My name is Sasha Saenz and I am from a small town in Chihuahua, Mexico. Seven years ago, I felt that my body wasn’t enough, and I developed bulimia.
Trigger warning: Descriptions of eating disordered behavior.
Growing up, my family and friends would tell me, “you are bigger” or “you are chubby.” For the most part I didn’t care—until I became a teenager and most of my friends started to have boyfriends. I had so many guy friends but none of them were interested in me, only in my friends. I felt that the boys didn’t like me in the same way they liked other girls, and I began to believe that I needed to be like the other girls. The question was: how could I be like them, and what was wrong with me? I decided that I needed to change my body to be skinny and more girly.
I have always been a sports enthusiast; from ballet to horse-riding, I have done it all. But ballet was always part of my routine because I just to love to dance. My weight seemed to be one of the reasons I was always in the back of ballet performances. There was always the pressure from one of my teachers to lose weight. She told me losing a couple of pounds was not enough; I needed to lose more to be successful as a ballerina.
To be honest, I don’t remember how I started to purge; I just remember that it became a routine in my daily life. It was hard to do because my family is really close and we eat three meals together every day. I developed tricks for purging, thinking that I could hide it from my family.
Eventually, my dad had a talk with me. He told that he knew I had been purging. We had a long talk regarding how this was going to affect my future and he explained that I needed help. My parents took me to see a professional and one of my parents always stayed with me when I ate. My family helped me to understand that I was beautiful and that they were always there for me.
After I finished high school, I moved to Canada to continue my studies. Moving away helped me to see how beautiful I was…
To read the rest of this story from our partner, Proud2BMe, click here.
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