I realized that I had a problem the summer after my sophomore year of college. “It’s like you’re flirting with an eating disorder,” my therapist would say, “it’s like anorexia came up on Tinder and you’re wondering whether you should swipe right or not.”
The truth was that I had been struggling with food for the greater part of my life. I used to intentionally leave my lunch at home so that I didn’t have anything to eat during school. In my therapist’s office, I flashed back to when I first had the freedom to stay home alone and would stuff my mouth with chocolate chips because I knew no one was looking. I had been flirting with an eating disorder since middle school, but it was during college that I made a commitment.
Being a girl in college is hard. It’s especially hard when you go to school in Miami where everyone is attractive and thin. It only took a few weeks into my freshman year for me to start feeling inadequate. A girl who once flourished in a high school setting suddenly became demure and unsure of herself. The main reason why my eating disorder became serious was because of the girls I was surrounded by on campus. These were the girls who could afford to go to daily pilates classes and eat every meal from Whole Foods. I felt a lack of control from my body, my studies and my life. The only thing I could control was my eating.
As I said, I wasn’t diagnosed with an eating disorder until two years after I entered college. It took me four whole semesters, a lot of honesty and plenty counseling before I took action to get help. It took me so long to do so not only because I didn’t necessarily want to get better, but because of the stigma associated with eating disorders.
The harsh reputation of girls with my condition is the reason why only my parents and my closest of friends know of my disorder. It’s the reason why I attempt to eat most of my meals alone. It’s the reason why this article is anonymous. No matter how much we fight it, it’s incredibly difficult to express the fact that you have an eating disorder without another girl thinking in the back of her head, “she’s just saying that for attention”.
How are we supposed to get help if we don’t feel comfortable expressing our needs? If someone sprained their ankle, you wouldn’t say, “she’s just doing that for attention.” Anorexia is so much more than harsh dieting, it is a mental illness, it’s a chemical imbalance in your brain. This condition isn’t a choice.
I’m not looking for attention every time my mom has to force me to eat before I leave the house. I’m not looking for attention when I faint in the middle of yoga class because I hadn’t eaten anything that day. The girls in hospitals hooked up to IV’s in order to get essential nutrients aren’t “looking for attention.” These are serious problems that require immediate and objective attention.
It’s time society started treating mental illnesses the same way it treats physical illnesses. The more nurtured young people feel in their environment, the more likely they are to seek the help they need. If men and women with eating disorders were able to treat their condition with the rapidity of recognition of a broken arm, they would be saved from an incredible amount of struggle.