In honor of NEDA week, I dug up this old picture from 2009.
I took this when I lived in Delaware, two years after I decided enough was enough and that I was going to start eating again.
I never thought I’d find myself with the label “Anorexic” sprawled across my being, but sure enough, there it was. For four solid years, this was the tangled web that became my reality, the worst of it unfolding in the months leading up to freedom. (Or as much of it that I can have after such a long ordeal. Consequences are real.) I don’t know the smallest I got, because I didn’t have a scale when I was away at school. But I do know that the smallest I ever got at home was 132lbs, (which, being as tall as I am looks grotesquely small.) and I lost a great deal more after that.
I was asked this weekend what it was that made me choose that road, and honestly it was hard to pinpoint.
My family was struggling with money and I had just started public school, which has tons of little expenses the private school I was used to didn’t. I felt bad always asking my parents for money, so I stopped eating lunch. It at least took away that weekly question.
Coming from the comforts of my private school bubble and being immersed in the stark difference of the public school world was nothing less of a culture shock. Everything was so sudden; every detail of the world I once knew was now questioned, and I was left to figure out the answers by myself.
I was a bit of a late bloomer. Leaving private school, I was still rather short and my baby fat was lingering. I never cared before, but suddenly I’m in this place where all the words that had been told to me over the years of, “you shouldn’t eat that.” “That will go straight to your hips.” “Do you wanna end up like so-in-so who weighs 300lbs?” came straight to the forefront of my mind and weighed on me like a mountain on my shoulders. As I stopped asking for lunch money and kept myself busy, the inches started falling away. People started making comments of how good I looked. It didn’t hurt that I was also finally getting taller and starting to even out.
But I still wouldn’t accept that I had a problem yet. Part of my Grandma’s cause of death was bulimia. I refused to be that, so I made myself eat once a day to try and avoid the official label.
Then a man close to our family was going through a divorce and saw beauty in me I didn’t know of. He started making advances and doing favors and trying to get me alone. I got a job, he started working there too. He complimented me on the one part of myself I really hated, telling me, “You have great legs.” in a way that made me feel violated. I wanted to be so skinny that he wouldn’t want me, so the fire burned. We were nearly 3 years deep and this point, and I just let it all fall away. I started obsessing, shooting excuses anywhere I went. Volunteered to help extra at a camp I helped at during the summer to avoid the cafeteria. I was a pro. A few people saw right through me, but they never said anything. I kept going on, withering away little by little.
I graduated and went away to college. Anorexia became the only thing familiar to me. I couldn’t let it go, it was like a dear old friend to me; sure to make me feel better when I was nervous and reassure me when I felt like I wasn’t up to par.
My family was struggling with money and I had just started public school, which has tons of little expenses the private school I was used to didn’t. I felt bad always asking my parents for money, so I stopped eating lunch. It at least took away that weekly question.
Coming from the comforts of my private school bubble and being immersed in the stark difference of the public school world was nothing less of a culture shock. Everything was so sudden; every detail of the world I once knew was now questioned, and I was left to figure out the answers by myself.
I was a bit of a late bloomer. Leaving private school, I was still rather short and my baby fat was lingering. I never cared before, but suddenly I’m in this place where all the words that had been told to me over the years of, “you shouldn’t eat that.” “That will go straight to your hips.” “Do you wanna end up like so-in-so who weighs 300lbs?” came straight to the forefront of my mind and weighed on me like a mountain on my shoulders. As I stopped asking for lunch money and kept myself busy, the inches started falling away. People started making comments of how good I looked. It didn’t hurt that I was also finally getting taller and starting to even out.
But I still wouldn’t accept that I had a problem yet. Part of my Grandma’s cause of death was bulimia. I refused to be that, so I made myself eat once a day to try and avoid the official label.
Then a man close to our family was going through a divorce and saw beauty in me I didn’t know of. He started making advances and doing favors and trying to get me alone. I got a job, he started working there too. He complimented me on the one part of myself I really hated, telling me, “You have great legs.” in a way that made me feel violated. I wanted to be so skinny that he wouldn’t want me, so the fire burned. We were nearly 3 years deep and this point, and I just let it all fall away. I started obsessing, shooting excuses anywhere I went. Volunteered to help extra at a camp I helped at during the summer to avoid the cafeteria. I was a pro. A few people saw right through me, but they never said anything. I kept going on, withering away little by little.
I graduated and went away to college. Anorexia became the only thing familiar to me. I couldn’t let it go, it was like a dear old friend to me; sure to make me feel better when I was nervous and reassure me when I felt like I wasn’t up to par.
Finally, someone stood up to me.
Here, I had a few people around me who noticed what I was doing to myself and loved me enough to not let me live that way. They didn’t do an intervention or anything, but they loved me through it. They took opportunities when they arose to tell me that this was dangerous and I needed to be careful. That this was no way to live.
Here, I had a few people around me who noticed what I was doing to myself and loved me enough to not let me live that way. They didn’t do an intervention or anything, but they loved me through it. They took opportunities when they arose to tell me that this was dangerous and I needed to be careful. That this was no way to live.
When I was about 13, a friend of mine committed suicide. It wrecked our still picture-perfect world. I was floored by it and couldn’t understand how someone could do this. I told my Dad I could never do that to them, in utter disbelief. As I got older, I started seeing how someone could do that. How life could be so difficult that ending it seemed to be the answer. But that subtle, unintentional promise to my Dad kept ringing in my ear. Each time I tried, I couldn’t go through with it. I would hear my own voice speaking to help lines of what I was planning on doing and even as the words spilled through my mouth, there was no way this could be me, right? I never went through with it. I couldn’t do that to my Dad.
Fast-forward back to college, and I’m having a conversation with my student adviser, who is a dear friend of mine, when she pointed out, “What you’re doing is a slow suicide.”
Fast-forward back to college, and I’m having a conversation with my student adviser, who is a dear friend of mine, when she pointed out, “What you’re doing is a slow suicide.”
My world was rocked. How dare I? How could I be so selfish as to carry on with this?
More than that, it made me realize my mortality. I’ve always known life is short and tomorrow is never guaranteed, but I had never considered this side of it. That I was slowly taking my own life. How much longer could I go on like this until I ended up in a hospital? Would it be too late? And if it wasn’t, everyone would know my secret, and I didn’t want to sit through their criticism, and the shame I would feel.
More than that, it made me realize my mortality. I’ve always known life is short and tomorrow is never guaranteed, but I had never considered this side of it. That I was slowly taking my own life. How much longer could I go on like this until I ended up in a hospital? Would it be too late? And if it wasn’t, everyone would know my secret, and I didn’t want to sit through their criticism, and the shame I would feel.
So I stopped eating, tried to throw up any time I had the chance. I wanted this wrenching feeling inside me to die. Nothing I could do would take it away.
Then one Wednesday evening, I asked my friend if I could talk to her after a service we were in. I said simply, “This is stupid. I’m gonna start eating.”
Then one Wednesday evening, I asked my friend if I could talk to her after a service we were in. I said simply, “This is stupid. I’m gonna start eating.”
She cried.
I had no idea why she was crying, it wasn’t a big deal. This was a simple thing, I mean, I almost didn’t tell her but I knew she’d probably want to know. That it was only fair to keep her in the loop since she’d been there through so much.
I had no idea why she was crying, it wasn’t a big deal. This was a simple thing, I mean, I almost didn’t tell her but I knew she’d probably want to know. That it was only fair to keep her in the loop since she’d been there through so much.
6 months later, I started getting really sick. The doctors couldn’t figure out what was wrong with me. I was so mad because now that I wanted to eat, I couldn’t. I didn’t want to fall back into that thing I loved so long ago. I didn’t trust myself.
That went on for another 7 years, varying in intensity and symptoms. Towards the end of it I even lost my gallbladder. Other organs hurting just the same, but I refuse to lose more than I’m capable of living a semi-normal life without.
How much longer would I have had? How many more months, weeks, days would I have been able to get away with it before something serious happened?
I don’t know.
I don’t know.
But I do know that looking back now, 7 years 2 weeks and 4 days later, I’m so grateful to have the chance at life. To be able to do the things I love. To see things most people overlook.
I shouldn’t be here. I shouldn’t be able to live life as normally as I do. More should be wrong with me than there is.
But there isn’t.
I’m alive.
And although I’ve faced death more times than I care to admit, death has not overcome me.
I’m alive.
And although I’ve faced death more times than I care to admit, death has not overcome me.
Freedom is so worth it.
Let today be the day you start again.
If you have breath in your lungs, it’s not too late.
Let today be the day you start again.
If you have breath in your lungs, it’s not too late.
Reach out. Get help. Let go.
You are so worth it.
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