Written by introvertedink
(Possible trigger warning: Weight and self harm is discussed, however, this is written about recovery, and DOES NOT support any pro-ED behaviors.)
My struggles with eating started from a young age. As a baby, my parents first noticed something was off when I was afraid of being held. Instead of finding comfort in the act of parental affection, I would scream and cry. After awhile, I started to refuse to make eye contact, and couldn't stand the feeling of clothing, to the point where when forced to wear it, I would claw at my covered skin until I bled. What scared my parents and doctors most, however, was my refusal to eat. I couldn't stand the texture of most foods, and as a result, I began rapidly losing weight. When I was around 18 months old, I was diagnosed with autism. My parents started taking me to intensive occupational therapy, speech therapy and sensory integration therapy. I was doing 25 hours of therapy per week, plus additional hours of parent-mediated therapy at home. Although I was progressing, I was still dropping weight at a rapid pace. It got to the point were the doctors were pushing the idea of a gastrostomy feeding tube or "G-tube", which is a special tube that is inserted surgically through the abdomen and delivers nutrition directly to the stomach, however my parents decided against it, and just increased therapy. After following my strict therapeutic regimen, it seemed as if a miracle had occurred. By the age of three, I had made a complete turn around. I no longer fit the criteria for an autistic disorder and my diagnosis was lifted.
Now, you may be wondering how autism has anything to do with my struggle with anorexia, but the answer may surprise you. Many doctors are currently studying the similarities between the two and are finding a lot of valuable information that may indicate a genetic link between the disorders. They have found that a lot of people diagnosed with autism, have a predisposition to develop anorexic tendencies, and vice versa. That, combined with the fact that ED's run on both sides of my family, gave me a strong likely hood of developing one.
Now for the next few years, I seemed to be doing fine. I was still small, but my weight was within a normal range. It wasn't until I turned eleven and started gaining weight as I geared up for puberty, that I started to display any strange behaviors around food. Now my intentions were innocent enough in the beginning, I wasn't happy with the weight I was, so I decided I would start eating more healthfully. It seemed fairly normal, and my parents assumed I would just cut down on junk food, and at first, thats exactly what I did. I lost a little weight, and felt fairly pleased with myself, so I just kept it up. That was until the age of twelve, when I started eighth grade. It was my first year in public school, so naturally I was nervous, but I didn't need to be. By the first day of school, I had already made friends and fallen into a group. Everything at school was good; my grades, my friends, my popularity. I was truly happy, but that happiness didn't last. It was lunch time and, like always, my lunch table was alive with laughter, chatter, and gossip. Somewhere along the line, the topic got changed to weight, and how to tell if you were skinny. While everyone was debating different factors, someone threw out that their cousin had told them exactly how you could tell. She told us that if a girl raised her hand and her armpit looked hollow, they were skinny, but if their armpit puffed out, they were fat. Of course everybody then wanted to try it, and many of the girls were overjoyed when they "passed the test.", but eventually the topic changed again, and everybody forgot about it. That is, everybody but me. That night when I got home, I went straight to my room and locked the door. I stripped down to my underwear, and stood in front of my full length mirror. My heart was pounding so hard I was sure it would jump out of my chest. I slowly raised my arm and looked at looked at my reflection, and all of a sudden I felt my heart stop. I didn't pass, I wasn't skinny. My armpit wasn't hollow, and although it didn't protrude, that gave me little comfort. I stood there, staring at my almost naked reflection, the same reflection I had felt confident in that morning, and started to notice things I had never seen before. Everything that was wrong with me. Like how my stomach wasn't perfectly flat, and the way my hips noticeably curved out from my sides. I noticed how large my thighs were, and the way my biceps seemed to squish against my sides when I pressed them down. I was horrified with myself. I felt the tears start to flow freely from my eyes, smearing my mascara down my face, making me even uglier through my now critical gaze. It was in that moment that I made myself a promise. I promised that I would get skinny. I would do whatever it took, for as long as it took, and I would be perfect.
The next morning, I went straight to the bathroom and grabbed my parents scale. I stepped on it and waited for the red digits to stop flashing and reveal my weight. I weighed 125.5lbs. I decided that my goal would be to lose 5lbs, that sounded reasonable enough. It would bring my weight down to 120lbs, and surely that would show, right? So I started my diet that day. I began cutting out foods that I deemed unhealthy. First, I cut out soda. Then snack foods like chips and sweets. I ate smaller portions of everything, and most of what I put on my plate were fruits and vegetables. I started working out, gradually building up the number of days, and the amount of time I spent doing it. I weighed myself every day, and by the end of two weeks, I was pleased to see the scale match my goal. But when I looked at myself in the mirror, I was shocked, I looked exactly the same! I felt frustrated that nothing had changed, and decided that I would set a new goal, to reach 115lbs. So I kept up my routine, eating only "healthy" foods, and increasing my exercise to an hour every day. I started skipping lunch at school. I would pack myself a lunch so that my parents thought I was eating, and throw it away right after I got dropped off. All of my friends said that they wished they could be as strict with food as I was, but that they got too hungry, and would end up breaking by the end of the day. They said I was lucky that I didn't get hungry, and I just smiled and agreed, but the fact was, I did get hungry. In fact, I got ravenous, and one night I finally broke and ended up eating a king sized chocolate bar. I felt so angry and disappointed in myself. I immediately got on the computer and googled ways to make yourself feel fuller for longer. I came across the common suggestions, drinking more water, eating more fiber, adding more protein, etc., but then I clicked a link that took me to a different kind of website. The website page was covered in images of gaunt, slight looking models, and had a list of "Tips & Tricks" that promised to keep you fuller longer and make it so that you wouldn't get cravings. The site had a list of over a hundred ways to accomplish that, and I read all of them thoroughly, trying to absorb as much of the new information as I could. When I had finished reading, I noticed links and navigation buttons to different "thinspiration" galleries. I had never heard of that, so my curiosity got the better of me. I clicked on the gallery and watched as hundreds of images quickly filled the page. The images showed a variety of girls, some who were thinner, but still fairly average, all the way to girls who looked skeletal, and every size in-between. I stared at the pictures with a mixture of envy and horror. I thought some of the girls were perfect, exactly how I wanted to be, while others scared me a little bit. I promised myself I would never lose that much weight, I would only lose enough to make me thin. By the end of eighth grade, I weighed just under 110lbs, and although I had lost more than the amount I had wanted, I wasn't satisfied.
I turned thirteen over the summer, and started my freshman year of high school at the beginning of September. Since my sister was a junior there, I automatically had people to sit with during lunch. I got pretty close to a lot of them, and hung out with them frequently. Over the next summer, I turned fourteen. I got close to one particular person, a boy who was a lot older than me, and through a series of bad decisions, I ended up in a position that he took advantage of. That's not to say that it was my fault, because it wasn't. The decisions I made were the same kind of dumb decisions most kids end up making at some point, mine just happened to put me in the position were I got hurt. After the assault, he continued to harass and intimidate me, and I was too terrified to tell anybody. He tried to control my life. He wouldn't let me hangout with certain people anymore, or attend any school dances or events. He told me I wasn't allowed to date, and that if I did, someone would get hurt. I lived in fear. I became extremely depressed and felt miserable and hopeless all the time. I started self harming, and eventually trying to take my own life. I ended up getting hospitalized at a behavioral health clinic, and didn't get discharged for a month. After I got out, I still felt powerless, but I realized there was still one thing in my life that I could still control, one thing that he couldn't take, and that was my power over food. I started frequenting pro-ana sites, searching for ways to help me lose more, looking for inspiration. It was a place that I felt safe in, a place where people would support my choices, and where I could support theirs. Nobody could take that from me. I kept losing weight. I wound up transferring schools, and starting over at a high school where nobody knew my story. During this time, I started hanging out with a bad crowd. I tried to make myself forget by partying, drinking, and doing whatever drugs I could get my hands on. Over time, the contact between me and my attacker slowly got less frequent, until it completely disappeared.
By the time I was fifteen, and I weighed 95lbs, and had been hospitalized two more times. My parents were worried, they took me to see countless psychiatrists and psychologists, but no amount of medication or therapy seemed to help. Eventually, I hit my lowest point. I weighed a little under 90lbs, and my weight was still dropping. I was no longer able to leave the house safely. I had to drop out of school. I would pass out daily, and eventually wasn't able to even walk from room to room without help. I barely ate anything anymore, and if I did, I would purge immediately after. I even started refusing fluids, terrified that they would make me look bloated and fat. I was taken to the emergency room with severe dehydration on multiple occasions, and although it was clear that I needed help, my families lack of insurance made it impossible to get any program to accept me. The most the doctors could offer was that my parents buy a blood pressure cuff and try to monitor me at home, and that if I didn't start eating soon, I would die. I was bedridden, and my heart rate was down in the 50-40's, my blood pressure registering as low as 60/40. My parents had to wake up every few hours to make sure I was still breathing, because at this point, they thought I would die from cardiac arrest in my sleep. I started losing my hair, and the hair I did have was thin and brittle. My nails were purple, pitted, and peeling. I suffered from hypothermia, and as a result grew lanugo all over as my body desperately tried to keep me warm. My teeth were eroding from purging, and my gums bled constantly. There were periods of time where I would go for days without eating or drinking anything. I would cry because the hunger pains were so intense, but I still couldn't bear to eat. I was constantly aching and in pain. I wanted to die, and I would beg my parents to just let me. My parents were stuck, they didn't know what to do, and it terrified them. They ended up starting a page on YouCaring.com, so that they could raise money to get me the treatment I so desperately needed. With the help of family, friends and strangers, they were able to raise $10,035 in a matter of weeks, and that, along with a more than generous donation from someone very close to my mother, allowed us to secure a spot at a hospital in California with some of the highest ED recovery rates in the country. We boarded a plane the next day, and by the following evening, I was admitted into the program. I received intensive treatment in that facility for around three months, and by the time I was discharged, I was within a normal weight range and able to eat again.
It's been almost three years since then, and although I have experienced relapses, and multiple hospitalization since then, I have ultimately been able to maintain a healthy weight. Last year I finally found the courage to tell my family about what happened to me, and I'm on the road to healing. I've had some hard times, some have gone as far as to say a hard life, but regardless of that, I will never be able to express enough how grateful I am to be here. I can honestly say that I'm the happiest I've been in years. There are so many people that have helped me get to where I am today, some who are close to me, who I will never be able to thank enough, and some that I have never met, and will never be able to thank at all. I want people who are struggling with their own demons to know that there is hope, that it does get better. I know how hopeless it can feel, because I've been there myself. There are probably many who feel like it will never happen for them, and I was one of those people, but in the end, your fight will be worth it. In the words of Og Mandino, "If I persist long enough I will win." Recovery is possible, never give up!
If you or someone you know is struggling with an eating disorder, and you need help and resources, I urge you to visit http://www.nationaleatingdisorders.org/find-help-support , they have an extensive list of resources available, as well as an email where you can send questions and a hotline you can call for support. If you are already receiving help, and you just need to talk to someone who understands, please don't hesitate to send me a message.
Incase anybody needs a reminder today, I'll leave you with this quote:
"There is something you must always remember. You are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think."
