[TW: eating disorders]

Bile dripped off my tongue as I waited for my B-block AP Euro zoom to start.

Needless to say, tenth grade was a hard year. On top of the usual teenage angst and the unholy amount of stress that comes with being a Springs student, I was dealing with an eating disorder that completely drained me. Truthfully, I’m still dealing with it, but at least now my body can carry me through the day. There was a time when it couldn’t even do that. 

What all started as a quest for self-improvement quickly devolved into an unrelinquishing addiction to the word “skinny.” It was all I could think of. The word was as implanted into my head as the Fitbit logo was imprinted on my wrist. I started working out every day. I became angry when I didn’t, so I would do sit-ups on my bedroom floor or run at night when I missed a day. I’d check my stomach in every reflection that I saw, and I weighed myself twice a day. When I didn’t see immediate results from that, I started calorie counting. Every smartie, every gram of powdered peanut butter or tofu–logged. 

I survived off of five-hundred calories a day while working out incessantly and purging every time I didn't skip a meal. My hair was falling out in chunks that I blamed on over-bleaching, my skin felt like leather, and my head felt like there were 1000 tissues stuffed inside, clouding my vision and causing my mind to wander. I was a corpse. I sat lifeless among my peers, and faked the act of “okay” until I found myself breaking down over a test I did poorly on because I hadn’t eaten a full meal in two days. My life was controlled by the Fitbit app, and somehow, throughout all of this, I still refused to admit that I had a problem. Alas, it took being pulled aside by the choreographer after nearly fainting at rehearsal to realize that something wasn’t right. That was a year ago.

Since then, my world has changed immensely. I’m slowly learning how to feel alive again, but it’s been so long since I felt that, and I’m not sure I remember the feeling. I’m not sure I remember what a healthy person eats, because since July of 2019, this has been my reality. But even so, I can now eat a slice of pizza, and that is an improvement. I hope that one day I won’t feel guilty for eating a piece of bread, but for now it’s the little things that I have to pay attention to. For now, it’s when I stopped wearing my Fitbit. It’s the days when I forget to count. The days that I don’t pinch my arms in the mirror. For now, it’s the days that I feel free. 

Sharing my story in this way may seem strange. To me, sharing my story is the easiest way for me to say that you are not alone. When you’re struggling with something like this, it can be easy to think that nobody is there. So this essay is just to say, it will be okay.