If you do not know, this week is National Eating Disorder Awareness week. This could just be another week to some people, but I feel called and pulled to share my personal story that I have never told in explicit form. Yes, I have struggled with an eating disorder and no, it is not anorexia or bulimia. But it is still necessary to talk about because our culture normalizes, no, JUSTIFIES, the habits I have been practicing since I was 13 years old.
The definition of an eating disorder is defined by “any of a range of psychological disorders characterized by abnormal or disturbed eating habits (such as anorexia nervosa).”
I never thought that I had an eating disorder when I was growing up because I was never the extremely skinny girl, I never threw up my food or counted calories excessively. I figured that I was just on a mission to get “healthy” and that, by our culture’s standard, is what is good and praised. You can’t walk down the street without some advertisement encouraging weight loss, a juice cleanse, or muscle gain. Translate all of these messages and you soon believe you are not enough unless you are fit or healthy. I believed that lie for years.
Throughout high school I was heavily involved with theater and dance, which meant I was always in shape. But behind the scenes, I would stand in front of the mirror examining every part of my body that was going to be seen by the audience and ask, “Am I skinny enough? Maybe I should try a new diet to ensure that I stay fit.” I would go to birthday parties and binge eat on sweets and chips only to immediately think about how I was going to burn it all off the next day. My relationship with food was toxic. It controlled me and seeped into my entire being. As I grew older the relationship I had with my body image and food grew worse. It wasn’t until my sophomore year of college after I gained almost 20 pounds of the dreaded “freshman fifteen” that I finally admitted to myself I may have an eating disorder. But since I did not measure up to the standards of anorexia or bulimia, I thought I was fine. My first semester of sophomore year I became depressed, and would lock my self away in my dorm room while bawling simply because I had too many cookies in the café.
Since I was 13, I was always finding ways to tweak my diet in order to make it better. I would run more, I would dance, I would eat my greens, I would avoid the cake, I would eat half the cake in the middle of the night while my parents were asleep, I would wallow in self loathing, I would pray, I would repeat the cycle until I was fed up. I realized I had spiraled out of control when control was the only thing I wanted. I wanted to be desired, to be skinny, to be worthy by the world’s shallow standards. I wanted to be the girl that entered the room and immediately all eyes turned to look at her beauty. I wanted to be the girl that guys would seek no matter what. But with all these wants came unbearable expectations of myself that eventually drove me to depression my sophomore year. After that, I begin to seek professional help and began a journey over these past two years finding myself and a healthy relationship with food again. It has been a severely rocky journey, and I can vividly remember so many times where I would want to be sucked up by the ground because I thought I was ugly and fat. I thought that my body wasn’t worth anything or anyone’s attentions.
I can’t forget the times where I would call my mom and best friends in hysterics because I was not free from the ball and chain of the past. I wanted freedom. I wanted freedom more than anything. Freedom is realizing what is holding you back and letting go not only of the past, but also the image of the future to which you cling. I am writing this because disordered eating is something that needs to be talked about. I am writing this because I wish someone had talked to me about this when I gained the freshman 15 and felt like I had failed. There is no universal standard that I should live up to. My eyes have been opened to the reality that my weight does NOT define me, food does NOT define me, my pant size, does NOT define me. I am choosing to live in freedom now because I am worthy. I am 21 years old, graduating from college and today; I start by leaving my disordered eating, emotional instability and self-loathing in the past to only pursue my happiness in the beautiful body that God has given me.
