Week 6: Memoir: To Eat or Not to Eat

To Eat or Not to Eat

I'm not going to lie to you.  Having an eating disorder during high school felt really nice until I passed
out at cheer practice and my parents wouldn't let me get up from the kitchen table until I ate way
too many chicken wings. You may now be thinking, "how could not eating and being sick be 'nice'?"  
Okay, well maybe having a disorder wasn't "nice" per say, but the things that came along with it
WERE nice. The feeling of being empty, like when you wake up and your stomach is what they
call "morning skinny" but it lasts all day long. Or when you stand up too fast and you get a little
dizzy, I had that all day long and THAT was nice.  Because I knew I was doing something right.
Not eating. Honestly, even fainting made me a little bit happy. Just not the part where people found
out, because the one thing I had control over in my life was now infiltrated by people that cared about
making sure I was okay and as great as that should have sounded to me, it made everything hard.  

You might think that my parents should have been able to tell that I was sick considering most
high school sophomores live with their parents.  Some may think "they should have noticed when
she wasn't eating" because "there should have been some signs." But you see, when you're
overweight there is no proof that you're sick because anorexic girls are not fat... right?  So when
all I would eat for dinner was lettuce and a tablespoon of balsamic vinegar my mom would say
"honey you're going to get a headache if you don't eat more than that" and then a few days later
say "wow you're starting to look skinnier" and never put two and two together because everyone
knows that anorexic girls are not fat girls.  I knew all the tricks too. Take the piece of chicken and
make it obvious you've taken a few bites, then cut the rest into really small pieces so it looks
like its been eaten then say "wow I can't believe I got so full so fast mom why does this always
happen when the food is sooo good!?!?!" Oh, and my personal favorite was to make my lunch
for school the night before so nobody would know that the lunch bag I put into my backpack
the next day was actually empty.  

Passing out at cheer practice was not the end of the pain and struggles but it was definitely the
beginning of a new journey that would completely change me as a woman.  I don't need to
bore you with the details of why I decided to stop eating in the first place, but when you hate who
you are as much as I did at 15 it is easy to not eat because eating only made me hate myself more
and that feeling was worse than hunger.

The doctors started out by telling my parents to let me eat anything and everything I wanted.
 If I had told my parents I wanted a pizza at 3am they would have done everything in their power
to get their hands on a pizza for me because they were so terrified.  I did not actually make them do
that. But I did scare the hell out of them because of what I had become right before their eyes.
So it started off with me eating a little bit more than before because my mindset was that since I
was so skinny now, eating when I had to because I was in front of them was not too bad.  The rest
of the time I spent at school or with friends I didn't actually have to eat. My parents didn't know that
I would give my lunch to my friends. Most high school students don't turn down free snacks.
Breakfast was always easy. Just eat a handful of grapes and a dry piece of toast and your parents
will be too busy getting the younger kids ready for school and themselves ready for work to notice.
 Dinner was not as simple but I would eat what I had to and then do sit ups alone in my room for the
rest of the night. Netflix and sit-ups I guess I could have called it. But I think by now you know I
don't stay unhealthy like this forever. I am one of the lucky ones.

I was introduced to veganism while I was looking up youtube videos on "lunches to bring to work
for weight loss."  One of the main ideas of veganism is that you can eat in abundance and it would
never leave you feeling gross and heavy and boy oh boy was that appealing to me.  It only took a
few days for me to notice that it felt a lot better to eat steamed veggies and rice while my family was
eating something "unhealthy" around me than it did to not eat at all.  Ordering a smoothie when my
friends ordered milkshakes left me feeling a lot more in charge of my life than not ordering with them
at all ever did, and yeah yeah it was all superficial and in my head... but it worked.  

Veganism helped my body come to the weight it needs to be in order to properly function.  My
body gives me signals in ways it never did before. As long as I fill it with things that benefit it, it works
with me and never ever against me.  Veganism might not be for everyone and that's okay but man,
did it save my life and lead me to passions I had never even imagined I would have. Being vegan
has allowed me to help other people become healthier, and helping others IS one of my passions.
 Everything really did come full circle.

I now live a life free of counting calories and weighing myself before and after anything enters my mouth.
 Recovering from an eating disorder is NOT just a physical recovery, but a mental recovery too.
I had to get rid of the addiction and obsession I had with feeling in control.  I had to relearn that food
is not the problem, filling myself with junk is. And I had to learn a new way of feeling like I am in
control of my life and who I am. I know now that I am not and never was just a number on a scale.  

I am how I treat people,

I am how I treat myself,

I am the loyalty I give to the people I care about,

I am my intuition for knowing when something is wrong,

I am the words I say when someone needs to hear them.

I am not and never again will be just a number.