This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at Gettysburg chapter.
**Trigger warning: Eating disorders (withholding, purging)
Like many disasters, it began with an ultimatum: if you can drop back to a zero, I told myself, you can eat again. I had finished sophomore year of high school and didn’t fancy the way my belly looked in a bikini, how it jutted out just a little farther from flat. When I stood sideways before the bathroom mirror the anxiety started at the tip of my brain, a restless tingling that rapidly spread through my body to a tremor when I measured my own proportions and quickly replaced all logic; I won’t eat any more today, I would say, even though it was only noon and my stomach was echoing with hunger.
Anorexia had finally caught up that summer, though it had been trailing me ever since I noticed that my kindergarten best friend’s hip bones peeked through her shorts while mine remained hidden. When I learned that “fat” was an insult used by the insecure on the playground, I became more interested in the nutrition label on the back of my popsicles and pretzel bags. I never withheld; athletically built with a quick metabolism, I figured that an eating disorder was, quite simply, not for me. But those creeping doubts followed me through my middle school years to my first high school volleyball game and finally to the mirror in my bathroom at the end of my sophomore year.
I made my ultimatum that summer, and within a month, I was addicted to the creeping, empty pain that paralyzed me at the end of a day of fasting. I hated the suffering, and I hated most of all that I had forced it upon myself, but still I craved it and pushed myself further. I began to exercise excessively, an hour of cardio every day and intensive core workouts; I didn’t drink water or give myself any rest, and when I walked out of the gym my arms were hardly strong enough to push open the doors to the parking lot.
It went on, and by my senior year I had developed a purging disorder on top of withholding food. I bled from my nose instead of my uterus; my hair fell out in chunks, and yet I exercised more and ate less.
When I finally buckled and sought help just a few weeks before graduation, the idea of recovery seemed to me outlying. I questioned whether I could physically withstand eating even a single meal in a day–let alone three–or quitting my excessive workout patterns, so I remained skeptical. In time, my diet slowly grew closer to normal, and I was able to take a rest day from the gym once a week, but I was not in the clear. When I got to college where eating was a social occasion and necessary to survive long nights in the library, I couldn’t hide and therefore took to the cardio machines in the gym again and panicked when I had to miss a day.
I was a freshman in college and still purging, still exercising relentlessly, afraid to eat anything more than egg whites at Sunday brunch. I refused midnight trips to the pizza house across the street and study groups at the coffee shop on the edge of campus, choosing instead to hunker down on the quiet floor of the library alone, fearing that my stomach’s incessant growling might prove a disturbance. It was a familiar sensation, feeling confident in how I looked but lonely in all other aspects of my life.
I had practiced yoga in my free time when I was younger, much to the satisfaction of my mother, the health nut, but I didn’t regard it as more than a casual hobby–certainly not my preferred form of exercise. When I worked out, I did so to cleanse; only intense cardio would suffice. Nonetheless, spirits in the student body were rising as spring weather drifted onto campus, and my best friend and I decided to attend a free yoga class at the athletic center. For kicks, I suppose.
It was funny, I remember, walking out of the studio and feeling exhausted, more so than after an hour of biking and stair stepping. I turned to my friend. “Want to come back on Thursday? I want to get deeper into triangle pose.”
I noticed no change then, but the desire to return to the practice to improve rather than compensate for the day’s carbs would alter me significantly. When I attended class, I felt deserving of what I would eat after; I felt okay that I had spent an hour focusing on steadying my breath rather than raising my heart rate
My first year of college ended, and while I wasn’t entirely comfortable in a crop top, I could observe that my workout habits had been allayed and some of my soreness mitigated. The yoga continued when I returned home, and I found myself making fewer trips to the gym. I would unroll my green mat in the basement after disposing of my brother’s various candy wrappers and immerse myself in inhales and exhales, in vinyasas and sanskrit. Each new practice and asana presented a new perspective, a new way to appreciate myself and respect my body when I tried to sneak past its boundaries.
The improvement in my diet was visible, as was the healthy weight I gained. With each chaturanga, I grew to like my arms a little bit more. My heart opened when I rolled into an upward-facing dog, my lips were more inclined to form a smile. I began each practice with relief, not the dread that used to fill my gut when I pushed through the athletic center doors because I knew that in that hour, in all the moments of sun salutations and side angle variations that comprised my workout, all was settled; all was well. Yoga became my mindset. If I missed a day of practicing I didn’t curse or starve myself, but I saw it as an opportunity; a justified rest.
To overcome an eating disorder is to overcome addiction, a restless temptation to hate and abuse that increases with every pound dropped. Your life falls victim, your very existence waits behind a decision to remain breathing another day. It is silent suicide. You can’t sip down a pill and be cured in an hour, for it follows you, stalking, waiting until the body on the magazine cover sends you reeling for the bathroom with your finger already halfway down your throat. Relapse treads heavily, and stigma holds you to a silver chain.
It must be said, then, that I am not the perfect image of recovery. I do not always want to eat though I know I must. My anxiety and depression are often heightened when I look too long in the mirror, for the reflection is not always kind. I push myself harder than I should, and I envy other bodies. My eating disorder left me with a severe case of body dysmorphia that has proven parasitic.
But one gradual passion, one idea of calm and breath, can set in motion a desire to thrive, only a trickle in the beginning, but one that grows to a current and sweeps past all stones and branches blocking the river’s entrance. It’s been months since I’ve purged, and with each week that passes, I withhold less. I thank myself after every yoga practice for this, and in the midst of my asanas, I am finally able to surrender to an overwhelming peace. It grounds me, if only for an hour, gives me the energy to appreciate myself regardless of calorie totals and gives me a necessary assurance. I sleep comfortably at night knowing that my hip bones no longer jut out. I breathe power into myself with a whispered namaste, and all judgments fall aside.
I am strong, and I am well.
