WARNING: Mentions eating disorders and specific treatments. Not all treatments will work for everyone, and if you are struggling with an eating disorder you should consult your doctor for an individualized treatment and plan.
As far back as I can remember, I have been trying to change my body. I wanted to be smaller, more flexible, shorter. Growing up, I was one of the tallest kids in my class, from pre-K until middle school. Some of my classmates called me Godzilla. For a young girl who was already feeling like a freak of nature, it was traumatizing.
There is a distinct memory from my childhood where I sucked in my stomach as far as I possibly could and still said, “I’m so fat.” I was seven years old. Around that time I started getting interested in gymnastics. Every single week, I would check out a book about the Olympics from the school library, and I would only focus on the pages relating to diet changes and what to eat. Already at that young age, I was worried about counting calories and desperately trying to have abs.
After the gymnastics phase, I decided I wanted to be an actress and model. I was young and a big fan of TV and celebrity gossip. It seemed like a world I needed to be in. With this dream came an even deeper obsession over my appearance and wanting to shrink my measurements. I would set the number of calories I’d eat every day with the highest being 1,000 and the lowest being 0, fasting for the day. I exercised excessively and tried to burn every calorie I consumed. Every day, I would visit websites that encouraged anorexic behaviors, and I’d look at ‘thinspiration’ pictures on Google or Instagram.
I pinched my skin together. I would write horrible things on my stomach and upper thighs. In a notebook I repeatedly wrote the phrase “I want to be thin” over and over, countless times. I treated myself like dirt. My sole focus was to be smaller, thinner.
During the end of my eighth-grade year and beginning of high school, things became even more extreme. I started a punishment system for myself and my binges. Every time I cheated on my diet or didn’t exercise as hard as I wanted to, I would cut myself or pinch myself extremely hard. I wanted to the punishments associated with eating worse than the hunger pains I was having.
It was horrible. It was unhealthy. It was unsustainable.
The extremism didn’t continue forever. I started going to counseling for a couple years, which helped immensely. I was so unhappy, and I wanted to feel better. I didn’t want to be the obsessive, hangry, blatantly mean person I’d become. I wanted to be happy to be alive.
Even then, for years after that particularly dark time, I would cycle from healthier behaviors back into the restrictive ones. I was better than I had been before, but I still had no regard for my well-being and the lowest self-esteem possible.
Flash forward to 2020: my second year of college. My best friend, Julia, had several heart to heart’s with me where she repeatedly pointed out how toxic the way I talked about myself was. She would say, “You say the meanest things about yourself,” and, at first, I simply laughed her off. Self-deprecation was my brand of humor, right?
During the winter, I fell into a deep depression. I couldn’t sleep, I was constantly nauseous, and my emotions were out of control. I broke down almost every day, and I could barely complete my schoolwork. I couldn’t continue that way of life. Julia walked with me to the counseling center at school. I finally saw a doctor.
I started going to a counselor for individual sessions, as well as attending group coping clinics. My doctor at school started me on Prozac, an anti-depressant, which has been life-changing for my mental health. When she prescribed the medicine, though, she said something that has stuck with me everyday since. “You know, this medication may help your depression and may help you control your moods, but no medication in the world can change your thoughts about yourself. The only thing that can help you change your thoughts about yourself is therapy and you changing the conversation.”
I knew right then that I had to make changes for myself and my livelihood. I had to reroute the previous twenty years of thoughts I had about myself and actively choose to be kinder to me.
When I started, my goal was simply to be more conscious of the things I said to and about myself. I saw, rather quickly, how often I thought hateful things. I was incapable of accepting compliments or speaking well of myself, and I had normalized false assumptions from others that were unfounded. Because of how sharply and obsessively I had judged my own body and self, I assumed everyone in my life judged me that way. There was no basis for it. The only person who was ever that horrible to me was me, yet I allowed my insecurities to warp my relationships.
I took the big steps to make changes. I started therapy and coping groups. I was prescribed medication to aid with handling the chemical imbalances in my brain. I had difficult conversations with friends and families about my struggles and what I was going through.
Those changes made a world of difference for my happiness. But some of the grandest changes of all came because of the small things that had massive impacts on my internal thoughts.
I stopped allowing negative self talk, and I had to actively work to reword my comments in a more constructive way. I started doing things that made me feel good each day, such as journaling with writing prompts and meditating. Clearing my head of a lot of the negative, restrictive talk has made room for a healthier relationship between my body and mind. It’s been the most fulfilling transformation I’ve experienced in my life thus far.
I cannot sit here and honestly say that I’m cured of my negative thoughts and self-judgement completely. That is simply not true.
For the rest of my life, I will struggle with the voice inside my head that calls me disgusting and feels that I’m not good enough. No matter how much therapy or how many good days I have, there will still be some rough days to weather.
Even now, I still catch myself feeling guilty over a fatty meal or sucking my stomach in and staring in the mirror for too long. At least once a week, if not several times, I fight the urge to weigh myself.
My hope is, when those hard times come, I can reflect on how far I’ve come and keep looking forward. Living in the darkness may seem easier sometimes, and I won’t lie, it is easy to wallow in misery. It’s hard to actively choose to be happy every day. Especially when it’s not your natural state. But it’s worth it. I’ve found that when I’m not weighing myself down I can accomplish and dream more than ever before. For the first time in my life, I can actually see myself having a good life and making long-term plans for my future.
It isn’t noble to suffer in silence and be a martyr to your own misery. It isn’t acceptable to “just get over it,” or “deal with it.” There is no need to suffer when there are resources and people who want to help you. What I learned is that you have to want to help yourself.
“Talk to yourself the way you talk to your loved ones.” I don’t know who said that first, but it’s a mantra we should all take to heart. Stop allowing your thoughts about yourself to be consistently negative. As a society, we have to stop normalizing self-hatred and accepting the difficult things in life that we can do something about.
I had to allow myself to be happy, and I finally feel the healing process. I have a long way to go, but I finally have an idea about my priorities sorted out. I want to be an example for anyone who looks to me, so I can normalize healthy behaviors.
Embrace all the things in your life, good and bad. Strive to be healthy and have so much love for yourself and your body that it spills out to everyone around you. Let love in and let love out.
I’m finally allowing that love in. I feel lighter than ever before and I’m just getting started.
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