#sixyearsclean

[perksofbeingasinner]

I want to share my experience about something I don’t talk about often. I’m going to add a warning as well because I don’t want anyone to be upset or triggered by my words because that is never my intention. I have had many addictions over the years. Some are easier to talk about than others, and some have been easier for me to overcome than others. Six years ago, I was coming off of heavy medication. One of the side effects of this medication was weight gain and at my highest weight I was around 170 pounds.

I hated my body and I was bullied for being “fat”. I had friends who were thin that I compared myself to, I had family members giving me bullshit and snide “weight loss tips” and honestly I was done with hating my reflection once I was finally able to register it with my newly unfogged mind. For Christmas of 2013 I was given a tablet and one of my favorite apps at that time was Tumblr. I dove deep into the rabbit hole of “thinspo” blogs and “ProAna” hashtags and became “inspired” to lose weight the “quick and easy way”..

Now, I joke about my eating disorder sometimes. I say things like “you know, one day I woke up and said, ‘fuck I’m hungry’ and never deprived myself again.” but when push comes to shove eating disorders are not a laughing matter by any means. I can live without drugs and my other reckless behaviors, but I can’t live without food. At least 30 million people, of all ages suffer from an eating disorder in the US. It has the highest mortality rate of any mental illness. One person dies every 62 seconds as a direct result of an eating disorder. It’s a silent and slow killer, and there are times it isn’t easy to spot. Today, if I mention my history of disordered eating and addiction to diet pills, my family and friends say that they had no idea it was something I’d ever struggled with. I harmed my body in small, but very significant ways. I had put myself in danger using behaviors that to the average person would be deemed healthy. When I ate, it was nothing but salads or healthy food. I would do hundreds of sit-ups before I went to sleep and often times was commended by my parents for “doing so well with working out”. I remember being on vacation after I had lost about 40 pounds and putting on a bikini for the first time. Everyone had something positive to say about me getting myself in shape.

But behind closed doors there was an entirely different picture and mindset I was in that had brought an immense amount of self hatred and unrealistic, dangerous expectations I brought on myself. If I ate anything that wasn’t green, I had my head over a toilet for the rest of the night. I had pages of my journal scribbled in on the bus ride home expressing how scared I was to run out of diet pills because if I ate too much I wouldn’t know what to do. My back and hips were constantly sore because I would be up until 3 am doing sit ups until I physically couldn’t anymore. Every time I looked in the mirror I saw myself at my highest weight and knew I could never be like the girls I saw online no matter how hard I tried. I have looked back at some of my journals from that time and they genuinely scare me. The drawings, the poems, the “thinspirational” quotes and rules I forced myself to live by are absolutely terrifying.

I am beyond lucky that this demon is not one that I struggled with for a longer period of time, because I have seen the path of my own self destruction in many lights, and I am glad I had the willingness to overcome what could have been a lethal one. There are times I recognize my eating disorder popping its ugly head into my life. A lot of times when I eat I need to be watching something on my phone or have some sort of distraction. To this day I can’t step onto a scale and see the result for myself. I can’t wrap my fingers around my wrist or look at blogs that might get those gears in my head turning. Exercising, in any form, is a big trigger for me as well because I don’t know how to stop.

I recognize these things and I understand them. This year I will have 6 years clean from my eating disorder. I genuinely can’t sit here and say I’m happy with my body today, but I am glad that I have the RESPECT for my body that I do to give it the nourishment I need and not dwell on my size. If anyone is struggling with a eating disorder, there is help and there is hope. You can overcome this demon and just know that you are BEAUTIFUL the way that you are.