“Why don’t you just get over it?” That is what some people say when they hear you have a problem. I know for a fact that it doesn’t work that way. Over the next few weeks I am going to be telling you my experience and what I have gone through. This story is about my experience with anorexia.

My story with anorexia starts about two years ago. I went to a Lutheran school, where my dad was the principal, and my mom was the preschool director, and as you would think I was expected to be perfect. If I would make the honor roll or win an award people always thought it was rigged, so I started to become a perfectionist, and tried to please everyone. I started to become quiet and not myself and I hated the way I looked. When I moved here, I didn’t know anyone and felt like an outcast. I remember feeling that I wasn’t a good person because I had no friends.

I began to try to eat less; I wanted to lose weight and be ‘prettier’. In my crazy life of change, my weight was one thing I thought I could control. I never actually skipped a meal, I just remember taking smaller portions than everyone else did. In about three months or more I had gone from weighing 150 lbs, to weighing 100 lbs. I had lost 50 lbs, and thought I look great. However I didn’t see the small changes in my life style. I was always tired, I was always dizzy, and you could see every bone in my body. But the comments kept rolling in. People would tell me “oh you’re so skinny”, “oh you’re so pretty”, which only encouraged me more.

Around Christmas time I became very sick. My body wasn’t able to fight the diseases that roamed the halls of a public school. I begged my parents to let me stay home because I was so depressed and exhausted. I couldn’t sleep, I wouldn’t eat. It was horrible. At the time I had no good friends who could see that something was wrong with me. I thought I still looked great because I was thinner. My parents were terrified about how much weight I had lost and were constantly asking if I was okay. I never told about how I was feeling because I thought it was no big deal. I began to pass out in public and even at home. Once at church we stood up to sing a hymn and once I stood up, I fell right back down on the floor.

My parents had enough of this, and took me into a doctor to see what was going on with me. The doctor diagnosed me with anorexia and mononucleosis. They sent me to a counselor so I could talk with someone and have some help working through my problem.

I had to work really hard to get myself where I am today. I am back to a healthy weight and have so much more energy! It is still hard for me some days and it will never really go away. But because of support I am able to live my life.