This post comes with a big trigger warning: I am not going to be sharing specific details about behaviors/numbers, but I will be mentioning some information that may be triggering to people in recovery or just working through their own disordered eating.
When I was in ninth grade, my health class was given an assignment: we had to download a calorie counting app, and then track what we ate for a few days, documenting the calories and the macronutrients in each item. I remember being excited for this project because it gave me the opportunity to show someone how little I ate. I made sure that I ate what I deemed to be an acceptable amount of calories, and I was very meticulous about the foods I could and could not eat. This isn't where my eating disorder began, though.
When I was beginning seventh grade, it became very clear to me (through various comments and media exposure) that my body was "too big." An adult told me about my friend who had recently lost a lot of weight through exercise, and the comment was made in a way that clearly sent the message that I should consider doing the same thing. I remember looking at my school picture in seventh grade and wanting to throw up because I felt so fat (which fat was an incredibly normal result of beginning puberty -- something I wouldn't learn for eight more years until I was in ED treatment at twenty-one years old). At thirteen years old, I had a vague understanding of things I could do to lose weight, mostly information I had gleaned from TV commercials and gossip magazines that my mom always called "trash magazines" (which I absolutely agree with her on today). While I don't have a very clear picture of my weight loss at this point, I do remember that this sparked the flame that today is still my ED.
I lost the weight quickly, as one usually does on their first diet. However, the messages that taught me to shrink my body didn't specify when I should stop; instead they specified that I should not stop at any cost. No matter what you need to do, make sure you remain thin.
In eighth grade, at fourteen years old, I began to experience deep depression and anxiety. I discovered that the internet was full of people like me who hated their bodies and were all grasping to control some element of their lives. My world was incredibly dark, chaotic, and lonely. When I restricted my food, I felt calm (I would later learn that there is an increasing body of research that indicates that a genetic component in those with restrictive-type EDs may actually cause a decrease in anxiety when fasting/restricting food, as opposed to those without EDs who feel more stress when they have not eaten). This mindset became addicting. My ED was my best friend, it was a place I could turn to when no one understood. It was a secret that felt empowering.
As mentioned before, in the beginning, dieting and food restriction led to quick weight loss, which would lead to positive comments from those around me. In fact, I would fish for comments.
"I hate how I look, I need to stop eating ________."
"Mads, stop, you look great -- I wish I was as skinny as you."
These kinds of comments fed my ED more and more.
Of course, lack of nutrients = lack of brain power. I struggled to learn and retain information, although I did manage to get good grades, so no one really noticed. But what was I good at? My eating disorder. I was really good at learning new ways to cut corners, to sneak behaviors, to start new behaviors, to change my body (which I have no come to realize is a sad fact of my life -- I am very good at my ED, when I wish I was very good at things that would actually bring me happiness in my life. I often feel intense sadness that my adolescence was stolen from me in this way).
Fast forward to ninth grade. One of my most vivid memories during this project was one day when I was over at a family friend's house. She was an adult, and her children were my age. For some reason, I told her about my project, and I told her that I only ate "x" calories per day. She said, "Mads, that's not enough, you need to be eating more." I laughed and told her that's what felt good for me to eat. I wish she would have told someone else about this. I wish that my health teacher had seen my calorie counting chart and sat me down and said, "Madeline, something isn't right here." I wish that another adult had noticed that I was cutting out so many other things from my diet and I was losing weight.
I felt like I was screaming for the world to hear and no one heard me.
