Life Is All About Risks, How I took a Risk With Anorexia

Life Is All About Risks

I've never wrote about my experience with anorexia, but here goes. First of all I was 13 when all this starting taking its form. But here’s the beginning.

I’ve always had issues with how I look, my image of myself. Ever sense I was a little kid, I’d say around 1st grade or so. I thought I was ugly with my big round glasses and abnormally tall height for my age, not to mention my roundish body. I was always self-conscious about the way I looked. People would make fun of me. I hated myself and the way I looked. All I wanted was to be like everyone else.

My attitude changed from pity for myself, to me taking a stand and making myself look the way I wanted to look the summer before my first year in middle school. Every day that summer my brother and I would wake up early in the morning and ride our bikes for miles. I still participated in the summer softball league and I changed my eating habits as well.

By the time school started I felt really good about myself, or better at least. I felt people saw me differently and I felt more acccepted. It was still too early to do sports for the school because it was only offered to the 7th and 8th grades, so I did theatre. School went on and by the time 6th grade was done I gained some weight.

The next summer was the summer where my brother moved away to go to college far away and my dad got laid off. That put a lot of stress on the family. My dad was drinking himself drunk every day and my mom already had her own drinking problems and meanwhile my brother was away at college away from all this. I was stuck all by myself and my thoughts. That summer SUCKED, and it was really dull and boring.

Seventh grade came and I realized that I had gained weight again. I felt very depressed. I just wanted to disappear. I decided to take advantage of all the sports I could that year since I was finally able. So I joined volleyball. I loved volleyball. I felt I was good at it because of my height. My diet was getting stricter. Then came basketball. I didn't like it as much because I sucked at shooting hoops and running but my height was an advantage once again. I wore myself out by the time I got to soccer. I worked so hard to try to be the best at all my sports. Plus trying to fit in a school play, and student council. I had my hands full.

I was a straight A student. I started falling asleep in my classes that even my teachers noticed. People slowly started noticing my new self. Even though I didn’t see how thin I had gotten, others including my friends sure did.

During that year, coming home every day and seeing my parents struggling to keep up with their everyday lives. Bills, food, everything was scarce. We were afraid we might have to move. My dad was going to go back to college so that he could look for another job. I felt the need to want to help them since they are my family.

I felt bad and started feeling depressed again. I felt that my life was going in a downward spiral mode. All the life that used to be in me was now replaced by a critical being who was in a nightmare, a certain trance it seemed.

By the last day of school all my clothes barley fit, even though they were a size 0. My friends seemed worried but I just ignored them. I mean, what do they know, right? I’m the one in control of my life, they don’t know anything. Control was the key. If I could control one thing in my life I was happy. I did NOT have a chose. It was anorexia.

Summer was bad. I had nothing but my softball to keep my mind occupied. Which was bad because all I ended up doing was focusing on bettering myself because that’s what I knew I could control. Every morning I would get up and do my daily MORNING exercises. My parents pestered me about eating so I had breakfast, lunch, dinner. If that’s what you could of called it. It was scary for me to eat. I always felt out of control when it came to eating. Plus, I couldn't eat much because my stomach was so shrunk that any little bit of food filled me up. Then of course I would feel fat and so on.

I had gained this phobia where I was scared that if I sat down for like more than a minute or something the fat would somehow come back and go to my thighs or something. Yes, it was stupid but that is what people think and do when they've had this disease, they do really stupid things.

When I would get bored I would walk in my room, stand in front of my big mirror and analyze. That was my favorite thing to do. Other than exercising of course. That’s also what I would do when I got bored, exercise.

I would go through endless magazines and compare, compare, COMPARE. I would look at celebrities and then myself and of course they would look better than me so what did I do? Yes, exercise, starve and cry. That’s something I would do ALOT. Cry. Just cry until I couldn't cry anymore. And since I had the phobia of sitting I would stand and cry. I even had a special spot in my backyard where I would lean agenst the fence around my pool. I would stand there for EVER and just cry until either mom or dad would come out.

I would also read standing up. I decided to try to finish reading the Harry Potter books that summer. I would have softball practice too. If I did something wrong or thought I wasn't fast enough or doing something right it would tear me apart inside. I felt like a failure. I tend to take things really hard. And I was trying to defend my standing position as first base. So, it was on.

Every night I would come home exhausted. And I would be yelled at to eat dinner and I would just sit at the dinner table for EVER until I ate something. Then, I cried about it because I felt out of control once again. I kept thinking they wanted to make me fat or something stupid like that.

My parents got worried enough that they took me to see my doctor. He said that I needed to gain weight because it was dangerously low. Of course I didn’t believe him. So, he told me to start eating more and next time I come back that I should weight such and such more. I was also told to go see a counselor for some reason. That, I felt sort of embarrassed because I didn’t think I needed one plus it was a waste of time and money. But whatever.

I went ONCE to the lady and she said I needed help and that if she were the doctor that she would admit me right away. I started crying even though I didn’t really know why. She was so not on my side so I left pissed off at the whole thing.

At home, I was being monitored by mom and dad. They too me back to the doctor. I had lost more weight and was warned that if I didn’t gain some weight that I would be admitted to a hospital. By this time I was in denial. I didn’t believe my parents would send me away like that, let alone that they didn’t have enough money to do so anyway.

One day after practice I came home to mom and dad talking on the phone writing stuff done. I knew it was about me so I went to my room. I was scared. I didn’t know what they were saying or anything. I knew they were talking to my doctor though. A little while later, I walk outside into our backyard where my parents were. They told me to go pack my bags. I’m like huh... they told me I’m going to the hospital because they want me to get better. I was outraged! But I had no choice. It was done. It was almost a relief to get out of there actually. But I was afraid of the unknown of treatment.

It was a dark, rainy, summer morning in July. We were in the car driving to some unknown destination. I had no idea how far I was going. Our first stop was not at this hospital, it was somewhat miles away from where I was really staying. We got in there, they weighed me, then next thing I knew I was laying on a hospital bed with a I.V stuck in my arm. A nurse, my mom and dad were at my bed side, I was wondering when the hell did this happen. But, I had to get better right!

The hospital made sure I was healthy enough to go to the real hospital where I was going. Which only took an hour or two. It didn’t look like a hospital but it had different wards in it. It was more like a campus. So, now I was really feeling scared and nervous. I kept trying to convince them that I’d try harder that I didn’t need to be here, but it was too late. We walked up the stairs and in the doors with the sign above them that read "inpatient" who knew I wouldn't leave those doors for another month.

We met this lady, we talked about why I was there. I was given a lunch bag for me to eat, and I didn’t eat it. I see a different guy and another person. Basically, slowly meeting everyone who will be helping me.

I get to my room down the hall finally. The door has one window on it, one window looking outside to the roof, one bed, one dresser, one chair, one bathroom, and all white walls. Cheery. I said my goodbyes and that was the start of my treatment.

I’m not going to go into details but let’s just say I’ve had pretty much a life time of seeing what I saw. And no matter what I made it a goal NEVER to get another feeding tube. First of all it just grossed me out, second of all it looks stupid and I would be embarrassed to have one.

I eventually moved into a double room, met new people, saw people leave, saw new people come. Went outside a few times. Like twice I think. I really felt like I grew up from this expeirience. It scared me for life. I have made friends from there but chose not to get too close just because I knew I would never see them again and who knew how long they were going to live anyway. But I did get to know some of them.

To this day I have no idea what happended to them, but that’s ok I don't need to worry. I learned a lot and eventually gained enough to leave. Even though they wanted me to join the 6th month program and live there in dorms in a private separate place just for other adolescent eating disorder girls. I refused their offer. Instead I had to join an outpatient program for a while at a different place.

This went on even when school started. I had to leave school early to go there, which pissed me off because I missed my friends and I couldn’t do sports yet. But my grades were good.

We couldn’t afford the program, so it lasted another month. I went to the local hospital to see a counselor every now and then. Then that too ran out. My mom thought I was okay even though I was a little unsure of myself but oh well. Not my choice again.

I did soccer and basketball that year, gained weight, struggled for a while again. But I was okay. I was still hanging in there. I was healthy and happy and I was thin, just not skeleton thin anymore. Even my doctor said I could still gain more weight if I wanted and I would be fine. HA, okay. But I was fine indeed where I was.

I was still critical of my diet and exercise, but I was able to sit again and get my mind off that stuff. I was happy again and had my life back on track.

My dad found a job and my mom and dad stopped drinking as much and they're marriage was stable. I thought they were going to get a divorce because of all the fighting.

I entered high school starting off with volleyball and just was living my life again. Now, I had new distractions, school, friends, and boys to worry about instead of eating and my weight. The truth is, when you worry about your weight and you have doubts about it and you start to think maybe you could lose a few pounds or something, that’s what you will attract.

If you think, Oh yeah my body is looking too fine and I am healthy and happy and living it up and I can eat anything I want and I will not gain a pound! Then that’s what you will attract and it will be. Trust me it works, it’s called the law of attraction, look it up.

In conclusion, I have struggled even when I was finished with treatment, yes I have been really close to relapsing MANY times, but... please, just keep the faith, and know that you can make your life anything you want it to be just by believing in it. Unwavering faith. It works. I’ve done it, it works. I try not to live in the past, I live for the present and I don’t linger in the future. Love life to its fullest. Life is all about risks.

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