Eating disorders are horrible, ugly creatures. They are the second deadliest mental illness, taking a life every 52 minutes, according to the National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders.
They affect every aspect of a person’s life, often ravaging it until they are only left with their illness.
I struggled with anorexia and orthorexia for three years, and it destroyed my life. I hated myself. I was mean, tired, and cold. I lost all of my friends, and I lost myself.
It is a hard phenomenon to put into words, but in my experience with mental illness, you find ways to convince yourself that you’re not sick. Diet culture and society make it easy to hide eating disorders. You even get praised for it, especially when you have orthorexia.
As any other average 14-year-old would do, I spent my Sundays meal prepping for the week. I would join my mom at the grocery store and fill the cart with fresh produce and “raw” ingredients. I would only eat something if I had prepared it myself from “clean,” organically sourced ingredients.
After our excursion to Verchio’s, our produce market, I would spend the rest of the day in the kitchen. It’s good to have a hobby. Lots of people wish that they had a hobby. Especially cooking, right? I was delusional. I was hungry.
I would shred half a dozen beets to make my designated snack food- a foul combination of beet, blueberry, and carrot muffins. I hate beets. When you cook with them, they stain your hands maroon.
I diced and roasted sweet potatoes, brussels sprouts, and kale. I boiled a vat of water to prepare a concerning amount of brown rice, which I would have for lunch and dinner mixed with my roasted vegetables.
My parents and friends praised me for my healthy lifestyle. “I wish I had your willpower.” “I could never eat like that.” This was the congratulatory handshake my maroon hands needed.
It made me feel good to coolly deny my mom asking if I wanted ice cream after a late-night run in 90-degree weather (which was a part of my self-mandated 3-hour exercise routine) and opt for rock-solid, frozen blueberries and watermelon instead. In return, I would receive an “Oh! You’re so good!” I was my parents’ golden child. So, I must have been doing something right.
While it doesn’t make sense in retrospect, I had a nagging internal dialogue that convinced me that eating “healthy” would make me great and perhaps that would make me worthy of love, admiration, or… I don’t really know what, exactly.
I needed help, but I was getting praised.
It sounds so normal written out, but that’s the thing with mental illness: You can’t see how deep it runs. To me, this felt like life or death. Obsession does not even begin to describe it. Sticking to this regimen consumed me entirely.
I felt an immense sense of pride for sticking to the insane rules I had made for myself but a constant sense of self-loathing. When I could not adhere to my goals, I inflicted a violent, overwhelming fit upon myself.
I was worthless, and my eating disorder gave me worth.
Eating disorders thrive in silence—and in encouragement—and no one deserves to struggle alone nor be convinced that these toxic habits normalized by diet culture are healthy.
This is not to say that everyone who partakes in diet culture has an eating disorder but rather to point out how society continues to contribute to the tragedies of eating disorders.
We all see it every day through little fatphobic “jokes” and unhealthy habits in our friends, families, and ourselves. We poison our thoughts and the thoughts of others with snide, or even complimentary, comments about food and our bodies.
Without even noticing, we glorify eating disorder habits and perpetuate the cycle, a deadly and life-ruining cycle. I still find myself falling into this trap, but the good thing is that it’s something we can change.
We can all do our part within ourselves and in our circles to change the rhetoric around eating disorders and disordered eating to slowly change the way norms save others from suffering.