I’m sitting at my kitchen table in Eisenhower 208B, my head is pounding and my stomach is so empty that I am in physical pain. My energy level is at zero, and I’m staring at a plate of chocolate cupcakes smothered in chocolate frosting.
After five minutes, I cave and reach for one, swallowing both the cupcake and my guilt.
This situation, unfortunately, was not a rare occurrence for me during the spring of my sophomore year in 2016. I frequently severely limited my calorie intake and I made many attempts to go a day or two without eating. I stopped going grocery shopping and tried to live on as little as possible for as long as possible. I rarely succeeded, almost always giving in.
I was in a constant battle with myself, wanting so desperately to lose weight and stay away from food, but also understanding that not eating was impossible and extremely unhealthy.
Body image and self-esteem is something that I have continuously struggled with over the years. When I was a gymnast, I constantly worried about whether or not my legs looked fat in my leotards. I found that I worried about the same things when I began to competitively swim. I was only nine years old. These negative feelings about myself followed me through both middle school and high school, but deeply worsened once I got to Fredonia.
The year of the chocolate cupcake episode, I realized I had a problem. I hit the worst mental health rough patch of my life, and my weight became a source of deep anxiety. I found even just walking around campus to be tasking, and I would beat myself up with negative thought after negative thought all the way to class. A voice inside my head whispering “you look fat” over and over again never went away. I wanted to be invisible.
I secretly started to hate going out. I worried about what I was going to wear for hours before anyone was even thinking about getting ready. I never liked a single outfit that I tried on, but the thought of trying on my friends’ clothes and having them not fit was too mortifying to even imagine.
I stopped eating before drinking alcohol because I was terrified of the extra calories. Obviously, this led to getting too drunk too quickly and waking up with many poor decisions to deal with, creating even more anxiety.
I was so miserable and I never talked about it. I didn’t think I was allowed to say that I had a problem because I felt that I wasn’t skinny enough to have an eating disorder.
During that semester, I made the decision to study abroad. This turned out to be the greatest decision of my life because I came back an entirely new person. I learned a lot about myself, and my weight stopped being the source of my unhappiness. I gained newfound confidence and started to love the person that I am.
I still have bad days, as everyone does. The nagging “you’re not enough” voice still comes back, but I am now able to shut it up and focus on positives. I know that I am not “not enough,” I am more than enough.
If you personally suffer from an eating disorder, help can be found at nedawareness.org.