Anorexia did not and does not define me. Caring, compassionate, worldly, thoughtful and hardworking are all words that describe me in my truest form.
Trigger warning: Descriptions of eating disordered behavior.
While anorexia does not define me, the monster of this eating disorder controlled me, consumed me. In its earliest stages, I was aware of what it was doing to me, but until I embarked on my five-month study abroad semester, I hadn’t realized how extreme the control had really become.
During my sophomore year of college, life was a routine—an incredibly strict routine of academics, limited food and exercise. While demanding, routine relaxed me. The control relaxed me. Spontaneous was not a word in my vocabulary and spontaneity overwhelmed me. Yet, surprisingly enough, I opted to study abroad for the fall semester of my junior year. I yearned for something new, but I knew that it would be the ultimate test of my control. So I shipped my scale and myself off to Norway.
I thought that I had mastered how to keep all of my quirks hidden. It was easier back at home, in a place that allowed me to have the control that I wanted and felt that I needed. But being in a new environment, with new people, I realized that it could not be as “simple” as it might have been. At school I typically ate alone, but traveling and living in close quarters challenged that…
My roommate learned soon enough that I was very selective and that my food intake was minimal. She wasn’t the only one who noticed. Going out to eat did not just give me anxiety because of food, but because there was the potential that my secrets would be revealed. When I decided not to eat at all, I was asked why I didn’t order anything. As my stomach grumbled, I would say that I wasn’t hungry or that I didn’t have the money.
The first time, it worked. The second time, I used a new excuse, but by the sixth, seventh and eighth times, the excuses stopped working. The questions stopped coming. No one needed to ask anymore. It was during those moments that it had become clear that—in this extreme control—I had absolutely lost control.
To read the rest of this story from our partner, Proud2BMe, click here.
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