When I was eight, I realized I was fat. My life changed. I've always been quiet, self-conscious, and a bit nerdy, but when I realized that I was repulsive to look at, it became worse. For the next ten years of my life, I unknowingly let myself slowly be taken over by a parasite called ED. ED convinced me I was ugly. I dieted at too young of an age, before my body was finished forming, and all I could do was compare myself with other girls. I was sixteen and so thin but I didn't think I was at all. I could see all of the fat on me and it needed to be exterminated. My senior year of high school was when everything got horrific. New behaviors entered my life and my weight spiked. I sought help through my school counselor but I didn't take it seriously. I had a label to my ED now, and it was as if that was all I had been waiting for. My boyfriend, Kevin, was devastated and didn't know what to do. He loved me so much.
My freshman year of college was one disaster. I sacrificed friendships for my image of perfection. A friend finally convinced me to seek help. I ended up in PHP treatment for about eight weeks. I would like to say it helped me. It should have helped me but, in reality, it just made everything that much worse. I lived with my mother that summer and wasted away, exercising even in the hottest weather. When the school year started up, I lost my boyfriend for two months. I got worse, but then I got better. I thought I was better.
I wasn't. Of course I wasn't. My weight spiked again and my least favorite behaviors reentered my life. But I fought those. It was strange, it was as if I wasn't sick if I didn't have my least favorite behaviors. I was unwilling to have those, but the other ones were perfectly acceptable. I worked hard that summer to get back into shape, and I didn't struggle to do it healthily. It was as though I had finally hit recovery.
I went to England that summer for a semester abroad. This should have been an unreal experience, but Kevin and I were rocky. The entire time I just wanted to see him again and I became exceptionally clingy. My flatmates were asking me what I ate; they never saw me cooking. I cried and I kissed other boys in the club until, finally, one horrible afternoon in November, Kevin skyped me and broke my heart. I screamed, I cried, I scratched, I starved... it was one of the worst days of my life.
When I returned home, I took that semester off. I returned to IOL for PHP and IOP, but it wasn't good enough. I went to Walden for resi for two weeks and then back to IOL for one. Walden was the best choice I had ever made. I'm not going to say I was completely recovered when I got out, but I haven't had a full blown relapse in nearly two years.
People look at me and they see a bubbly, smiley, goofy young woman. They don't notice the faint scars on my arms or the bags under my eyes. They can't see into my brain, to the one thing that's always on my mind. They don't know all of the horrors I've been through, including everything outside of ED, like the loss of my grandmother or the horrible decision I had to make last summer. They don't see my pain. But isn't that what I'm best at? Hiding how I truly feel?
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