When I first developed my eating disorder I was around the age of 13. My body was going through many changes and me having a perfectionist attitude towards most things, including the way I look, I found myself wanting control how I looked. I was consumed by my anorexia to the point where I wasn't sure of my identity without it, food was controlling me.
I am now 20. Back when I was in the depths of my recovery I didn't think I would ever gain weight and be happy. Now 7 years on I am a healthy weight, I enjoy working out for my health and I enjoy food. I can go out for food and I can miss a day of working out without feeling guilty, most of the time. Yes, I still have bad days, there are times when I feel my self going for the lower calorie option, giving into the voice residing in my head. This happens even though I am recovered, but I do not see it as a failure, I move on and try to do better next time. I still sometimes feel guilty about what I have eaten. I sometimes still look in the mirror and not like what I see, but that is ok. I do not believe I will fully get over my past with an eating disorder. I accept it is probably something I am going to have to live with for the rest of my life, but the difference is I am no longer consumed by those negative thoughts. Now I fight those thoughts daily and keep winning, every time you do something against what the voice in your head is telling you, it is a win. I refuse to go back to the shell of a person I once was. Back when I was 13 I used to think the way a person looked was everything, I wanted to look the way models looked, even though for my body that was not a healthy ideal. I have learned what was healthy for my body and for me. Even three years ago, years after I was 'weight restored', I still had fear foods, I hated eating out and stuck to healthy foods. As time went on I grew as a person and now I can eat out multiple times a week and feel comfortable with my curvier figure, I enjoy treating myself now, I am less harsh on myself for having a treat.
What helped me throughout the years was seeing the variety of body shapes seen across the media today that are seen as beautiful. There is not only one perfect body, it should be healthy and make you happy, screw the outdated stereotypes, every shape is beautiful. Back in 2013 there was few if any curvier girls in magazines or on social media, all of them were stick thin. Though yes that figure may be attainable, beautiful and healthy to some people, a 13 year old girl seeing exclusively thin girls online at such an impressionably age can deem harmful and for me it did, that along with other reasons led me to be taken into the darkness of an eating disorder. It is not the way you look that is important, it is the way you act and treat people that truly matters, if you are a good person you are truly beautiful.
Today the world is changing and adapting, it is accepting eating disorders more widely as a serious condition. I hope that in the future less people will find themselves in the position I once was.
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