The Leader
Opinion

From the Desk of Claire O’Reilly, Editor in Chief

 

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.

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