Skinny Secret: My Eating Disorder and Recovery Story on the F-Word Podcast

A while ago I had to opportunity to go The F-Word Podcast.  If you’re not familiar with the podcast, it was started by a few friends to discuss taboo topics to create a more understanding and empathetic community and shed some light on things that people keep to themselves. One of their main topics is about creating body positivity and having people share their experiences with body image issues. Over the summer I communicated back and forth with Jackie about how to share my story, and we decided I would read an essay I wrote my last year of college, and last week my episode aired. This deals with something a lot more personal than my favorite recipes and playlists, but I feel like I was compelled to share on the podcast and I wanted to decompress about my experience on With Wildflowers.

I struggled with anorexia and bulimia for over two years from my Freshman year in college to the end of my Junior year. It was such a whirlwind experience and something I never thought I would have fallen into and something I now want to share as a cautionary tale of sorts and give some advice to those struggling with eating disorders and for the loved ones of those dealing with this as well.

It took me a really long time to feel comfortable with talking about my eating disorder and just writing my story, let alone share it with anyone that I knew. The first time that I shared everything, and I mean almost every last detail, was in a non-fiction writing class at my Alma Mater, University of San Diego. I opened up to a room of relative strangers that I had gotten to know over the course of a semester and was shocked at how relieved I felt by getting this off my chest and the support I got from the community in the classroom. It was then that I felt comfortable enough to share it with my mom, but then I left it at that.

When I joined a blogging group this past summer, I ran across a post that Jackie left about her new passion project, The F Word Podcast, and she was looking for people to share their stories with body positivity, eating disorders, etc and for some reason I actually submitted a couple sentence blurb about my story.

I had almost forgotten that I did that when I received a friendly email from her saying they would love to have me on and set up a preliminary meeting over video chat. I was nervous, anxious and excited about the idea of opening up about my story and then I realized something….I hadn’t shared this with anyone in my family or life besides my mom.

Although I had talked about my eating disorder with my boyfriend on a few occasions, I preferred to keep things brief and not get into the nitty gritty details because as I said in my essay on the podcast, he was one person who I could forget about my issues around. Before I was going to record my episode, I left for the day and told him he could read my piece while I was gone. I  nervously walked in the door after running errands and I felt relieved again. Someone else knew my story.

I have found that one of the biggest helps through my recovery and processing this part of my past was writing things down and sharing. First, I keep all this in my head. Once I wrote it out and got it on the page, I had shared it with the paper. From there, whether or not I decide to have someone read it, or email it off to a friend, or leave it printed out and on hand, I had already lessened that burden by a bit more.

Now that I am sharing this with the public, my nerves are creeping back in but even though it’s a total cliche I really feel that if my story can help one other person who is dealing with this, or help someone understand eating disorders a little bit more, that my discomfort is totally worth it.

You can listen to my whole story on the podcast and there are a couple excerpts below, but I thought it might be helpful if I went back over the questions Jackie and Chris asked me on my episode and wrote out a bit of my answers to help anyone who might be trying to recover from an eating disorder or might know someone struggling with eating disorders.

From my essay:

“July 10, 2013 I stepped onto the cold glass scale in my bathroom and closed the door. The numbers 1..1..0 flickered under my feet before taking hold to reveal my latest weight. I had lost another 17 pounds since my doctor told me that 127 was about as low as I should go with my height around 5’9” and not to keep losing weight when I saw her in the beginning of June. This was another 10 pounds since my mom and I went to the trainers at my gym for me to get a body composition scan that I hoped would get people off my back but actually revealed I was underweight with a dangerously low body fat of 12.4%.  For reference, female olympic athletes are around 13% body fat.

I wasn’t doing anything different though. I wasn’t even trying anymore. I was just doing what I had conditioned myself to do since April 1st of my freshman year of college. Part of me was terrified to see this number appear beneath my boney feet and the other half of me was incredibly impressed at how far I had come. It was only the beginning of July and I had lost over 45 pounds in a few months.”

“The first day in Hawaii I had a panic attack. The feeling of my legs pressing against one another as I lay in the bed on my side drove me crazy. Weeks before I could press my knees together while I was turned on my side and nothing touched. Now the feeling of my skin barely coming in contact was too much for me to bear. I broke down crying and hyperventilating and my mom assured me that I just missed my boyfriend and it was a long flight and I hadn’t slept before.”

“As my therapist told me about the intensive program she wanted me to enter over winter break I nodded along but couldn’t focus. I sat across from her on the beige couch and looked at her arms. They were bulging out of the black capped sleeve top that she wore and she folded her legs under her body. Part of me was so distracted at looking at her that I couldn’t even process what she was suggesting. I looked down and raised my legs up off the couch, touching my knees together to feel relief at the large gap that let me see the beige cloth below my thin thighs. I figured both of my legs were much smaller than one of my therapist’s. I got frustrated thinking about how she was trying to relate to me and tell me how to be healthy and happy while she carelessly ate an entire burrito from Chipotle and clearly didn’t care about the way that she looked.”

“I spent my Fall and most of my Spring semester of my Junior year still trying to lose weight. I was so angry at myself and tried to act that gaining weight was a good thing because it was what my body needed to do to be healthy again. Still I couldn’t help but feeling defeated. At least when my shoulder bones were sticking out of my arms and my legs didn’t touch I had something to show for the torture I was putting myself through. I realize now that I was so obsessed about my body at the time I didn’t even get to enjoy the perfect body I thought would have made me so happy and now I wanted to look like that again. I hid my habits and my thoughts even more. On the surface I looked normal again, like I must have been passed everything. The interesting thing about recovering from an eating disorder is that once you gain the weight back and don’t look obviously anorexic, people think you are doing much better, but it was my time of trying to stop and giving up and falling back into old habits that I was doing the worst.”

You can listen to the full essay on iTunes or on thefwordpodcast.org and read some of my advice below. I have updated this post to share my whole essay you can find at the end of this post.

My advice to loved ones who want to help:

It’s not easy bringing it up and it’s not easy hearing it on the receiving end. I wish people had been kinder with how they dealt with me and I wish I had been more receptive to those who tried to help.

You  have to be patient and especially kind when you’re talking to someone with an eating disorder and remember they are someone you love.

In my experience people were angry at me for getting skinny. They came at me from a place of authority rather than curiosity and compassion,  and I felt trapped and attacked anytime someone would bring it up.

The worst thing you can do is say those passive aggressive things like “eat a cheeseburger” or “you’re looking a little too skinny” because at some point those negative comments start to be something that people thrive off of and you isolate the person you love even more when you make those types of remarks.

Don’t assume what’s going on with them, but don’t ignore that something is happening.

Please don’t assume you think you know what is going on with one of your friends, or family members, or whoever it is that is close to you that you see thinning away or acting different. Don’t assume they are depressed, or doing drugs,  or have some grand issue going on. They might, but in my case it honestly was as simple as a plan to lose the Freshman 15 and a diet that turned into an obsession I couldn’t kick. When people reached out to me or said things, only one person ask how I was or if I was okay before they assumed something and came from an attacking point of view.

On the same accord don’t ignore the fact that your best friend who used to love baking and going out to lunch now spends two hours at the gym and thinks that a bowl of zucchini noodles with Greek yogurt and sriracha on them is as good as Fettuccine Alfredo.

A lot of people ignored what was going on with me because of how uncomfortable it was, but I probably could have kicked this a lot sooner if they didn’t. No one is to blame though because even when I had the tools for help,  I wasn’t ready.

It is an awkward subject to breach and honestly I wasn’t receptive to a lot of the criticism or comments I received. I was very sensitive and fragile and would cry really easily over anything.

I was starving, eating less that 800 calories a day and my body and mind were spent and not thinking right.  Try to remember that they are someone you know and love but they aren’t thinking rationally right now. No one in a normal mind would plan out an entire day’s worth of meals centered around broccoli, the gym, and maybe a bite of a protein bar for a treat. I had lost touch with the reality of what food was and how I looked. I was obsessed and could count on one hand the number of days I had missed at the gym for an entire summer, each one causing me an immense amount of anxiety.

It is definitely hard to relate to someone going through this and it is a lot more dangerous and all encompassing than a lot of people think which is why I hope this essay and post can shed a little light on that.

My advice for someone dealing with an eating disorder and wanting to recover:

It takes time to realize you have an eating disorder and even longer to be ready to give it up. For over a year,  I wanted to go back to normal so so badly but it wasn’t something I could shut off. Your mind plays tricks on you, you look in the mirror and see a different body than you have, you lose touch with reality and become very obsessive. It only took me a few months to do years of damage to myself both physically and mentally.

The biggest thing that finally helped me was realizing that being skinny didn’t bring me all the happiness I thought it would. I wasn’t happy when I was sick and skinny and didn’t enjoy what I thought was a perfect body. I wasn’t happy trying to get it back. I was happy with my family and friends and loved ones and they didn’t care what I looked like.

You ultimately have to prioritize health and happiness over skinniness and know that the two are not the same. The main reason it took me so long to recover was that I wasn’t ready to give up the idea of being really thin again. My efforts in therapy and with personal trainers were something I did trying to help myself but I was still thinking of being skinny first, not healthy.
My advice for incorporating body positivity into your life:Relax and realize no one has a perfect body. The person you look at and think has it all together and is thin and beautiful could be a total mess inside. I know I was, but I actually did a really good job of hiding it.

I am so much more gentle now with the way I look at myself. Yeah I might like to lose 10 pounds but I’m not going to beat myself up if I don’t or if it takes time.

I workout because I enjoy how it makes me feel, not because I am punishing my body. I try to get to the gym for just half an hour every morning for 5 days a week. If I feel like I want to keep going I do, and if I’m not into it that day I stop.

The biggest thing is to be grateful for the things you have and stop dismissing them because you want something else. If you have your health, two legs to walk on, a mind that lets you think and be creative, you have a lot to be happy about.

I am not saying it’s an easy transition and it took me a really long time to get where I am now but I am enjoying life so much more now that I let myself enjoy food again and be kind to my body.

Another huge thing I recommend is writing. Let out your thoughts and take a step back from your situation.

If anyone reading has any questions or wants to talk, I am more than happy to be the person you share your burden with. 

Skinny Secret

July 10, 2013 I stepped onto the cold glass scale in my bathroom and closed the door. The numbers 1..1..0 flickered under my feet before taking hold to reveal my latest weight. I had lost another 17 pounds since my doctor told me that 127 was about as low as I should go with my height around 5’9” and not to keep losing weight when I saw her in the beginning of June. This was another 10 pounds since my mom and I went to the trainers at my gym for me to get a body composition scan that I hoped would get people off my back but actually revealed I was underweight with a dangerously low body fat of 12.4%.  For reference, female olympic athletes are around 13% body fat.

 I wasn’t doing anything different though. I wasn’t even trying anymore. I was just doing what I had conditioned myself to do since April 1st of my freshman year of college. Part of me was terrified to see this number appear beneath my boney feet and the other half of me was incredibly impressed at how far I had come. It was only the beginning of July and I had lost over 40 pounds in a few months. Getting to this point hadn’t even been that bad. Sure, my body suffered from the extreme calorie deficit I put myself through, but I was nowhere near as depressed and anxious about food as I would be after this day when I decided to stop counting my calories. It was once I got skinny that things got worse. I had been extremely dedicated with my diet and workouts to get to this point and now that I was here I didn’t know what to do.  I looked back down, 110 pounds, maybe I had lost too much and it was time for me to do something. 

 I told my mom and brothers that I would stop counting my calories and try to ease up at the gym in hopes of not losing anymore weight, but the thought of gaining any made me incredibly anxious. Still, I realized I had taken it too far and should try to just be normal again. Unfortunately, normal wasn’t something I would get back to for a much longer time. I made a point to tell my brothers how I hadn’t tracked the calories in the apple I was eating or that I would even add some unmeasured peanut butter to it. I’d eat a cup of cottage cheese without putting in on my food scale or measuring out a teaspoon of sriracha to go with it. I felt like this would work, but I also felt out of control. 

In reality, I wasn’t eating anything that different or out of bounds for what I allowed myself while I tracked everything, but I felt completely lost. Without keeping track of every single bite, I felt that I could keep eating. I could walk into my kitchen after a long day and graze on the dinner my mom had cooked, or the fast food my brothers brought home, because my calorie count app wouldn’t know.  There was no record to tell me I had gone over my daily limit and the fact that my ribs were nicely visible underneath my tank top gave me permission to keep eating. The problem was that within a couple weeks of doing this, I couldn’t stop. My weekly binging sessions became more frequent. I’d mentally calculate the calories in my mind adding a ridiculous amount for a piece of bread I shouldn’t have eaten or a cookie I couldn’t resist and need to sneak up to my room to get rid of it. 

In my journal I tried to justify my new bouts of binging and purging as something that was okay for me to do sometimes so I felt better. It wouldn’t be a habit, I wrote. I wasn’t bulimic. Yet.  

March  2016. 

May 2, 2015 was the last time I made myself throw up. I hate to count this, since it was mostly champagne and something I did just to relieve the immense pressure my stomach was feeling after drinking and eating all day at my boyfriend’s cousin’s wedding in France, but I still did it. As I walked around the chateau trying to find the most secluded bathroom, I went back and forth in my head about whether I should even do this or not, would it even be worth it? But I felt sick, I had to. The two piece skirt and blouse I was wearing felt tighter and I couldn’t suck in my stomach anymore. I had just resolved to myself in the weeks leading up to this wedding that I was really done with all my dieting and binging and purging and was just ready to be happy again. I already told myself that the last time I threw up a few days before leaving for France that I was done, that was the last time I would do it. But here I was, looking over my shoulder to make sure no one saw me enter the bathroom, getting ready to do it one more time. I looked at myself in the mirror and looked away. 

I thought back to how I used to do this so frequently. I had developed a routine. First, I would pull whatever dress or t-shirt I was wearing over my boney shoulders and place it aside as to not get any vomit on my clothing for when I would re-enter whatever scenario I had excused myself from. Next, I would pull the elastic hair tie off of my wrist and wrap it around my thinning hair into a bun on the top of my head so it wouldn’t be in the way of what I was about to do. The moments when I would stand there, nearly naked, looking into the mirror and washing my hands before I would hunch over the toilet and spend the next several minutes getting rid of as much of my stomach’s content as possible were some of the most defeating moments I have ever experienced. I would stand and look at myself, attempting to reason with what I was going to do, to make it seem not so bad. I could go to bed I thought, wake up and have a better day tomorrow. But if I kept all of this food inside of me after an hour of uncontrolled binging, I would still be full and bloated when I woke up, if I did this now, then at least I would have a cleaner slate for the next day, and I wouldn’t feel so sick laying in my bed that night. 

Using long strands of toilet paper to wipe up the splashes of vomit that had landed on my cheeks or shoulders and arms, or depending on how much I had binged on, even the floor, I would try to clean the area and myself. I’d stand and my knees cracked for having been bent over the toilet bowl for so long and seeing myself often brought me to tears. My eyes would be all watery and mascara blurred around my eyelids just for the sheer fact that throwing up makes your eyes water. I made sure to throw up before I did my makeup if I was going out, or to be really selective if I had to when I was around company so they wouldn’t notice my messed up face along with the smell of vomit on my pointer and middle finger as I reentered. I think one of the only things grosser than making myself throw up was the smell that the acid in the vomit left on my hands, rubbing alcohol was what I eventually learned to use to cut through the smell and I feared completely that anytime I talked to someone or my boyfriend hugged me after I had been in the bathroom that they would be able to tell immediately. 

Thanksgiving of my sophomore year of college, my uncle Kevin used the bathroom after I had been getting rid of the countless pieces of pie and croissants I had eaten. I chose not to eat any of the turkey or vegetables because those were especially painful to throw up and unnecessary for me to eat if I was going to be getting rid of everything in the first place. My mom told me that he said something to her later that night and I cried because he knew. 

Another time I caught my reflection in the metal back of the toilet in an airport as I threw up as much as I could before meeting my friend on the curb. I had binged at the airport and needed to try to feel a little bit better before catching up with her and pretending like everything was okay. There were countless moments and places that I did this, gas station bathrooms on my way to my boyfriend’s house, or to the gym, restaurants after eating, the locker room, and each time I did I felt physically better and emotionally worse.

As I stood in the small bathroom in France, I knew what I was about to do, but it was different this time. I wasn’t doing this because of what I ate or because I felt bad about myself. In fact, I had felt really happy this whole trip. I was enjoying the fresh croissants in the morning, exploring Bordeaux with my boyfriend and his family and feeling okay about not being as thin as I hoped I would be for this wedding after starting another cleanse and diet months before. And I still wore the outfit I wanted and everyone still told me I looked great. So what was my problem? The reality was I didn’t have one and I was beginning to understand this. I was beginning to regain control over my body and mind.

I pulled my blouse over my head and folded my curled hair back into a bun just like I had done nearly a hundred times before. Then I crouched down around the toilet and pressed my fingers deep into my throat and waited for relief. Water welled in my eyes, not because I was crying but because of the way this always happened and I hoped my makeup wouldn’t be too messed up when I went back out to join the party. I knew as I washed my hands for the second time in order to mask the smell of vomit on my fingers that this would be the last time I did this. And I felt at peace. I blotted the mascara around my eyes with a scrap of toilet paper and reapplied the lipstick I stuck into my bra earlier that day after rinsing my mouth out. I smiled at myself to see how I looked and wandered out to find Michael and act like nothing had happened.  

It’s been almost a year since this wedding and as hard as it was for me to finally reach a place of happiness with who I am, it is almost harder to look back and believe that it was me who put myself through all of this. As I look through pictures and read my journals it’s difficult to imagine that was even me, but that was me for two years. Two tortuous years of dieting, and restricting, and of losing touch with reality. Two years of hating my body, of changing my body, of loving my body but hating what I had to do for it. Two years of criticizing, and forgiving myself, of moving forward and falling backward. Two years of a cycle that all started with an idea and a number that I wanted to see on the scale.  Two years of crying and hiding, two years of lying and confessing. Two years of struggle and change and realizations. Two years of growing up. 

When I trace back to when this all started it’s easy to see the progression, there is a clear path. Start, April 1, 2013. End, May 2, 2015. But there is so much within those two years it gets harder to comprehend and explain.

It all started about three years ago. After gaining my share of the freshman 15, my efforts to lose the weight I had gained quickly spiraled out of control as I became obsessed with food and counting calories and spending even more time at the gym than I already did. What I thought was going to be a way for me to get into better shape and feel confident about my body for the summer turned into what would consume two years of my life spent dealing with anorexia turned bulimia and trying to find a new normal about food and my body. After sacrificing relationships with more than just food and health, it became evident I needed help but efforts in therapy and working with nutritionists further alienated me, leaving me to pull myself out of what I had gotten myself into in the Spring of 2013. Now almost a year without having any symptomatic behavior, I am looking back to remember what life was like and how this all happened so quickly.

April 2013 Throughout middle school and high school I’d always admired a thin, perhaps unhealthy model frame but never thought it would be possible for me so I was happy enough with how I looked. This was until, I saw my friends from highschool on our first spring break in college and noticed how I was the only one affected by the freshman 15. I felt uncomfortable in my gauzy cream dress that fit loose around my body while they wore tight tank tops and high waisted shorts showing their summer ready bodies ahead of schedule. I realized it was my own fault and I could change if I wanted to, and I would. 

When I decided I was ready to lose weight, I enlisted the guidance of a friend who had recently turned herself into a stick. When I came to her for advice on how to achieve her results, she told me all I needed to do was an hour of cardio every day and to count my calories, 1,200, no more, even when I worked out. This was easy I thought. She suggested the app Calorie Count for me to easily keep track of everything I ate and my workouts, I could even log the glasses of water I drank and enter my weight, it was all I needed. I decided I would start doing this after completing a 7 day juice cleanse of 4 green juices a day paired with disgusting pea protein smoothies, dandelion tea and beet soup. The girls in my dorm questioned why I was doing this and I told them I was ready to lose the weight I had gained over the year. They made fun of me for toting around several bottles in my backpack and savored their food around me but I didn’t care because in my mind I thought “I’d show them” or that they’d wish they were doing this when they see how much better I look. The week went quickly and when I stepped on the scale at the end of the cleanse I was shocked that I had lost over 10 pounds, water weight or not, it more than jump started my weight loss and I was well on my way to count every calorie in the carrots on my salad, the number of almonds on my oatmeal in the morning and my once a week bagel I had before weight lifting with my trainer. Something, I reluctantly added when she saw how tired I was getting in our hour long sessions and told me I should have some more carbs, which within a couple of weeks had become the enemy. 

I started a private instagram account around this time where I decided I would post pictures of my body to track progress as well as my meals. The fitness community on instagram was massive, I quickly found hundreds of accounts to follow where skinny girls posted their breakfasts and daily workouts, people shared low carb recipes and I could freely stalk pages anonymously with my account. My page didn’t look much different from theirs but there was no way I would let anyone see it. This was my new secret project I was working on and I achieved a strange satisfaction from logging my food and documenting my meals. I told my friends from home I was starting a clean eating diet, my friends at college that I was cleansing and detoxing, and reassured my family that I was working with a trainer on my new diet. All of these were half truths. 

I didn’t care what was going to happen to my mind, social life, or ability to be normal about food for years, because it was working, my body was changing. Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday morning that I stepped on the scale in my dorm room bathroom, the number was going down and seeing a green line sloping downward on the calorie count app brought me enough joy to eat the same dinner of cauliflower, tomato, red onion and balsamic vinegar almost every night at the campus cafeteria before coming down to my dorm just in time for everyone else to head up to dinner. I knew I was losing weight so I didn’t care that I was losing friends. As April turned into May I had lost touch with my closest friends from high school, they made snarky remarks about my changing body that they could only see through pictures on facebook or on the odd weekend visit home. I later found out they generated quite the creative rumor mill about me dabbling in drugs, struggling with depression, changing for a guy, and having family issues which were all incredibly false except for the depression that would eventually kick in. 

In the next couple of months, people’s negative comments became something I thrived off of, I always thought that once I was skinny and had my perfect body I wouldn’t need that many friends anyways. This was also when I had recently started dating the guy who would become my boyfriend going on over three years now and I focused my energy on him when it wasn’t spent on food and working out. I chose to focus on what was making me happy, which at the time was lots of raw vegetables, pictures of my knees pressed together with a growing gap in between them and spending a couple hours at the gym everyday. Still, at the time I didn’t realize that my new diet would be an issue. What I didn’t know I was setting myself up for as I began to eat a diet of only oatmeal in the morning, some fruit or cottage cheese after working out for over an hour, aggressively pulling back the handles of the elliptical with every stride, and veggies and a protein bar in the evening was something my mom soon approached me about called Orthorexia.

By the beginning of May I had lost around 20 pounds, something quite noticeable to my family on my weekend visits home. What else was noticeable was how I brought salads over to my grandparent’s and denied offers to make chocolate chip cookies, have any bread or pasta at spaghetti nights or stray from the gym for a single day. I’m just trying to be healthy I told them. They backed off for a while. When I got an email from my mom after she visited me in San Diego and saw how I worried about the cheese in my spaghetti squash casserole from True Food hiking up my calories for the day, which at this point averaged more around 8-900 instead of 1200 with me burning at least 5-600 in the gym, she knew this was becoming a problem. She sent me an email the next morning about obsessive eating and the eating disorder no one talks about called Orthorexia. “This sounds a lot like you,” she told me. “Please be careful.”

Careful was the last thing on my mind as my jeans now needed to be folded over to stay up on my protruding hip bones and everyone in my dorm kept commenting on how skinny I was, whether or not it was meant as a compliment.  I opened the email and skimmed through the article. It sounded awfully dramatic to me, so what if someone doesn’t want to eat any bread or cookies or pasta, so what if they only want to eat vegetables and fear other foods. They should,  I thought. I did. Those foods are pointless calories. I knew that what I was doing was working for me and I had not reached the point yet where food was my enemy, it was just something I avoided or substituted in order to lose weight. 

“Don’t worry. I won’t get that bad.” I messaged her back. 

This is laughable to me now considering how much worse my life would get over the next year. Orthorexia was just the start of my problems. My gateway eating disorder if you will. I became so overly aware of the macronutrients in every piece of food I allowed into my body. No bread, no rice. No chips, no butter no cheese. Nothing that was high calorie and I could easily go without. This meant lots of vegetables. Lots of sliced cucumber and salad toppings I would get from the campus dining hall. I didn’t kid myself or try to look overly healthy and make myself a complete salad. Instead of wasting the mixed greens on my plate I decided to forgo my dread for the texture of raw spinach and just go straight for the few things I actually enjoyed. And, when I grew tired of the same flavor, I could douse whatever bland staples with vinegar for added zing. Food had gone from something that brought me lots of pleasure to something I was indifferent about. I was eating to live at this point instead of living to eat and for a couple months the routine meals I allowed myself to consume weren’t a trade off because I was achieving the thin frame that I had always dreamed of. It wasn’t until I was home for the summer that I would be pushed to realize the challenges of my new diet. 

Eating out became something I dreaded. I aimed to come home to make myself lunch after two hours at the gym because I knew exactly how many calories were in the bag of broccoli I would steam and serve with a 15 calorie tablespoon side of sriracha for flavor. I knew there was no oil or secret calories I couldn’t control, like in restaurants. I began to pass up social interactions with my friends from high school for fear of facing a menu that didn’t have a side of vegetables I could turn into an entree. 

Spending time with my boyfriend was my escape. Michael was the only person who didn’t bring attention to my thinning frame and the last person I wanted to talk to about my issues. He was my escape that summer and someone I was happy around. Partly because we spent more time at the beach or in bed than anything else and I felt tiny in his arms and was able to leave for the gym in the morning or come over after and avoid having to eat much around him. 

Still, I do remember being incredibly anxious when he would tell me about a restaurant he wanted us to go to. I spent two days before our date at K1 Speed racing researching my menu options for Lucille’s BBQ where we would be going to after. There wasn’t anything on the menu under 600 calories which was about as much as I would eat in a day. I figured if I got the salad without any of the toppings and just the vegetables I would be able to have a few pieces of tri tip. It would be pretty weird to go to a BBQ place and not have any BBQ after I told him I love BBQ. This was true, I used to love the biscuits and the pulled pork sandwiches and mac and cheese, but there was no way I could have any of that without completely freaking out which was something I avoided around Michael. Luckily there was a change of plans and I didn’t have to eat anything there. 

August 2013 Towards the end of summer, my sometimes purging turned into a real habit and I found myself in the bathroom more and more frequently. I knew I had to stop. I would be leaving for a two week trip to Hawaii with my mom and family and thought it would be a good time for me to get back on track with healthier eating and enjoy my new body somewhere where the dress code was no shirt, no shoes, no problem. Unfortunately, this was also when Michael would be going back to San Francisco for school and I dreaded not having him around after becoming so incredibly attached to him in a matter of months. He made me feel beautiful and relaxed regardless of how my body looked. The night I left to go home and pack I cried for hours. We agreed he would come back for Labor Day weekend when I returned and decided we would do long distance for the following school year. Knowing I still had him gave me some time to work on myself. 

Our first day in Hawaii I had a panic attack. The feeling of my legs pressing against one another as I lay in the bed on my side drove me crazy. Weeks before I could press my knees together while I was turned on my side and nothing touched. Now the feeling of my skin barely coming in contact was too much for me to bear. I broke down and my mom assured me that I just missed my boyfriend and it was a long flight and I hadn’t slept before. When I told her that I had really messed myself up and cried in the driveway of my grandparent’s house before going in to swim with my cousins, and my uncles drove up she looked over to intercept their concerned faces and said it was just boy stuff. I told her to tell the rest of my family hello but that I needed to go.

I spent the next couple of hours in the dinky gym by Mauna Lani Racquet Club trying to feel comfortable again. Standing in front of the mirror and seeing that my legs still had space between them as I pushed my ankles together and feeling the shoulder bone stick out at the top of my arm made me calm down, I could breath again. 

That trip, I realized I had become entirely out of touch with the way my body looked. I knew I was thin because of the double zero shorts that clung loosely around my waist but I felt like I was gaining weight exponentially since I had stopped counting calories. When my best friend joined me on the last week of the trip I told her how out of control I was feeling and she urged me to see a therapist when I got home. I ended up setting up a meeting with a nutritionist instead, having felt some relief by talking to her about what was going on. Yet after enjoying a week drinking and eating in the island sun, I made us spend the last three days of our trip on the military diet and later found out as soon as we split up at the airport that she rushed to get some food. 

September 2013 Getting back to school my sophomore year I was under 120 pounds and proudly wearing the crop tops and little shirts I had worked so hard to wear. I felt like school would keep me busy and I’d be okay again. I was living alone in Ocean Beach and had joined my favorite gym that summer in Point Loma. I made it a couple of weeks without having any binging or purging episodes and without counting my calories. But a late night spent doing homework quickly became me uncontrollably eating from my fridge or cupboard. Granola bars, chickpea blondies I had made to avoid eating real cookies, almond butter, anything I could eat. And I literally couldn’t stop until I was so full that my usually protruding ribs evened out with my bloating stomach. I’d make a note in  my journal writing in caps letters saying “remember how you feel right now, remember how thirsty you are and that you can’t lay down. Don’t do this again!!”

Then when I stepped on the scale again for the first time since being back at school and saw that I had actually gained several pounds I freaked out. I knew I was out of control but didn’t know what to do about it. I wrote myself a note, a plea. 

October 5, 2013 “im such a broken mess. i just want to stop and be normal again and happy. i should be happy so happy. i just want summer back. i don’t know who to talk to. no one can know. i don’t even want to know. what have i done to myself. i just want to stop. why did this happen and when will it end. what did i do. i can’t stop. tears are flooding my face and i can’t breathe i can’t stop thinking and want to stop so badly. can i get it back and if i do will it be better i just don’t know what to do anymore but i can’t keep doing what i do

and i love him so much it hurts. i’m so lucky to have im i just wish i could be happy and take the things away with the good but i can’t i’m trying but it’s so hard

i’m alone but happiest that way i just don’t know what i did to my mind

it hurts to look back and see me and see me so happy but still so messed up and i want to tell someone but i don’t want to lose my life im so stuck and i feel like they know and she just doesn’t want me not to be perfect and i don’t want to either i don’t want to disappoint everyone or for them to see me and know and know i’m weak and i’m a lie. maybe i just need a good cry and to get it out but it keeps getting back in and i think it is because i’m alone”

    Keeping my issues a secret from my boyfriend made things better and worse. I was able to be happy around him but worried at the idea of him knowing and thinking of me differently. In the years to come I would only bring things up a couple of times and referred to my skinniness as when I was obsessed with food, as if I was all better now. While he was incredibly supportive and said we could talk about it more I took my out and held my secret for another year. My mom was the only person I thought really needed to know and the person who would be able to help me. The next weekend after I wrote that when my mom came to visit me I told her I needed help. 

“It’s gotten really bad, I can’t stop making myself sick.” 

Sick, that’s what I called my horrific episodes of binging and purging. This weekend was the tail end of an entire week where I would eat uncontrollably in hopes to get all the junk food out of my apartment and spend an hour throwing up. The only problem was I would go to the store the next day, or out to dinner with a friend. I was compulsed to order the most unhealthy meals. I knew I should get a salad or just eat a normal meal but would order one or two entrees and bring leftovers home to binge on after my friend had left. I was feeling awful and really wanted to stop this. 

    I met with my trainer at the gym before my mom’s visit and said that I was incredibly full from all the food I ate and wouldn’t be able to workout as well. I could still feel the four limited  edition pumpkin english muffins bulging in my stomach even though I had thrown them all up before coming. When she asked me how much I ate, I lied and said a couple english muffins, but also oatmeal in the morning and a lot of peanut butter, which was true. 

“That’s good,” she told me. “You need to be eating that much for how long you’re working out.” 

I would usually run an hour on the treadmill before our hour weight and circuit sessions and then cool down with another twenty or more minutes on the elliptical. I knew that as long as I was at the gym I wouldn’t be home eating. 

I started to cry as my mom listened to me. She gave me a hug and said she knew. 

October 30, 2013 I remember walking into my meeting the first night. I was running late because the building address was confusing and I got a call from my therapist. “Just checking that you’re still coming” she joked on the other end. As if they get a lot of runaway patients. I was going because I wanted help, I assured her I was just struggling to find the office. I walked into a dim room settled in a business complex in Del Mar, San Diego with a few girls seated in the waiting area. There was a station with hot water and a variety of tea bags. I had learned that tea was a safe thing for girls like me to enjoy, no calories and it’s filling, plus you can pretend that it tastes like a sugar cookie or pumpkin pie when it really tastes like warm water with some savory combination of herbs. Two girls flipped through a holiday box of Celestial Seasons tea and pulled out the gingerbread cookie kind. I had the same box in my apartment. 

My therapist came out and extended her hand. She had frizzy and dull shoulder length brown hair and black cat-eye glasses on top of her makeup less face. I tried not to look at her body.  She walked me over to a room where she said she would be weighing me before our meetings. “Do we have to do this?” I asked. I had been avoiding the scale since my week long binge shot my weight up 10 pounds. I closed my eyes and stepped on. “It’s just something we do to keep you guys on track” she assured me. 

We walked over to her room and she asked me how I was. I smiled and said I was good. “Really?” She asked me, “you can tell me.” I started crying. I didn’t even know this lady and I was letting everything out within a few minutes. I felt like going to therapy, letting someone know I was in trouble and needed help was all that I needed to do to get better. That the initial effort was there and it would be easy for me to get normal after this. 

“When did this all start?” she asked me. 

I explained how I just wanted to get skinnier for summer. I did a week long juice cleanse and from then started counting my calories. When she asked how many I would eat a day, I lied and said 1200. I told her that while I was counting my calories I hardly made myself throw up because I knew what I was eating. The numbers told me if my day was good or not. My best days were when I physically burned more calories at the gym than I would eat.

She explained that I have a feeling that I need permission to eat food. Counting calories gave me permission, working out excessively and creating a deficit gave me permission, and once I started throwing up, that was my permission to eat uncontrollably because I would do something about it after. This all made sense to me. 

I told her that when I was at my lowest weight of 110 pounds is when I stopped counting my calories and that is when things really got messed up. I told her about the cleanses that I found, clean eating plans, which she pointed out again were my permission. She explained that our goal would be to allow me to eat when I was hungry, not over eat, and enjoy food like I used to. This sounded amazing, it was all I wanted. I really felt like it would work. I left the meeting feeling like I had a plan, she helped me download an app that would give me a way to check in with her about my meals, urges, concerns, etc. 

Unfortunately, in the next two weeks, all I could think about was my eating disorder. Every twenty minutes or so, the bird logo from the recovery app would pop up on my homescreen of my phone prompting me to log my breakfast and rate how hungry I was, how much I ate, how full I was after I ate, did I feel like throwing up after I ate? On a scale of 1-10 how badly did I want to throw up? How many times had I thought about my body today? How many times did I look in the mirror? I was overwhelmed and each time I filled out the survey my therapist would comment, that we would talk about it in our next meeting. According to the app, my eating disorder urges tripled in my first few weeks of therapy. Well no duh, I thought in my head as she explained my answers, you’re asking me about it all the time, I can’t get away from it. I started to get incredibly frustrated with her. She asked me about my relationships with my family. She was certain that this all started in some deeply rooted incident in my past. That I didn’t get the love or affection I needed. I remember feeling annoyed and embarrassed having to explain that my nicknames are “miss beautiful” or “princess boo” and that it was really just a diet that got out of hand. 

Instead of looking forward to meeting with her, I felt like she wasn’t even helping and that I had actually weaned myself off of my bad habits enough. As she told me about the intensive program she wanted me to enter over winter break I nodded along but couldn’t focus. I sat across from her on the beige couch and looked at her arms. They were bulging out of the black capped sleeve top that she wore and she folded her legs under her body. Part of me was so distracted at looking at her that I couldn’t even process what she was suggesting. I looked down and raised my legs up off the couch, touching my knees together to feel relief at the large gap that let me see the beige cloth below my thin thighs. I figured both of my legs were much smaller than one of my therapist’s. I got frustrated thinking about how she was trying to relate to me and tell me how to be healthy and happy while she carelessly ate an entire burrito from Chipotle and clearly didn’t care about the way that she looked. My 5th session in mid December ended up being my last. My mom and I decided against intensive treatment and I was looking forward to going home and seeing my family and boyfriend for 5 weeks without having to think about Dr. Amy. 

I ended up binging and purging my way through the holidays and planned to start working with a sports nutritionist on January 1st. I needed someone who would help me be skinny, not mess with my mind. He changed everything I thought I knew about food. I was told to eat over 1600 calories a day and be eating 5 times a day and more protein than I thought was possible to consume. The first week I lost several pounds and felt like I could stick with this. Unfortunately the next month to come I wasn’t losing anymore weight and was actually gaining it. I became incredibly frustrated that I was following his strict regime that limited my fruit intake to barely a piece a day and had nothing to show for it. I dropped out of that too and went back to my 5 day detox for two weeks before giving up on trying to eat healthy. 

Spring 2014 My weight fluctuated 10 pounds up and down for the rest of the semester and as the year mark from when all of this started on April 1, 2013 approached I actually ordered another ridiculously expensive week long juice cleanse because I decided I would start my process over again. I only made it through three days. My will wasn’t the same. I had been burned out and broken by this and wished more than anything I could just be normal about food again but I still wanted to be skinny like I was. I was plagued by my closet. The size zero shorts I had lived in the summer before grew tighter and tighter on me until I had to put them away for a later date, determined that I would again be smaller than the mannequin that modeled them in the store. The binging and purging caught up to me and my body gained weight. My mom wouldn’t believe me when I told her how I’d gain five pounds in a week, lose it again the next week and then be up another ten pounds the week after. Granted, most of this was water weight that my body retained as I put it through an endless cycle of binging on donuts, tortillas, cookies and muffins and then starving myself the next few days to even out what throwing up wouldn’t do. I would wake up with a swollen face and sore jaw feeling just as bad about myself as if I had gone to bed with the contents of my stomach still in tact so I slowly stopped throwing up as much. 

Summer 2014 I was uncomfortable in my body and felt like I needed to excuse the fact that I had gained weight when really it was what my body needed. I dreaded being back in my swimsuit even though I still weighed significantly less than I do now and after trying to count calories for a couple weeks in June without any weight loss and starting to throw up a few times, I just stopped. I decided that in order to deal with his I needed to give up. I would just try no more binging or purging or cleanses or restricting. I needed to eat what I wanted and workout only if I wanted to. I needed to enjoy summer and being with my boyfriend. We were going to Europe for 3 weeks and instead of fearing the amazing food and lack of a gym on the trip, I just let go. We ate cheese plates and fresh bread, drank wine and even though I was unhappy with my body I was happy not to be throwing up or torturing myself about food and I was just happy to be with him.  For a while this approach worked, I was fine until each of us went back to school and I stepped on the scale for the first time since June to see I had gained about 20 pounds. I was defeated and my loud sobs were heard through my bedroom door as my brother and his girlfriend came to see if I was okay. They were two people I had been open about my issues with since she told me she had been enduring the same torture since middle school. She assured me that once I was back at school I could get into a routine of eating better and be busy with class. This echoed my mom’s solution from the summer before. 

Fall 2014   I made it from the 4th of July until mid october without making myself throw up but in a weekend home for a birthday party I ate to the point that I really felt it would be best for me to get rid of everything so I could sleep that night. It would be a one time thing and I’d get back on track. The only problem was that as soon as I got my hair pulled back and shirt pulled over my body the familiarity of the routine came flooding back. Throwing up was an option for me again and something I kept doing every now and again.

I spent my fall and most of my spring semester still trying to lose weight. I was so angry at myself and tried to act that gaining weight was a good thing because it was what my body needed to do to be healthy again. Still I couldn’t help but feeling defeated. At least when my shoulder bones were sticking out of my arms and my legs didn’t touch I had something to show for the torture I was putting myself through. I realize now that I was so obsessed about my body at the time I didn’t even get to enjoy the perfect body I thought would have made me so happy and now I wanted that look back. I hid my habits and my thoughts even more. On the surface I looked normal again, like I must have been passed everything. The interesting thing about recovering from an eating disorder is that once you gain the weight back and don’t look obviously anorexic, people think you are doing much better, but it was my time of trying to stop and giving up and falling back into old habits that I was doing the worst. Certainly not as bad as the fall of my sophomore year but another year had passed and I was still dealing with the same problem. And, just like clockwork, as Spring approached with the start of lent I decided I would try to diet again. 

Spring 2015 My boyfriend and I were going to a wedding in France at the beginning of May and I was faced with another spring semester marking two years since I got into this mess. I had over 80 days till the wedding which was more than enough time to be the stick that I once was. I thought if I followed my same plan I could do it again. And sure enough I went ahead and did a juice cleanse. I decided to make it myself and put the $300 dollar juicer I bought in September to use. I woke up early to blend pounds of kale and collard greens, ordered vegan protein powder and even found the recipe for beet soup. 7 days passed and I lost around 8 pounds, I was ready to keep going. I decided not to count calories like before but to try intuitive eating, something I had read about in the dozens of books I bought trying to cure myself over the years. Within a week I had gained a few pounds back and started to eat like crap again knowing that I still had around 70 days to get skinny. I started and stopped dieting a couple more times in the next month before I realized I was wasting my time.  

I wasn’t happy trying to diet and was so over making myself feel awful if I ate something I wanted. When I really wanted to be skinny there wasn’t an excuse for me, I just ate what I should, I worked out and I didn’t dwell on it. I knew something was different. Now, I realize it’s because I didn’t want to be skinny, what I wanted was to be over my eating disorder. I ultimately resolved to waiting a couple weeks before the wedding to trim down but with the stress of working ahead on assignments to miss class the last week of April, I started to eat uncontrollably again and continue to throw up.  I just wasn’t getting upset at myself because I told myself this was the last time I would be doing it. I packed up for the wedding, folding the floral silk skirt with a slit up the side and the matching off the shoulder blouse into my bag. I had envisioned a very different body wearing it that weekend but it fit me well and I was more excited to see my boyfriend and enjoy the trip than what I would be wearing. 

May 3, 2015 The next two days of our trip in France came and went. We flew back to San Francisco and ordered curry bowls for take out from a place called Volcano. We finished eating and I walked in the bathroom and lifted up my shirt out of habit from when I would admire my ribs and abs. I realized I wasn’t skinny, or not skinny, and it didn’t matter. I sat back on the couch and kissed my boyfriend and I realized how far I had come since we started dating. I had changed and challenged myself and realized I was just  ready to be normal again.

 I still had him and every good part of my life I had when I was skinny so why was I doing this and why was I worrying so much about how I looked. I got back to San Diego the next day and threw out the junk food I bought before the trip. I moved out of my apartment and into the place where I currently live, which, with much relief I can say is the only place I have lived in San Diego that I haven’t made myself throw up in. I finished my finals and got ready for summer and flew up to see my boyfriend graduate not having worried about what I had eaten or how I looked.

Summer 2015 I let go that summer but not in the way I did the summer before. I enjoyed cooking with my boyfriend and going out to lunch again with my mom. I realized that when being skinny was my top priority it came before everything else but now being happy was all I wanted and being skinny didn’t bring that. I remember for two years wishing that I could just go back to the person I was before I knew how many calories were in an apple or bowl of pasta. Before I knew that sticking my fingers down my throat and ridiculing my boney and then normal and then larger frame in the mirror would become something I thought was okay. I wished I could go back. But now I realize I am stronger for what I put myself through and was able to pull myself out of. 

My senior year of college I began to feel a lot more like the girl I was when I started school my freshman year. The girl that didn’t think she could have a stick thin body and was okay with it. Weeks turned into months and with time I felt happy about my body again, or at least not constantly bothered by it. I’d feel relief at the sight of cookie dough in my fridge or a jar of peanut butter in my cupboard that I could eat if I wanted and hadn’t binged on. I never thought I would be able to do that again. 

Spring 2016 It will be April in a few weeks but instead of  dreading the anniversary of when I started to become skinny, I am looking forward to having made it almost a year without any problems. I can look over my journey and think about the conversations I had to have with Michael and my mom and how I have overcome some of my obstacles.  Still, I would be lying if I said I didn’t have any body image issues or think about the way I used to look because sometimes I do miss how I looked or even think about trying to do it again, but then I remember I am happy and how I don’t miss the battle. I have learned balance with my body and to enjoy without going overboard and to eat healthy, or not, and to just let my body find its natural shape again without stressing too much about getting there. By being happy and more conscious of my food and body I am slowly losing weight and weigh less than I have in over a year when I was constantly trying and failing to do so. And that’s great but it’s not all that matters.