Hospitals, residential facilities and passing out. That was my reality. Starving, going days without eating, just so I could appear “socially acceptable” and have control over something in my life. I thought I was controlling food, but then it started to control me.
Anorexia has been glorified all over social media for a long time. Being skinny is seen as beautiful, even when it is deadly. Just like every teenager, I was always on social media. Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, Twitter, you name it.
If it existed, I probably had an account. Beauty standards are harsh, as they have always been, but they affected me severely. I wanted to remain thin. I wanted to never have stretch marks, to never have a stomach and to never gain weight. This way of thinking was completely ridiculous and dangerous and it nearly killed me.
I suffered from an eating disorder for six months before I spoke up. It all started because I felt like I had no control over anything anymore. My mom’s boyfriend was a verbally abusive drunk and tended to appear violent towards her. I couldn’t help her. No matter how hard I tried to persuade her to leave, she insisted on staying and she is still with him.
He would scream in my face, and, one time, he touched me inappropriately. Sometimes he would walk in on me using the bathroom or open my bedroom door while I was changing without knocking. It was repetitive, gross and made me uncomfortable, but, of course, nothing ever happened to him because my mom proved her loyalty to him, not me, by staying with him.
I sort of spiraled after that. I would go days without eating just so I could feel a sense of control. My relationships faltered, as did my mental health. I grew resentful of everyone around me for not noticing how sick I had become. I isolated myself, and I would only have dinner if I decided to eat that day.
I blame a lot of it on my home life, but I know that the internet is to blame, too. I wish social media did not exist, or maybe I just wish I was not introduced to it so early. By the time I was 11 years old, I had every app you could think of. I wanted to feel included, but by the time I was nearly 15, things took a turn for the worse.
I wish someone had kept me safe from not only the online world, but also my home life. I wish my mom protected me as every mother vows to when their child is born. I wanted safety, but it was never a guarantee with a complete stranger living in the house.
I miss watching my parents cook together and smiling in the kitchen, but my mom traded that for a man who yelled at her and her children and insulted me for certain foods I ate. I was never going to look at food the same way again. I needed to control something. Just one thing in my life.
I was depressed. I couldn’t eat and I couldn’t sleep. I lost over 30 pounds and I was at my lowest. I was so incredibly sick and no one noticed.
I eventually begged for help and was hospitalized for one week. This was at the beginning of 2023. I then left for a residential facility called The Emily Program, which helped me immensely. I lived there for two months.
After that, I attended a partial hospitalization program, an intensive outpatient program and then outpatient, where I actually just graduated from eating disorder care in August. It took me over three years to finally be okay on my own. A lot of people aren’t that lucky. I still see a therapist every other week to maintain my health and stay on track during recovery, but I have gotten so much farther than I ever thought I would.
Now, I’m a sophomore in college, and I was a sophomore in high school when all of this started. I still have hard days, especially during the winter, which is approaching quickly. My winter depression is always the worst and it does not help my eating disorder at all.
I have my boyfriend by my side, who helps me so much. He eats every meal with me and I couldn’t ask for a better person to support me during these hard times. He knew what he was getting into when he first started dating me, and over a year later, he’s still here. People sticking around when it’s hard really shows you a lot about their character, and now I know he isn’t going anywhere, no matter how hard it gets.
I still have days where I feel like I’ve eaten too much or feel like I’m too bloated, but it’s just all in my head. The only person constantly thinking about those things is me. Not a random person I’m passing, not any of my friends or professors, just me. It’s still hard for me to eat by myself, but I try to from time to time. I get in my head during meals when I’m alone, and it makes it hard for me to eat at all.
That’s why I want to change something. I’ve decided that each week I am going to come up with a challenge that I have when it comes to eating. I want to be able to eat by myself. I want to be able to eat pancakes without feeling a horrible amount of guilt right after.
I want to have a sense of normalcy, and with time, I think I can become normal with food. I’d be crazy to say that I won’t have these struggles by next year, but I wouldn’t be crazy for saying that I am better and healthier. That’s really all that matters. To become comfortable with being uncomfortable.