-Welcome to My Life- Battling With Myself-

Welcome…

Growing up I idolized the Disney classic Snow White, though I often wondered what my own mirror stated about me. I understood, growing up, that I was not the fairest of them all but I possessed an internal beauty that I only realized until it was too late. Battling crippling clinical depression in my adolescent years I went from an average weight of 140lb by fourteen years of age to a staggering 210lb by my sophomore year. Devastated I denied and shunned myself from society, including abolishing looking at mirrors and refusing to see the truth that the camera failed to hide. It was one Christmas that I will never forget, my frozen smile as I posed for a family gathering, I didn’t realize the implication that my emotional eating did to my starving soul. As I was later told by my doctors, I was mere pounds away from obtaining type II Diabetes and a life of medication regiments unless something drastically changed.

Facing the awful truth was disconcerting, I left school and independently studied from home where I developed agoraphobia and a severe social anxiety. Though I knew I had to eventually face returning to the brick and mortar building to properly graduate I used that summer to jump start my life style change. My goal- to reach 135lb before entering college.

Working in the fields as a temporary summer diet program helped fuel my motivation. Upon entering my junior year I lost weight but it wasn’t enough. Teases and taunts from the students left me in a crippling state and I tried to commit suicide by overdosing (this would be the third attempt). Angry at myself I vowed to stop all medication before I was eighteen, going cold turkey against medical advice was the best decision I made for my health.

On the day I left my parent’s home for the first time, to enter college I weighed exactly 135.

Shortly after this however I developed an eating disorder. By restricting my caloric intake to 1,200 calories a day I became exhausted and weakened. My stomach growled constantly and although I ate small meals continuously I lost another 11 pounds in 3 weeks’ time.

Going home for Thanksgiving that November in 2009 I remember sitting at the table and refusing to touch much of my meal. After everyone went to bed however I gorged myself, only to throw up outside later that night. Utilizing a marker to trigger my gagging reflex. By the time I turned 19, I was a binge eater who was also bulimic and at my lowest weight I was 105 lbs. My use and abuse of laxatives and diuretics further harmed my system and I developed massive hair loss, fatigue, protein deficiency, had frequent fainting spells, skin rashes, my menstrual cycle had stopped and I obtained blisters from my skin breaking down. I truly felt that I was going to die, all in hopes that for once I would be pretty and skinny.

When I was told by my physician that I needed to quickly gain weight I again gorged myself on food and soon weighed 126, but I felt again that I was too fat, so I lost another 10 pounds where I plateaued for quite a period of time until I met my boyfriend.

Traveling often with him, we ate fast food and sat at restaurants quite commonly and I gained twenty pounds. Happy for the first time since 9th grade I wasn’t overly concerned and was proud that I found someone who thought I was beautiful just the way I was. Shortly after this period of time, while we were away in Texas I discovered that I was pregnant and by the end of my pregnancy I weighed 184lbs (August 31, 2012). My body had rapidly shifted and after the birth of my son I was again so disgusted with myself that I, again, developed an eating disorder however on top of this I also choose to undergo plastic surgery (February 2013) to aid in the process.

While I tried to lose weight the healthy way my eating disorder seemed to overwhelm my life, to the point that I was hiding my disease from my fiancé at that time, and shied myself from social interactions. Though I eventually disclosed this with him he simply then enabled me by ignoring the fact that I was emotionally ridding myself of all the food I previously would consume. In doing so I have lost severe amounts of enamel and have grinded my teeth down to bare resemblances. I am only 22.

Today I am on anti-anxiety medications to combat my, at times, crippling fears and although I joined at gym to get on track with my health though I still feel ashamed about my relationship with food. My body is marked by my history of weight, loose skin and stretch marks, scars that will never fade. I also feel monetary loss at the amount of money I spent on food. Food that was utterly wasted as well as the amount of money spent on clothes and pills to just further enable my addiction to being “thin”.

When I look in the mirror today, I still see who I was, a heavy girl who hated her body with a passion. The terms fat reconcile with me now as my self-esteem had been greatly affected. I am simply a shadow, a by-product of my own misery. Since the birth of my son I have lost 65 pounds and feel heavier than ever before, though this residual effect resides within my heart…