Anorexia first grabbed my heart in fifth grade as I sat on the blue swings of my elementary school’s playground and wrapped the rusted iron chains around my wrists. My friends had been comparing our weights and, as a tall fifth-grader, they said I weighed too much. My ten-year-old cheeks burned with embarrassment and I bit the left corner of my tongue until it bled.
In sixth grade, I tried to cut off the squishy part of my stomach with kitchen scissors. I knelt in the corner of my kitchen with tears streaming down my face and my knuckles turning red from the trembling of my hands against the steel.
In the first few weeks of my senior year of high school, a friend said that my arms looked slimmer. I smiled, genuinely, for the first time in a while, and finally tried to believe that I was beautiful. No, you’re not enough. You never will be. This compliment sparked weeks, then months, of rice cakes for breakfast, my lunch ending up in the cafeteria trash cash, and my dinner floating in the stream by my house.
My eating disorder found a home in an innocent eight-year-old; it still hasn’t loosened its grip on me. Anorexia has been a toxic best friend to me for far too long. I hugged her when I cried and reached for her when I was alone, heard her voice as I poked protruding collar bones and squeezed into middle-school jeans as a college sophomore. I smile, but only through the foggy glasses my eating disorder allows. I laugh, but only if my stomach is empty. And I’m terrified of letting anorexia go.
…
Almost one year ago I cried over a banana as my boyfriend waited for me in bed. I spent the entire following day trying to “make up” for the extra night-time carbs. I’ve missed bagels with my sister and mom because I was too scared. I’ve spent the longer part of my life worrying about what people will say if I ask for creamer in my coffee or buy a jean size larger than that of last spring.
But I don’t want to be a size XS any longer. I want my old prom dress to rip at the seams when I try it on. I want my rib tattoo to crease and fold, proof of a life filled with change and worn by scars. So this is the year I start ordering the almond croissant for breakfast and wearing the outfit which might show my bloating and saying yes to sushi dates and going back for seconds of pudding in the dining hall.
This is not to say that I still don’t feel the pressure in my head, a pounding voice telling me to skip dinner and stay in bed under the covers and say “sorry, I already ate.” The memories from the eating disorder ward of Connecticut Children’s Hospital haunt me in my sleep; the blood tests and weight-checks and psych evaluations are reminders of why anorexia can no longer be a friend. Or perhaps she never was. I think she felt safe because she made me feel in control. But I don’t want control if it feels like crying myself to sleep and being terrified of peanut butter and missing dinners with the people I love.
I have lived in hell for the past three years. But I’m finally starting to see glimpses of life. My older sister constantly believes in me and my parents support me through every breakdown. My boyfriend tells me I will always be the most beautiful girl in the world and my friends promise to always make me laugh. God preaches that I am worthy despite my sins and I’m starting to feel strong instead of skinny.
I choose recovery, but it’s not easy. But I would much rather choose this hard than the hard of still being sick. I sometimes miss my sick body; I don’t and never will miss my sick life. To anyone struggling with an eating disorder, just know that I am not special. I am not the only person who does not regret recovery. It has been the hardest thing I’ve ever done—fighting against the compulsive thoughts, wailing before and after meals, and gaining back the trust I had lost—but I still choose recovery.
If I can do it, if the fifth-grader who was told she was too big can do it, so can you. One bite at a time.
