Hofstra was the first place where I was able to openly talk about a phase in my life that I didn’t initially accept to be part of my past. An assignment was given out in my oral communications class my sophomore year at Hofstra, which called for a 2-3 minute presentation on our marker moment; a moment so significant that it made you realize something about yourself or your life and changed your perception. The one thing I could think about was my eating disorder in high school, or at least the moment I realized this was a problem of mine. It was a class of no more than 12 students and the professor made sure that we were aware that the classroom was a place for us to openly share a story without the fear of being judged. This assignment actually had triggered my curiosity to attempt to figure out why I even went through what I did. While coming up with how to present my story, I partially answered a lot of my own questions about myself: why did I go through this? Did others contribute to any part of this? How did I view myself the entire time?
I believe it was a combination of the group of friends I had initially made in one of my classes freshman year of high school, my dad’s concern of me not watching my weight, and most importantly my perception of what I considered beauty at the time that led to me having this eating disorder. At the time, my idea of what makes a girl beautiful includes having a thin waist, thin thighs, toned calves that do not jiggle, small arms and a tiny face with no baby fat cheeks. This description just didn’t fit me at the time. I also viewed one of my friends as having each of these qualifications completed in my own mental checklist of what defines a girl as being beautiful, which ultimately led to me comparing my own body to hers. Hers being the archetype that I created in my own head, and mine being nowhere close to that ideal, perfect body. Comparatively, I suddenly categorized myself as being ugly.
I vividly remember this friend telling me that she would induce vomiting after almost every meal to specifically avoid gaining weight from whatever she had just ingested. My reaction to finally knowing the method she used to maintain her weight? It went something like this: “Ohhhhh, so that’s how it’s done!” I won’t lie, I considered doing this, but then I realized that I couldn’t bring myself to do such a thing; to go to the bathroom routinely after each meal to regurgitate what I just ate not even 20 minutes ago. I was too afraid of the idea of forcing myself to do that after every meal, it sounded too uncomfortable for me. I had also thought that it was such a waste of food. At the time, in my head what seemed to make the most sense was to just simply limit what I ate. The 3-4 meals a day was cut down to 1 meal with my family, which was dinner after school. I was already skipping breakfast almost every morning, which worried my mom the most. But I always assured her that I would buy something from the vending machine, maybe a bag of chocolate chip cookies or a Fiber One bar. She never approved, but I was too determined and stubborn to achieve what I believed was the perfect body. Most days, my mom packed me lunch, but I would keep that bag in my locker until the end of the day when I would break the sandwich into pieces for the birds in my backyard when nobody was home to see I didn’t eat my lunch for the day.
This new routine of mine continued for almost 3 years. The effects of it started showing up in my physical examinations at the pediatrician’s. Ketones were present in my urine, which simply indicated that my body started using my fat reserves to break down as a source of energy instead of using glucose. It still hadn’t registered in my head that I should probably stop the habit I had started. My clothes were looser everywhere, my jeans had to be constantly tugged at to keep them up so I had bought a couple of belts. I remember I felt a slight bit of pride. I felt I was closer to my goal when my clothes weren’t as tightly fitted on my legs and waist because to me at the time, it just meant that this system of mine was working. I was losing weight, which meant I was becoming skinnier and prettier. My menstruation cycles were eventually affected too. My cramps became more severe and painful. I started getting migraines at the start of each cycle, which I couldn’t stand to bear unless I took some over-the-counter pain medications with food so I could fall asleep easier. But when those migraines happened, I couldn’t take care of myself alone. An aunt of mine had to come by the house a few times to find me laying in bed in too much pain to get up and feed myself before taking the pain killers to help with migraine. Even after all of these medical signs, it still didn’t occur to my teenage mind that I was literally ruining my body and not perfecting it in a healthy way to the ideal that I had created as my goal. At this point, this goal became an obsession of becoming “beautiful” where I crossed the line, letting myself go past the point of sanity and rationality.
One morning, I had happened to catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror when I was getting dressed for school. It must have been the way the light was hitting me in the room or something that had made me want to take a closer look. Whatever it was, I was able to see my ribs. No not where you usually see them on your torso if you suck in enough air, but on my chest. I was able to see some outline of my ribs on my chest. Of all things, this had shocked me the most because I looked at myself and realized I became one of those people who became so involved in losing weight that they become nothing but skin and bones. In that moment, what I had done to myself for 3 years had suddenly become real to me. The entire process of me ruining a healthy, growing body was unreal to me until that realization that I became what I never wanted to become. This was my marker moment, realizing that I still had the chance to save myself from further self-destruction and that I was doing this to myself. All the negative aspects of the steps I had taken became real and were suddenly laid out in front of me in a different perception where I was ready to confront them.
It was initially difficult to put on the weight I had lost when I started eating the 3-4 meals a day, but it became easier after a few months. It became even easier when I decided to join the spring track team with a couple of new friends I had made during junior year. I had joined spring track because I mainly wanted to get out of my comfort zone, considering this whole not eating system I had developed was pointing to some insecurity I had about myself. But joining track also showed me the healthier way to maintain your weight and body in a way that wouldn’t be destroying you in the process, using the right supporters along the way.
I know a lot of people go through this situation where they don’t have self-acceptance because they lacked the idea of self-love and based their standards of beauty on what was the most trending, viewed or liked picture on social media platforms. Obviously we’re in a time where we’re constantly connected and can easily access images of what society believes to be the most attractive attribute, it becomes almost impossible to stop oneself from comparing him or herself and then try to match up. It’s human nature to conform to what surrounds us, and sometimes we are capable of taking that conformity to the extreme using it as a challenge because we think that if we don’t achieve this, we have failed in some way at something. In this case, that “something” is being what we define as the new ideal.
I’m still not 100% sure as to what really and truly played a role into contributing what led me to doing this to my mind and body during a time in my life where I was growing. If we don’t understand something, it’s important to question it and openly discuss it. Sometimes the question is more important than finding an answer at first, but the question is a starting point to finding out. Openly questioning it and allowing yourself to understand that outside attention is necessary.
It’s important to find someone to trust and talk to about this type of stuff because when the time comes where this eating disorder is no longer part of your daily life, it is still a part of you. It almost stains you in a sense because whenever you hear someone mention or joke about it, it will affect you a little bit. You will step back and think to yourself, “But this is what I went through. I dealt with this. How could you laugh at this?” Some people won’t understand, but the ones that do will help tremendously.