December 13, 2010.
It‘s cold outside, but I’m always colder. I’m riding in the backseat of my mom’s car and livid that dad is driving us to Charleston. But today is only the beginning; we’ll be making this trip once a month for the next six months. Mom is in the passenger seat. They didn’t take me out of school today so that we could enjoy a day by the Charleston harbor and persue the shops on King Street. They’re taking me to the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC), the pediatric department, where I’m scheduled to meet with some brainiac lady who thinks she can fix me. My parents even think they can fix me. But here’s the thing – I don’t need to be fixed. I’ve been losing at least a pound a day, every day, for the past few months, and for some reason everyone around me is telling me I need help. They say I’m not healthy, that I don’t look healthy. Mom told me last night that one of her friends from church asked if I was okay. The lady thought I had – get this – cancer. Mom told her, “No, she doesn’t have cancer.” Mom thinks she’s making me realize that I really am sick by telling me this story, but it only makes me smile.
Your efforts are finally paying off. People are noticing how much work you’ve been doing.
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I weigh 102lbs, I’m 5’6”, and I’m 15-years-old. My parents and doctors and therapists and friends and people I don’t even know, tell me that I’m anorexic. I tell them I’m not; “Nothing is wrong with me.” I’m just a really healthy eater and I work out more than they do. They’re just jealous that they can’t control themselves like I can. They’re just trying to “get me help” because they think this kind of success is unnatural – they probably just want me to be fat like the rest of America. I look great and I know that I do, because the other day at dance class when we were trying on our costumes, the younger girls came up to me and whined about how they wished they were as skinny as me. An older girl at dance who is a much better dancer than I’ll ever be, even complimented me on my leg muscles and said she wished hers looked like mine did. And when I’m at school, the girls compliment me on how flat my stomach is. They pull up the waist of their shirts and complain about the muffin tops they have when they sit down. I quietly pull up my shirt to see if I have one. I don’t. They roll their eyes and tell me, “Oh put your shirt down Krysten, you know there’s no way that you would have any fat on your body.” But I do have fat on my body. Which reminds me.
You’re already at 270 calories today. That’s 270 calories you have to burn off on the treadmill this afternoon.
June 2011.
I’ve been going to counseling every two weeks for the past five months. I’ll end up going a whole seven months. My therapy session for today just finished up and I’m feeling good. But I always feel good when I’m finishing up a session at my therapist’s office. I remember one time after a session, I told dad, “It feels like I just left a really good church sermon.” It’s like, before I start the session a demon controls my life, but once I talk with my therapist, the demon is gone and I’m “me” again. I have a nutritionist now who says she used to have anorexia too, but that she recovered. I look her up and down, at her still-thin and delicate frame. Maybe I can recover like that. She drives a BMW and gives me a chart where I’m supposed to write down what I eat. I don’t feel like she’s helping me much – I’ve already been keeping track of my food for months by myself, and I know what foods are healthy. My parents are just giving her more money to pay her BMW bills. I hate that I’m costing my parents so much money. I love my parents, I really do. Even though I’ve told my mom more times than I can count that she’s fat. I’ve made her cry, made my dad lose sleep. I hate making my parents worry. I just want to be better. But I also want to still be skinny. Why can’t they just leave me alone?
It’s because they love me.
February 21, 2016.
Now I’m 21-years-old and I’m “recovered.” But does anyone with an eating disorder ever fully recover? I still have the inner demons and I still hear the voice of anorexia every once in awhile, except now I don’t act on it. It doesn’t control me; the illness isn’t who I am anymore. I'm back to a healthy weight, and last night I ate an entire pulled pork sandwich on white, greasy bread, with a side of extra salty fries. No regrets.
I don’t blame society and the pressure it puts on females for giving me an eating disorder; women have always been adored because of their beauty. Plus, everyone feels pressure from some outlet to be a certain way. I don’t blame the mean senior girls who would pick on me during my freshman year in high school; everyone gets picked on by someone during their lifetime. I don’t blame anyone for what happened to me. Not relating to my brain atrophy and the fact that I don’t remember most of my sophomore and junior year of high school, but I’m not even 100 percent sure of how I developed my eating disorder. All I’m thankful for is that it didn’t conquer me; anorexia didn’t kill me. I owe my parents – especially my mom – for noticing what was going on in my life and getting me help. I’m more thankful than words can express that my parents never gave up on me.
Each year, the National Eating Disorder Association (NEDA) holds an Awareness Week to bring light to the horrible illness that is an eating disorder. The goal of the week is to display the seriousness of eating disorders and to improve the public’s understanding of what causes/triggers them, and how they can be treated. By raising awareness, the chances are greater for early detection and intervention, which is likely to save millions of lives that are spent with an eating disorder. The Awareness Week for 2016 is February 21-27th, and the theme is “3 Minutes Can Save a Life.” This year, the NEDA is focusing on the importance of early intervention and is encouraging people to take a 3-minute online quiz that is designed to help determine if they should seek professional help. Early intervention is super important because it has the possibility of stopping the onset of a full-blown eating disorder if it is intervened in time. The sooner the illness is stopped, the greater the person’s chances are for a full recovery. If you’re interested on how you can get involved during the NEDAwareness Week, visit http://nedawareness.org/get-involved for more information.
Anorexia Nervosa is real, and it’s lethal. It claims some of the brightest, happiest, driven people, and warps them into monsters they never dreamed of becoming. This week, and every week for that matter, pay attention to the people around you. If something seems fishy, keep monitoring it. And if you feel like you need to find them help, please do not hesitate. The sooner an eating disorder gets identified, the better the chances are for that person to make it out alive on the other side. Don’t let those you love become another person killed by an eating disorder. Food isn’t that important, but a life definitely is. And there are so many better things in store for a life than a number on a scale.
