I’ve been stalling on making this public for quite some time now, mainly out of fear, self-doubt, and uncertainty. I spent months writing, and rewriting, and then rewriting again, because I couldn’t figure out how to approach this so I decided to just dive into it. Very recently, I sought out help for someone who specialized in eating disorders, specifically the restrictive kind. I always kind of knew that I had a botched relationship with food, but I never acknowledged it enough to admit that it was a problem. Friends expressed concern about my “warped” opinions of my body, but I believed they could see it too and were simply being nice.  Usually, we get this sense that “I have this under control”, but often times we do not. I was so nervous when I met the new therapist, being told that you hate yourself by a complete stranger was a whole different set of feelings. Being told that I’m battling against Anorexia Nervosa and Body Dysmorphic disorder was an unintentional solidifying experience though. Hearing those words just made everything more real than it had ever felt. I’m not going to sit here and go into detail about all the things I did, or even still do, that fed the problem. I’m aware that there are people who look online to find others who talk about their experiences with Anorexia, but solely to discover new tricks to restrict “better”. This isn’t going to be that for anyone.

          I remember being nine years old and classmates thinking it was weird that I had boobs. I didn’t notice. I remember in sixth grade when all my other classmates were starting to develop chests, I was a curvy and busty size four in teen clothing, while all my friends were stick skinny and shopping in the kids’ section like 11 year old’s do. I noticed that time. To anyone walking past I looked like an average 16 year old, but in class, I was the 11 year old fat friend who couldn’t share clothes with her best friend because she was too big. I had a cloud of insecurity around my mind concerning my outward physical appearance. That’s when I decided that I was going to be skinny no matter what it took, I couldn’t look that way, I didn’t want to look that way. I started restricting myself and suddenly I was no longer a size four in teen’s clothing, but a size two. I was hooked I just didn’t know it yet.

          It wasn’t long before I started self-harming later that same school year. I lost my best friend of three years at the time due to an asthma attack making it my first experience of losing a loved one, I had no idea how to handle it. A week after it happened I started crying at a family event and my mom got frustrated with me and told me that I needed to get over it. I didn’t know that I wasn’t supposed to bring it up anymore so I kept it to myself, I was eleven, I didn’t understand how death worked. There had been a girl in my grade who used to scratch her arms up and then show the class and laugh about it. I asked her why she did that to herself and she told me it made her feel better when things at home got loud and bad. I decided to try it, I wanted to feel better, to feel literally anything other than what I did feel. It started with a little nick, a scratch here and there, to going to the bathroom in seventh grade to cut because I got the urge to. By eighth grade I was carving words I felt I deserved to see into my thighs. It got more intense as time went on and suddenly, I had a favorite “tool” to use when I did it. This heavily tied into my restrictive eating behavior as I would use it as a form of punishment whenever I felt I had eaten too much.

          By the time I was in high school I was living around my problems and letting them get worse. Not eating when or what I wanted was exhausting and I was so hungry all the fucking time. So I decided that I was going to eat everything I wanted and instead I would just purge it out after. That led me down another rabbit hole of unhealthy and unsafe methods to keep unwanted weight off. Eating wasn’t an enjoyable thing anymore, it was now this stressful day to day mental battle and honestly, I felt like shit. Meals weren’t just meals anymore; they were calorie packed poison on a plate. My chicken breast and rice were approximately 300 calories and 250 calories more than I wanted to eat. That slice of pizza was packed with high sodium sauce and cheese and that dough was going to make it harder to bring back up later. I stopped playing Volleyball because I was running out of room on my thighs and my cuts were now becoming visible in my uniform shorts. I started wearing baggier and baggier clothing to avoid the risk of someone seeing something they shouldn’t. I hated showing my body so much I stopped wearing things I liked and started wearing things I felt safe in, like heavy and dark clothing. I’ve never bought a bathing suit before and still have not to this day. I wonder if I’ll ever have the confidence to try one on and purchase it. I avoid it because I know I won’t like what I see so each summer I walk past the swimsuits in the store.

          Junior year I was tired of the food, the hunger pains, the burn in my throat from puking so much, and the bloody knuckles from my teeth after shoving my fingers down my esophagus. Despite my efforts, I was still getting picked on by my family who always told me if I looked fat or if my stomach rolled when I sat, or pointing out how big my thighs were. It didn’t matter how little I ate or how much I puked up because I was still fat, so I started eating lunch at school a few times a week. I felt amazing, my stomach felt full and warm rather than cold and grossly empty. Soon I was eating regularly, but I was still extremely depressed and insecure, I was so uncomfortable in my own skin and I continued to hide it in every way possible. Although I was eating, I now had this overwhelming anxiety whenever I brought food to my mouth, making eating even more agonizing. I was balls deep and I still thought I was fine, I still felt like I had control.

          At this time, my dad got a new job and we ended up moving to the other end of the country, which excited me, I wanted that change of scenery. I fell off and on again through my last year of high school, going through periods of time of heavy restricting and purging and then eating without a care in the world. I tried to ignore the panicked thoughts I would have from time to time about my weight and carried on, I was an adult now and I could shake my teenage troubles and phases. I tried to cut back on the self-harm, but I still found myself needing to do it or using it to cope, I was still hiding.

          In the course of the next year I endured an encounter that left me feeling violated, scared, and dirty. Like everything else, I just pushed it away. I was miserable with my home life and dealing with some shitty stuff internally, I didn’t feel safe telling anyone how badly I just wanted to stop breathing. There wasn’t a point, I wasn’t happy with my major, living in such a strict and religious household was doing me more harm than I could say. I felt hideous, fat, and the kid I was dating had a cheating problem. I couldn’t see anything past my life in that moment. I started smoking pot for more than just fun and I was smoking all day and all night every damn day. I started getting drunk with anyone who had the booze and would often just drink alone in my room at night. Like most parents do, they found out and ended up putting me in therapy after getting in loads of trouble. I was too far gone, I had no care in the world, at this point I had given up and wasn’t trying in anything anymore. It was meaningless, I was meaningless.  

          When I started therapy, they had to weigh me before each session as part of their office policies. When I stepped on the scale and saw I was 196 pounds, I went into full freak out mode, the day was a blur and all I could see were those three numbers in my mind. I had stopped looking at myself in mirrors and had no idea what I looked like fully naked because I hated thinking about it, in my avoidance I failed to acknowledge any weight gain. That same night, I had a meltdown that left me with 250 new cuts all over my thighs and a resolution to lose the weight as fast as possible. Over the course of two and a half months, I ate almost nothing, worked out daily, and anxiously waited for my weekly weigh in to see if I had made any progress. I was tired, I couldn’t sleep unless I was higher than I had been during the day, my stomach hurt and churned, I was dizzy, weak, and constantly shaking from feeling cold under all my sweaters. After 71 days, I had lost 69 pounds and weighed 127 pounds and I was ecstatic. My confidence was at an all-time high and I didn’t want to stop.

          I met my current partner shortly after, which was a blessing in disguise in the most non-cheesiest way. He taught me how to see the world differently and gave me hope and support. Something my life had lacked a great deal of up until that point. It wasn’t easy and fast, it was hard and brutal and I wanted to push him away in my worst moments, he didn’t let me. I had someone who believed in me and I didn’t want to disappoint. A year later I maintained a healthy weight of 145 pounds, I had a good workout routine, and I was eating normally. The aftermath has yet to leave me, everyday is a struggle, but I’m learning to live with it and hopefully kick it to the curb eventually. I still have anxiety every time I eat, regardless if anyone is around. I often ignore it, but there’s never an eating moment where my heart isn’t beating really hard and I feel like something bad is about to happen. I still look at myself and think I have a big wonky nose, a manly face, broad bulky shoulders, saggy boobs, and huge calves. I’m very self conscious about what I look like when I’m sitting and I never look at myself fully in a mirror. Something as simple as getting dressed can heavily impact my mood, and it’s never just putting on a shirt and pants. It’s deciding whether I look thin enough or if I’m bloated from something I ate the day before. It’s feeling gross in anything that shows my big thighs and only wearing skirts because then no one can tell anyway. I want to put clothes on one day and not think twice about it.

          Since quarantine, I gained weight from inactivity, beer, and junk food, but this time around I’m trying super hard to lose it in a healthy manner. I’m fully aware that I gained weight knowingly the past couple of months and I want to use the opportunity to feel good and rewarded by getting back in shape the right way. It hasn’t been easy and I can feel that I want to revert back to sickly and wicked methods so I took the initiative to seek the help and be fully invested. I want to be ok; I don’t want to worry about my weight and self esteem for the rest of my life, it’s excruciating and controlling. I never want to stay home from events again because I don’t want people to see how fat I look. I’m done with that book, I need a whole new one about the real me I’m slowly unlocking. I’m writing this blog in hopes to reach anyone who may be struggling with things they think no one else struggles with or could understand. We are real, we are here. Just because it’s not spoken doesn’t mean it’s not happening. I know how you feel, I get it, but it’s not forever, you have to hang on. Please feel free to contact me, I want to help in any way, even if it’s just a safe space to vent. Sometimes you just need to know that someone else knows and that they care.