My Eating Disorder Story: Part 1

I never thought I’d be “that” girl.

In school, we’re taught that if you have an eating disorder, you look like a walking skeleton. We’re told that girls with eating disorders don’t eat anything at all. So when I began to lose my balance on the tight rope that was my relationship with food, I missed the warning signs. I told myself as long as I’m eating food, I don’t have an ED. I justified my obsessiveness with calories as “being interested in my health,” and when I spun it in that light, I praised myself for being the epitome of wellness.

I have always been skinny.

And I think that’s why everyone missed the signs for so long, too. The beginning of my disorder was marked by needing to eat the same amount of calories everyday. It’s not that I wasn’t eating, it’s just that I set a limit—like a little alarm I had set in my mind. The moment I hit my calories for the day, I needed to stop. That seems challenging, doesn't it?

I made it feasible.

I planned out my day of eating the night before, so I wouldn’t run out of calories too quickly, because there’s nothing I hate more than going to bed hungry. I never went to bed hungry. Not even when I reached my lowest weight—95 pounds.

I calculated how many calories I burned at the gym and adjusted my food intake accordingly. Math was my least favorite subject growing up, but my mind soon became a living calculator. And it was like the buttons on that calculator were stuck on a loop, repeatedly adding up the same sum of numbers over and over and over. You know, just incase.

The first week of my sophomore year of college. P.S. I picked apart this picture because I thought my stomach looked “bloated.”

Cue the onset of my exercise addiction.

I now relied heavily on exercise because it was the only way I was allowed to eat a little more. And my body was hungry. My stomach may not have been making whale calls all day, but physically my energy was depleted. I would soon come to learn that food is for more than just your tummy—that stuff actually helps you live. Who would’ve thought?

I had to workout every morning for the same amount of time, doing the same exact workout everyday. And then go home and eat the same exact meals. Everyday. It was the only thing I felt I had control over in my life. I wasn’t working out for the same reasons I workout today.

I worked out to eat.

This rigidity began to interfere with my social life, but I started to view my social life as something that stood in the way of that which I could control. So I began to retreat. It wasn’t some grand withdrawal from my friends—it came in waves. First, it was no breakfast or brunch dates. That would require me to wake up way too early to get a workout in. Plus, I didn’t know the calorie content of restaurant food, which was a hard no from me, dawg. My window of social opportunity shrunk even more when I realized that staying up late meant getting hungry late. And that meant eating a snack that was not allotted in my calorie budget. Goodbye, frat parties.

I’m smiling here, but I was anxious because I couldn’t workout that day.

I remember the way my stomach growled at my internship that summer.

Actually, it was less of a growl and more of a weeping cry for help. I ignored it, obviously. But my manager heard it and she told me to go eat something. It was mortifying. I wanted to tell her it wasn’t my time to eat yet—that I couldn’t have my mid-morning snack until 11:00 a.m. But she would’t understand. So, I went back to my desk and stared at the clock until it was time for me to eat. But by the time the clock struck 11:00, my hunger was beyond satiation. I needed a full freakin’ meal. Instead, I had a yogurt with a few blueberries and stared at the clock until it was lunchtime and I could eat again.

My life revolved around the next time I was allowed to eat.

No one knew this, of course. I couldn’t tell a soul about my schedule, in fear they might not understand. And the worst thing that could happen to me would be for someone to interrupt the control I had over food. I kept on like this all summer, going to sleep earlier and earlier to avoid getting hungry. Going back to college for my sophomore year, I had a feeling what I was doing wasn’t right. But on the outside, I was being positively reinforced—people admiring my dedication to clean eating and fitness, unaware of the turmoil that was erupting in my head.

Going out for rush parties that year was really hard. It interfered with my regiment that I had stuck to all summer and made me feel like I was spiraling out of control. Whenever I sat down to do homework, I’d open the calculator on my computer and type in the calories I had eaten that day. Then, how many I planned to eat for the rest of the day to get my total. Then, do that same cycle of numbers over and over and over. I didn’t realize it was a coping mechanism, something else to think about instead of the stress and anxiety that was brewing inside of me.

It was as though starving my body was starving my anxiety.

If I didn’t feed it, I wouldn’t give it life. Boy, was I wrong. It manifested itself in other ways. Like in my dreams. I had re-occurring nightmares that semester of airplanes falling from the sky in spiral formation. It was completely symbolic for how I felt—like I was spiraling out of control. And the more I controlled what I ate, the more out of control I felt. Because, deep down, I knew what I was doing wasn’t sustainable. I didn’t know how long I could go on like that, but I also did not want to surrender my perceived control either.

At this point, my daily workout looked like this:

81 minutes on the elliptical, at a speed of 8-9, no breaks. Yes. you read that correctly. Eighty-one minutes. And if I didn’t hit that 81, it was like I hadn’t even worked out at all. I didn’t know what would happen to me if I didn’t hit that number everyday. And I definitely couldn’t eat all the food I had planned out the night before, because in my mind, I wouldn’t have earned it.

I was exhausted.

In every way. Mentally, emotionally, physically. By 4:00, my body felt like a sack of rocks. I couldn’t hold it up. I stopped going out. I even retreated away from Alex (my husband—boyfriend at the time) because I had to stick to my schedule. And I cried so much. I couldn’t handle any more stress in my life, so any little inconvenience would push me to my breaking point.

I remember one day in particular, I was going to my sorority’s formal. i went to the mall with my roommate to find a dress. It was around 4:30 p.m. and I felt like I could barely move my legs to walk from store to store. I blamed it on getting sick and I even convinced myself that was the truth. My roommate was also my best friend and she had seen my deterioration that semester. She knew me before all of this and I think she was the first one to recognize what I was doing to myself.

We walked past a convenience shop and she told me I probably wasn’t feeling well because I needed something to eat. Ha! As if I would eat something unplanned. I ended up buying a bar and taking a bite.

One. Bite.

Then I pictured how much weight I was going to gain from that bite and trying to find a way to make up for those calories in my later meals. Maybe I’ll have a smaller portion for dinner? Skip a night snack?

When we got back to our apartment, I laid on my bed and convinced myself I was too sick to go to formal. Alex came over and I cried because “I didn’t feel well.” But I now know I was crying, not because I was physically sick, but because I was mentally done. I couldn’t do it anymore. I made my rules so hard to abide by that I made myself cry. It’s like I was holding the key to the door knob but I refused to twist it and walk out.

I was so proud of how small my arm looked, but felt self-conscious about my stomach. My whole perception of my body was completely distorted.

I told my mom I had an eating disorder.

She didn’t necessarily believe it, because society tells us we need to look like walking skeletons in order to have one. And because I had always been known as a “twig,” my body wasn’t overly alarming to people around me. My behaviors were more of a concern than my physical appearance. But I insisted that my relationship with food was becoming dangerous and that I needed help.

There was one part of my brain that did not want to admit it for fear of forfeiting my control; but the other part of my brain—the fight or flight instinct in me—practically forced those words out of my mouth before my ED threatened my life. I felt both in control for finally telling someone and out of control for knowing the only way to help myself was to let go.

I came home from college midway through my sophomore year.

I thought home was the answer and that seeing my therapist would “fix me,” but I don’t think I was fully ready to be fixed. I found another outlet to pour my ED into and was able to cover it up so no one questioned me. I went vegan, because I saw it as a way of restriction. No one would force me to order something calorie-dense off of a menu at dinner because my diet choice did not allow for any animal products. My daily diet consisted of almost no fat—basically all fruits and vegetables.

• Disclaimer: I do not think the vegan diet causes eating disorders, nor do I find them to be restrictive. It’s all about the mindset you have going into veganism. I learned a lot about the treatment of animals over the few years I was vegan, and if in a few years, I find myself wanting to go back into it for the right reasons, I would definitely consider it. I have full respect for those who stand up for animal rights.

I remember one day in May, my mom asked me to step on the scale.

She was freaking out because it said she had gained a pound. I stepped on and saw I weighed 98 pounds. In disbelief, I shook my head, moved the scale to a different spot on the floor, and stepped on again.

98 pounds.

What. The. Fuck.

I want to say that was my turning point. I want to say that was my lowest weight. But it wasn’t. Because, sadistically, there was a little part of me that was proud to see I dipped below 100—like I had accomplished some admirable feat. And it ignited something inside of me. A competitive streak between my self-control around food and the scale.

Little did I know, I was already in the grips of an eating disorder. My desire to control everything was becoming increasingly out of control…

I didn’t see it at the time, but I was complete skin and bones heading into the summer.