Over 10 years ago – I struggled with an eating disorder. It was one of the most challenging experiences of my life. I vividly remember some of the lowest lows of my experience: the foggy brain that was starving for fuel; the fights with my family members when they would buy the wrong food or express their concerns for me; the obsession with weight checking and finding ways to manipulate my food. What started with just a few bouts of dieting and restrictive eating—-eventually lead to a full-blown eating disorder. Nothing traumatic happened in my life that led me to an eating disorder– unless perhaps you consider the environment we live in a tragedy for all young girls? My Type A, perfectionist personality, which helps me excel in many areas of my life- wasn’t exactly helpful for the young, slightly overweight me. See, I was an overweight child. When I started to hit my adolescent years, I felt like I was different than the rest of my peers. Magazines constantly talking about dieting to lose weight, thin models covering the front of every piece of literature I could find. I was growing up in the 1990’s when yo-yo dieting was normal, and thin was in.

I grew up learning to hate my body because it didn’t look pretty like the images I saw on TV, in movies, or plastered all over magazines. Years and years of telling myself I wasn’t ENOUGH, I wasn’t pretty enough, thin enough, therefore I wasn’t valuable enough… eventually led to one of the darkest lows of my life. I felt like I was trapped in a huge dark hole in the earth. I hated it. I was miserable, but I was stuck. I was stuck telling myself lies and seeing the earth from a false perspective. When I looked at myself in the mirror, I saw myself 3-5 times larger than I actually was! Looking back at pictures of myself during that time is so heartbreaking for me. I look at that girl and know that she was miserable. Absolutely miserable. She hated herself. She called herself fat all the time. She lived life constantly beating herself up— never telling herself the truth. She spent years feeling miserable about her body and falsely accusing it, abusing it, and beating myself up over it—when it was just weak and starving for life and for the truth.  

I eventually woke-up from this crazy nightmare. I will never forget the day I finally cried to my mom telling her I needed help. It was a long road towards the top of that dark hole, but I’ve had some many amazing people and experiences along the way that have shaped me, encouraged me, and gave me the strength to preserve and keep on fighting. I am forever grateful for the people that stood by my side—- I wouldn’t be where I am today without them.