I don't even know where to begin, it's so complex and multidimensional...
I do not have very many pictures of my full body from this time in my life, especially around the time that it was really bad due to not wanting others to worry on social media. In real life, I could convince everyone around me that I was healthy and eating enough and just naturally skinny. But on social media, especially since it was just in its beginnings, I couldn't trick people as easily.
I don't quite know when it began, I had always compared myself to others and was used to being the skinniest in the room, which of course in my twisted mind meant that everyone else was fat. And if I wasn't the skinniest in the room? Well, then I'm obviously fat! I remember feeling overweight for the first time in third grade, as when I sat down in class (slouched, mind you) I had stomach rolls (completely natural. Your skin MOVES your skin FOLDS IN on itself when you slouch) and therefore I was fat and needed to lose weight. The only problem was the school I was at had a 3 bite rule, where you had to take three bites of everything on your plate before you were 'finished'. I couldn't restrict my diet there, so I tried to push it out of my mind as I was active, and since I was still growing taller I figured it would all even out. I started with small restrictions by decreasing my portion sizes and substituting snacks with ice chips (filled up my stomach and satisfied the crunch craving. I still chew ice to this day but for enjoyment and not sustenance).
We moved cross country and I never really thought about my weight too much more as I plateaued in weight gain and kept growing taller. I started in public school for the first time in fifth grade and that began a downward spiral in my mental health and ED journey. A girl I considered a friend of mine systematically tore me down and pointed out flaws I didn't even realize I had. She made me hate everything about myself, and as she was 'skinnier' than me I felt fat, and she pointed out all the time that her arms were skinnier and stronger than mine and she was better than me at sports yadda yadda yadda. I began to restrict my diet and my mom noticed, she talked to this girl (not knowing she was causing all of it) to ask if she could maybe talk me into eating. My mom thought it had something to do with me thinking she was mad at me (bad sentence but I was mad at her for bullying me but didn't know it was bullying because I thought she was my friend and didn't know friends could be bullies). She wrote me a note telling me that it was stupid for me to stop eating because I thought she was mad at me.
I won't go into detail of how I restricted food exactly, as I want this to be a positive post that can bring light to others who may be struggling and do not want to highlight what I did wrong, but I will say I strategically ate and manipulated those around me into thinking I had eaten a large meal earlier in the day to constitute my tiny portion when really I hadn't eaten at all. I will simply refer to my method as 'restriction' from here on out for safety purposes.
I was mildly restricting my diet in fifth grade, despite being severely underweight for my age and height.
In the summer between fifth and sixth grade, this 'friend' spread rumors about me and turned everyone in our grade against me, made them think I was this horrible person that I was not. And when I'm upset, I do not eat, so you can imagine how that summer went. Once we got back to school, she was still kind of playing 'friendly' with me, but soon told one of our mutual friends she had to choose between myself and her. And as she was more popular, well-liked, and they were closer than we were, she chose my bully. I was left with one friend, who had many other friends that I interacted with but never fully accepted me. I was left alone most of the time, left out of lunch conversations, forced to sit on the edge of the table, and had all people turned away from me before there were too many people at the table and there was simply no room for me at all. I had my guy friends I would sit with, but it was not the same. Everyone hated me except them. I was severely restricting my diet at this point and did manage to lose what little weight I could afford without causing worry. I was the skinniest in my grade that I was aware of.
I was called chicken legs, which made me restrict even more because I saw fat on my thighs, and they jiggled when I jumped which meant I was fat.
I made a friend halfway through sixth grade who had gone through the same thing as me with the same bully, and she helped me feel normal, but we were both outsiders and she was anorexic as well, though she didn't tell me explicitly, so we would restrict during lunch together. I remember only eating a bag of baked chips, and her eating celery for most of the sixth, seventh, and eighth grade.
The biggest restriction if you can believe it could get even more restricted, happened when I hit 100 pounds in Freshman year of high school. Triple digits was a huge trigger for me. I was 5 foot 10 so being 100 pounds was considered dangerously underweight, but as my mom was always underweight (despite being anorexic and bulimic in high school herself) my doctor wasn't concerned. Surely I would balance out eventually!
The sight of 100 pounds triggered me to where I would strategically eat less than half a meal a day. I loved the feeling of hunger pains and associated them with health.
As I moved through high school I kept on with this extreme restriction, but I slowly began to gain more weight to keep others off my trail of deception and obsession with weight. I eventually got to where I was comfortable as long as my median weight was 120#. That was around my junior year of high school. Towards the end of that year, I knew I had a problem and it was unhealthy, but I loved the look of my skin and bones body and didn't want to lose it, so I slowly began to make healthier choices. I would eat two or maybe three meals a day, snack with my family at night, but all my portions were tiny. My stomach had shrunk to the point where one of those tiny microwavable mac n cheese bowls was more than enough to fill me. An apple was a meal. A snack was two or three chips. I began to attempt to practice self-love, and failed miserably but was slowly making progress.
Senior year I took trying to love myself to the extreme and looking for validation from other boys. I made some mistakes, but I would not go back and change any of them and do not regret anything because it taught me valuable lessons and really did help me on my journey to self-acceptance.
In college, I dated a man who helped me love my body and love who I was (there were other problems with the relationship that were damaging to my mental health but I won't get into that here). I could look at myself in the mirror without hating my reflection! The only problem was, my 'woman body' came in (as my mother put it) and I grew 5!!!! pant sizes seemingly overnight. I was a size 3, edging on a 5 during that time of the month, and suddenly I was a solid 10. THAT was triggering. I felt like I needed to lose weight and began doing workouts in my dorm room because I felt to disgustingly fat to be seen in any of the campus gyms. I didn't lose any weight, but the guy I was dating helped me to see that the weight was not unhealthy, that it was normal to gain that much weight when you hit your 20's and that's the main reason for the 'Freshman 15' (mine was the Freshman 30 but whatever).
When I moved back home to my parents after that year in college, I lost 15 of my 30 gained pounds, and felt better. After breaking up with my boyfriend at the time, I gained a little of it back, but I was consistently going to the gym with my best friend and it was AMAZING quality girl time filled with laughter and love and acceptance. That was truly a beautiful time in my life. I loved every gym session in that Planet Fitness with her, even when we definitely burned more calories laughing on a yoga mat than actually working out.
OKAY, I've gotten WAY off track here but bear with me, my point is coming.
Once I began dating my now-husband, I gained SO MUCH WEIGHT. Here, look and see for yourself.
After getting married and moving out of my parents' house, I lost 12 pounds in around 2 months and felt so healthy and amazing. I had started taking vitamins, but I also believe having my own space helped me want to eat healthier, and was less stressful. I had struggled to lose weight in the past despite eating better and exercising, now I don't go to the gym due to our last apartment having a less-than-stellar gym, and now with the whole world being closed I just don't even bother. When gyms finally open again I will definitely begin working out to be strong and healthy, but not to lose weight. I am happy with where I am at, I have a healthy relationship with my food and never weigh myself. I still struggle with body dysmorphia and have times where I refuse to look in the mirror or feel so fat and ugly. Every day is a struggle, a chance to prove to myself that I can do this, I can overcome my eating disorder and be happy with the body I am in. I am healthy, and I am happy. I still have an eating disorder, but I am RECOVERING!
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