“You are so skinny! I wish I was your weight!”

“What do you eat? I would do anything to weigh as much as you do?”

My name is Kyrsten. I am four foot ten inches tall. I currently weigh 90 pounds. This is the lowest I have weighed since middle school.I wear a size 0-1 pants size and most of the time I have to wear a belt because my pants are still a little loose.

I used to wear a size three to four pants and weighed 105 sometimes 110 pounds. Last time I weighed that much was December of 2016.

People think I lost that weight just to lose the weight. What people don’t know is I have an eating disorder. I have Body Dysmorphic Disorder. BDD is basically me seeing my body differently than what other people see it. For the longest time, I thought I was fat. I had rolls and I was extremely jealous of the girls who had a flat stomach. I wanted that.

When I get super stressed, I starve myself. This can continue for days where I eat the bare minimum just so I can survive. People are jealous of how thin I am. Well let me tell you a little secret, I didn’t choose to be this skinny. I can’t take certain medicines because I have no fat on my bones and so I bruise easily. People ask me all the time of the diet I am on so they can be as thin as me.

They don’t know my life or my story.

Again, I didn’t choose to have this life. I didn’t choose to have an eating disorder.

People assume that I love being this tiny. What they don’t know is that I am currently self-conscious of wearing shorts because no matter what there are bruises on my legs from simply just running into something. That is how skinny I am.

People want to know what I eat daily so they can follow the same format. I will give you some advice. Don’t follow my eating habits. For one, I probably eat one solid meal and a couple of snacks depending on the day. Currently, I crave ramen and little mini pizzas so that is all I have been eating with the occasional brownie bites.

My doctor has been so concerned that almost everything he has tried has not gotten me to gain the weight I need. I am currently under weight for my height. I was almost sent to a hospital for my eating disorder. As of this moment, I am on a low dose of medicine that doctors normally give to cancer patients so they have an appetite. I have to take it once a day so I will eat.

This isn’t fun and games. I am sick and people think that I am doing it just to be skinny.

In my opinion, you are skinny shaming me. People telling me how skinny I am and how much they want my body make me feel worse than I already do. Telling me, “Oh girl, you need to put some meat on your bones.” Doesn’t help me any better. Telling me that you are going to force me to eat isn’t going to make me feel better.

I didn’t do it for the heck of it. I lost 15-20 pounds in six months. I have a chance that my organs are going to fail if I do not gain at least ten pounds.

Next time, before you make a comment about someone’s weight maybe think of all the possibilities. Maybe think that there is something else going on with them.