TRIGGER WARNING: this discusses my very personal experience with an eating disorder. I know I would have a hard time reading this if I hadn’t written it. Take care. 

I was thirteen years old. It was the summer before eight grade.  I was anorexic.  I had gotten my period when I was twelve, and hid it from my step mother for months before eventually losing it entirely. I remember I would only allow myself two tiny cups of chocolate – flavored slim fast powder in skim milk, and then pretend to eat dinner. I remember cutting up hot dogs into tiny cubes and never taking a bite because I was already full.  I remember walking home from summer school.  I didn’t eat before I left for a three hour class, and then I walked a mile home, and continued to not eat, unless it was slimfast time. I remember putting weights (well, technically, locker locks, two of them) in my shorts when my dad made me step on the scale, so that I could prove I was getting better. I only did it so that I could get that season four buffy DVD.  I remember starving myself and liking the way my stomach yelled, the way it became concave. I remember being proud of the hunger.  I remember spitting food into napkins, into the sink, trying so hard to make myself vomit. I never knew how back then, but have since gained that ability. I remember lying to my psychiatrist, telling her I just wanted to “be healthier”, putting on a smile, an act, as if it were a play and not my life. And I remember her believing me. I remember watching a video of my musical camp performance and hearing my step mother whisper, just loud enough to get into the audio, that “she’s so skinny. She looks sick”. I remember feeling good that she finally noticed. I remember falling asleep on the couch downstairs, and peeing myself awake because I was so weak. I remember my father on the phone with a doctor, getting ready to check me into inpatient. I remember him finding my charts, detailing the cereal to milk ratio I was allowed in a bowl.  I remember trying to eat again, but getting sick because my stomach could no longer handle a normal meal. I remember my step mother hugging me before going to work, after I asked for a bowl of ice cream. I remember the empty feeling of seeing her worry over my step brother, him never eating enough, and ignoring me. I am certain that I needed her attention, her love and worry, and that this started because I was already starved of something more intangible than food.  I remember becoming a vegetarian after seeing food inc. I remember making lunches, and putting deli sandwiches into bags, and then doing a double take and leaving my sandwich out, because I wanted to go a month without eating meat. Two months. A Year. Six years. I remember staying a vegetarian because I needed to control. I remember dreaming about chicken and feeling guilty. I remember breaking my pledge willingly, just about one year ago. I remember my fingers shaking, every time the teacher mentioned eating disorders in a psych or health class. I remember my writing becoming squiggles because I could no longer hold a pen. I remember being a healthy weight. I remember ballooning up because of birth control and poor choices. I remember vomiting my food up a few weeks ago so that my stomach could settle. I remember that it was not the first time. I remember negotiating meals so that I wouldn’t feel bad eating with my boyfriend. I remember loving food but hating my body. I remember to cover my stomach with something when I sit down. I remember to hold my gut in. I remember to take pictures at a certain angel so you can’t see my fat.

I don’t remember when the Anorexia Nervosa stopped. But I also don’t remember getting better.