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I am in 11th grade and can say that I'm on my way to making positive changes
in my life. I've said a long, slow goodbye to a suffocating disease called anorexia. This disastrous disease began to
take over my life in the seventh grade. I started off slowly, dieting and losing weight.
8th grade is when everything
came crashing down. I decided three days a week of swimming was not enough, so I joined track. I hardly ate, and became weaker
and weaker. Then I developed my first staph infection. April 8th, 2005 I was admitted into Stony Brook Hospital. I was weighed
for the first time in front of my parents. This is when they realized something was wrong. Not only did I have a staph infection,
I also was severely underweight. I continually refused food in the hospital. The staph infection kept getting worse and started
to spread.
I was finally released after a week of intravenous. I wasn't allowed to go to school, which made
things worse. I continuously withdrew from activities that once brought me joy. I spent more and more time alone and isolated
from the outside world. When I finally went back to school I got the dirtiest looks. I still remember to this day one of my
teachers asking me if I had been eating. Not only were my family and doctors telling me I had a problem, but now my teachers
were as well. I didn't believe any of them; I was still in denial. I thought, "How can I be underweight if I look
like this?".
I soon got help from therapist Meg Maginn, and eating disorder specialist, Doctor Golden. With
the help and support of my new team I started to get on the right track. However, when my freshman year of high school started,I
felt scared and alone. Friends became distant because they were afraid and didn't know how to handle my situation.
I slowly got used to the high school life with the support of teachers, but then work began to overload. And along
with the stress of being a 9th grader,I had also started to date. I had trouble coping with the idea of a relationship. I
felt like I wasn't good enough and began falling back into old habits.
On October 31st, 2006 I was pulled
out of my sophomore year to start the adolescent eating disorder day program at Long Island Jewish Hospital. I remained there
for what seemed like three very long weeks. It was at LIJ that I met my current therapist Doctor Fredrickson. I left the program
with some strategies, but I began to slip again. I hated where my life was going. The eating disorder was still filling my
head with doubt-- Telling me I was never good or thin enough.
Throughout 10th grade, I constantly got sick and
developed yet another staph infection. Each day was a battle to make it through. During the summer of 2007 I developed another
staph infection. I had to get shots of medication for several days. It was awful.
In Danity Kane's song "Poetry",
they sing "And when I tell you what you do to me, you don't even hear the truth." I had already developed three
infections due to my malnutrition. I had so many people explaining to me the harm I was doing, and I told myself it was true,
but the eating disorder just didn't want to hear it. I was confused; I didn't know which voice to listen to. So I
gave in and listened to the voice that was louder and more demanding-- the eating disorder voice. It was at this point I felt
like giving up. I had no reason to live. Deep down inside I knew that I needed to discover things I enjoyed, and I knew that
there were healthy and relaxing coping mechanisms that would give me the pride and confidence that I needed to keep fighting.
With new hobbies in tact, such as crafts and volunteering, I gained a reasonable amount of weight over the summer.
As a therapist once explained to me, it's sort of like the speakers of a radio that you adjust to make the volume lower.
It was like that for me with my eating disorder voice- I had learned to push aside and not dwell on my negative thoughts.
I began to eat healthier, my thoughts continued to lessen and get quieter. And those thoughts that I still had- I learned
how to handle them with positive thoughts and helpful strategies.
I'm currently in my junior year and learning
to accept my body as it is. I'm packing my eating disorder away and ready to slowly get closure. Each step I've taken
I have had the support of my family, friends, doctors, and teachers.
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