm doing it.

And I'm getting better.

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I'm not allowed to know what I weigh.

That's what part of my issue was: constantly weighing myself and hyperfocusing on the number on the scale. Every time I walked into or even just past the bathroom, I'd stop to weigh myself. It was an addiction

It was crippling and damaging. The number got lower and lower, but somehow it still wasn't enough.

In treatment, I'm asked what my goal weight was: What did I want the scale to read, what number was I hoping for?

I honestly couldn't tell you. It started as, "Oh, if I stay in this range that's OK," and moved to "Well, below this number will be enough."

Truthfully, by the end, I was so wrapped up in what I was doing that I think a part of me viewed it as a competition, where I was simply competing with the last time I'd weighed myself.

I just wanted to see how far down I could get it.

It's sick. It's disgusting to know I thought that way. You could be shaking your head right now and thinking, "Why was she so stupid? Why did she want this attention?"

I didn't want the attention. Suddenly, it wasn't about other people anymore, it was about pushing myself to the edge without falling off, just to see if I could do it.

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It was my choice to ask for help, but in the first few weeks of therapy and treatment, I'll admit, I started to regret my decision.

They were asking me to change my entire lifestyle. I was being forced to confront the reality of what I was doing. I felt trapped, attacked, more vulnerable than I'd ever been before because now I was being held accountable.

For the first few weeks, I wanted to take it back.

I wanted to go back to before I asked to talk to my doctor, then to before I asked her if I could see a therapist, and to before I admitted to her I was starving myself in the hopes maybe I'd become beautiful.

I wanted to go back to starving myself in peace.

Honestly, I'm not sure what exactly changed, or why I started to embrace recovery. I think it's because of people I met in the following weeks, of the way I saw my life changing before my eyes. I saw it brightening up, which isn't to say it wasn't bright before, but it was being illuminated in colors I never knew existed.

Life was changing, and so I wanted to change, too. For the better. For myself, for the people I loved, and for the future I could see falling into place.

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I feel guilty sometimes, and I've been told that's normal. My life is stable except for this one bump, but I've learned eating disorders do not discriminate.

Self harm does not discriminate, either.

I will admit I've hurt myself.

People glamorize eating disorders and romanticize cutting yourself, but there's nothing glamorous or romantic about either.

I would cut myself on my hips, in places sure to be covered by a bikini in the summer, and I used to burn myself on the inside of my left wrist. I'd light a match and hold the flame to my skin, blow it out and keep holding it there until it cooled.

I tried to pass the burn scars off as those from a hair straightener or oven. People don't ask many more questions about something simple if you don't hesitate to give a reasonable answer.

At one point I considered getting a tattoo to cover it up. I was thinking of a phoenix and how it is reborn from its ashes. Fitting to cover a burn mark, right? My rationale was it would help me to stop burning myself, that I would go to do it and see it and think, "Oh, I don't want to ruin this work of art."

Then I realized that I am a work of art.

I am a work of art all on my own. Why am I trying so hard to destroy a piece of priceless beauty?

The last time I burned and cut myself was early in the morning of December 31, the last day of the year.

And I intend to leave self-harm in 2015 and be clean for 2016.

And the year after that and the year after that.

I'm not going to pretend it's easy, and there have been times in the past month and a half I've been close, so close, to hurting myself. But then, I take a deep breath and pray and stand in the shower for two hours crying. I guess that sounds pathetic, but for me, it's therapeutic; I feel better because I've cried, and clean and refreshed because I've showered.

I step out of the shower to a better outlook; I've cried out the pain instead of carving it into my hips, instead of burning it into my wrists.

I try harder to channel that energy into something constructive, creative and positive. I fall back on writing, as I always have, and just recently dyed part of my hair blue. I transformed the living room of my apartment into a dance studio and dance until I'm tired. I cook (which is extra good because then I eat, too), I clean (yes, Mom, I do know how to clean), and I find myself ahead on homework assignments. I do anything I can to force visions of scissor blades and matches and blood out of my head.

I throw myself into life, so I don't think of taking myself out of it.

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One of the hardest things about recovery is realizing that your feelings are valid.

It's difficult because you've felt that for so long you had to hide what was happening to you, and you would say things like "Oh, it's just me being crazy."

One time, I finished a long venting session about my emotions to a friend by saying, "I'm probably just being crazy." What he said to me afterward changed my entire perspective. He told me that by calling my feelings "crazy," I was discrediting myself and not allowing myself to really feel the things that were happening to me. He said all feelings are important, or they wouldn't be felt.

I had internalized this idea I wasn't allowed to feel things as deeply as I did. While I'm sure there are a variety of factors, I've been able to identify two reasons I do this.

The first is the fact I have, what most would call, an ideal life and no reason to be depressed or to hate myself.

Yeah, I come from a stable, two-parent home. My mom and dad have supported me and loved me all of my life, and everything I have ever needed or wanted has been provided for me. I have a solid relationship with my younger brother. I went to a nice public school and earned good grades, graduating in the top 10 percent of my class. I attend a prestigious private university. I've been able to study abroad. I have friends who are always there for me. I have a boyfriend who loves me unconditionally.

I'm not supposed to have any issues. But I do. So, I subconsciously try to negate my emotions by making it look like vain complaining, something everyone can relate to. It's as if I don't believe these issues can be mine, and people won't believe me or take me seriously because by looking at my life on paper, it seems perfect.

The second contributor to this internalized invalidation is something some jerk guy said to me. I doubt he remembers saying it, but it's something that has made a home in my thoughts in many of my interactions.

(Sidenote: if anything, your takeaway from Parts 1 and 2 of my story is that people will remember things you say even if you forget them, and it could seriously hurt them. Think before you speak – we're taught it since kindergarten.)

What this guy said to me is, "Talking to you is like walking into a minefield."

I was a minefield? Do I focus too much on my struggles with anorexia and depression and anxiety? Am I making everything bigger than it is?

This guy I had developed a friendship with, who had confided things in me and I in him, was essentially telling me I was becoming too much, that I should put a cork in my problems and keep them to myself. Even if they were consuming me, I should smile, and say I was fine and happy and that everything was perfect.

Maybe I was a minefield for him, but I was just being a human being.

I have a right to every single feeling I have, and I have a right to express it.

But still, I worry that I'm being a minefield. Sometimes with my boyfriend, I just shut down because I don't want him to think of me that way. I have to stand back and process my feelings even longer to determine if they're valid or not. Even though I know he loves and supports me, I worry that when I talk about my feelings, I'm becoming "too much," that I'm being whiny or needy, or that I'm overreacting because I'm terrified he'll start to see me as a minefield, too.

I want to tell you, everyone reading this, all of your feelings are valid.

Even if you feel like you don't have a right to feel sorry for yourself, even if someone has made you feel that way, you have those rights as a human being.

Don't be afraid you are too much or too little. Don't think no one will be able to handle what you're bringing to the table.

You are not a minefield, and if people make you think you are, drop them.

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In May 2015, eating disorders began to enter the conversations happening in our federal government. Rep. Ted Deutch (D-FL.) and Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL.) introduced a bill called the Anna Westin Act of 2015, which addresses training for the detection and treatment of eating disorders, clarifies existing mental health legislation to include eating disorders and specifically residential treatment coverage and will require a Federal Trade Commission report to determine the severity of the impact of digitally altered images in advertising and the media and plans to combat this. Anna Westin, whom the bill is named for, was a 14-year-old who committed suicide in 2000 as a result of her battle with anorexia.

As this week is National Eating Disorders Awareness Week, Wednesday, Feb. 24 is the "Day of Action," sponsored by the Eating Disorders Coalition and National Eating Disorders Association. On this day, you're encouraged to call your Congressperson and senator and ask them to endorse legislation like the Anna Westin Act and others related to eating disorders.

In December 2015, another bill was introduced on the topic of eating disorders, by Reps. Renee Ellmers (R-NC), Yvette Clarke (D-NY), Kathy Castor (D-FL), Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), and Nita Lowey (D-NY). This bill, whose short title is the Educating to Prevent Eating Disorders Act of 2015, introduces a pilot program aimed at middle schools for the detection and intervention of eating disorders. The amount of children ages 12 and under hospitalized because of eating disorders increased 119 percent in less than a decade. (Comprehensive fact sheet about eating disorders that include this statistic can be found here.)

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My recovery is still a long and scary road I see stretching out before me. I wouldn't say it's dark or murky or ominous, a foggy dirt road through the woods lit by headlights, but a dusty path through a barren, scorched desert with a hot sun above me, beating down and telling me to give up as I struggle to crawl to a destination I've never been to with no road map. But I'm bad with maps anyway, so I know I'll find my way there eventually.

In the following week, as advocates for intervention and recovery are sharing their stories and preaching their message, please read them. Don't ignore this life-threatening issue that, more than likely, is affecting somebody you know and love.

Eating disorders are not punchlines. They are not something to be envied. They are not glamorous. They are not something you should hide away and be ashamed of, and they are not something you should shame people for.

Look for the signs, listen to the problems, love the person who's trying their hardest to survive.

Eating disorders are a life-threatening mental illness.

But I believe you can, and you will, get better.

I am.