I’ve recently reached a point in my life where I feel really healthy and happy with where I am. With all of the progress that I’ve made, I wanted to share a bit about my journey. I felt alone and insecure and sometimes even selfish about those insecurities throughout my youth. Anyway, I think reading that someone had gone through the same things would have helped me, so I hope this helps someone else. And maybe I’ll gain some closure.
My insecurities first took hold around the age of 10. My half sister died when I was 9, after she struggled with eating disorders for 16 of the 29 years she was alive. After the initial shock and devastation, I found myself thinking, “She was the most beautiful person I’ve ever known. If she had to do that to be good enough, how much more will I have to do?” Just a little over a year later, I can distinctly remember looking up at the mirror in my 6th grade hallway and thinking that I was uglier than all of my friends. I remember thinking that of course boys would be much more interested in them than me.
I started cutting during 7th grade. I didn’t want to kill myself - my family had already been through enough pain - so the cuts were shallow. I thought of it as punishing myself for all the things I did wrong and all the ways I didn’t measure up. I kept it hidden for a while with make-up and long sleeved shirts - even wearing long sleeved t shirt to a cross country practice in August at one point - but eventually, I wanted someone to stop me. I started confiding in friends, and most of them would help me to fight the urge. Eventually, one friend asked me if I was doing it for attention. I stopped confiding for a while after that.
At one point, I had emailed a friend that I was feeling the need to start cutting again, but I didn’t want to feel that urge anymore. Her mother periodically went through her emails and saw what I said. She told my parents, and we decided that I should go to counseling. My therapist told me she was moving after about a month. I decided to cease counseling at that point - I didn’t want to confide in someone else who could leave. I was in 8th grade at the time and continued to cute on and off for months at a time until my junior year of high school. The last time that I cut, I started sobbing and threw my razor down. I asked my mother to throw out my razors. I’m still not in the habit of shaving regularly, even over 5 years later, but I didn’t trust myself. Although I haven’t cut since, I scratched my wrists raw 2 times in college. It made me feel so vulnerable, and I wondered if I’d ever get better.
During high school, it seemed like I was always making a trade off between cutting and restricting my diet. Whenever I wasn’t cutting, I would only eat very low calorie snacks, pretend to not be hungry to skip meals, drink 5 cups of coffee to fill my stomach, etc. It was worst my junior year after I quit cutting. I lost 15 pounds very quickly - 7 Ibs in one week. I passed it off as working out and eating healthy, but in reality I was skipping meals in the hopes that it would shrink my stomach. I lied to my parents about being full a lot. They knew the signs after my sister, so they always made sure I ate something, though. I knew what eating disorders had cost my sister, so I convinced myself that’s not what I was going through. I told myself that anorexic girls ate 200 calories a day, not 800. I was averaging 5 miles a day at that point and told myself that I was just trying to be healthy for track. People told me how fit and thin I looked. I reveled in it.
Half way through senior year, I finally addressed a lot of the concerns I saw with myself. I talked to many of my friends and family about what I was going through. I stopped pursuing anything romantic because I knew I was just using it as affirmation. I put back on my weight. I felt safe and happy and loved. I continued to have bad days, but instead of punishing myself for lack of perfection, I began to realize that recovery is a constant and continual process. I also became much stronger in my faith at this time in my life. I finally began to see myself as someone that God could love, and it was really inspiring for my health and happiness.
Although I reached a point of being able to handle some of my insecurities and doubts, for the most part, I can now see that I still wasn’t treating myself and my body the way that I should be. Looking back though, I wouldn’t change this time of my life because I know that it was a necessary part of my journey. In order to overcome my control problems with food and my weight, I tried not too think too much on what I ate in general. I tried to make sure I was eating a least a little from all food groups, but I had just started college, and my eating habits were far from healthy. This resulted in me thinking that my natural healthy weight was about 10-15 Ibs higher than reality. I was eating more and exercising less. Let me reiterate that I really feel like this time period was essential to learning how to give up control, but it still was not healthy, and I am glad that is not where my journey ended.
This past August, at the beginning of my senior year of college, several of my housemates made comments that we should start trying to eat the way we actually want to because it will only get harder the longer we put it off. For me this meant eating less fast food, more fresh food, and more vegetables. Other than fast food, I tried not to think of it as limiting myself. However, as I went on, I started to really think about how much I enjoyed food. Previously, I would eat any sweet treat my friends made, even if it was something I wasn’t a huge fan of, such as sugar cookies and white cake. I no longer thought about counting my calories but making my calories count. If I wanted to eat a dessert, I would rather it be something I really enjoy. . . which is normally chocolate.
I took health exercise classes for 6 semesters in college to stay in shape, but decided to try working out on my own for my last semester. While motivating myself at the beginning was really difficult and a little discouraging at first, I started to feel strong and competent and self-sufficient as I kept going. I also had a group of friends who were starting to go to the gym more, and having that encouragement and comradery was enormously helpful. I started to notice that my clothes were fitting looser and that my muscles were more defined that I had more energy. I had no intention of working out to lose weight or look thinner. My goal was to feel strong and healthy. I realized that I had starved and punished my body for years, when eating properly and exercising 3-4x a week, while giving me a slightly different body, gave me a body that I now adore. The love I feel for myself and my body now is something that I have never experienced before.
I know that my journey is not going to be exactly like anyone else’s. We all have different struggles and different obstacles we must overcome. I hope that maybe this will be able to help someone. I know that putting it out in the world has certainly helped me.
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