I’ve never had a problem with being overweight. I’m about 5’3”, and I’ve always been on the skinnier side. When I hit puberty, my body went through all the crazy changes, and by the time I was 15 I started gaining a little weight. It was nothing to serious; I had a pretty average body, weighing about 117 pounds. I was athletic, I played tennis, I ate really well (and pretty much as much as I wanted). People said I glowed. I was happy with myself, I liked myself.

My junior year of high school wasn’t an easy year. I was attending a new school. My parents had been divorced since I was quite young, but suddenly my mom had a new boyfriend and he was living with us. I had always been rather close to my mom, but now her attention was focused on her boyfriend. I was lonely. My sister was a senior at the time, and was enjoying her senior year. I was trying to make friends and keep up with my difficult schedule of AP courses. I’ve always been a perfectionist by nature. A “type A” personality as my mom calls it. As the year progressed, things became easier in some ways. I met my current boyfriend, and we started dating. I made a few friends, got used to my enormous workload, and began acting in school plays.

Things at home, however, were not getting better. I felt that I had been emotionally abandoned by my mom. I knew I was being a bit of a teenage drama queen, but well, it sucked. Her new boyfriend wasn’t very nice to my sister and I either, and when my mom would take his side when he’d yell at us, that hurt a lot. I hated being home, and usually stayed holed up in my room to avoid getting into any arguments with him. My real dad and I talked on the phone once a week, but he lives across seas so I rarely saw him. I barely had a relationship with him, and secretly that bothered me. I didn’t ever let on to anyone how much I was actually bothered by everything inside. I didn’t talk about it. I hated ever acting like I had problems, or that I felt hurt about anything.

At first I began eating healthier, just cleaning up what I ate, cutting out bad food, etc. It was smart, I still ate three meals a day and Chinese food with friends and such. Around December I noticed my clothes were getting loser, my waistline was shrinking. There wasn’t as much muscle on me as before. It didn’t bother me really, I was happy, and I didn’t want to gain the weight back.

Then the problems started. See, that’s the interesting thing about anorexia, it doesn’t just jump out at you, it develops over time. You think you’re ok, you’re still safe and healthy, and then it eats you up and you can’t seem to stop.

I started skipping meals. I switched from sandwiches to salads. I started weighing myself a few times a week to make sure I didn’t gain any weight. It took off from there. I started weighing myself every day. I ate the smallest portions I could get away with. I wouldn’t eat by myself, but would make sure to eat around others so they wouldn’t realize anything was wrong. I became obsessed with my measurements too, constantly checking them every day, getting upset if I gained even a fourth of an inch.

I was always tired. I slept a lot. I never had energy to do anything. I shut myself out from a lot of my friends. I dreaded situations where I’d have to eat and pretend like I was completely normal and healthy. I was constantly looking at my body from every angle in the mirror. I hated my thighs, or my butt, or my stomach, even when my hip bones were jutting out and my ribs began to show. I went from 117 pounds to 98 pounds in a few months. I lost so much muscle and fat so fast that white stretch marks (the kind that don’t disappear) appeared on my thighs, where I had a lot of muscle from sports. I rarely wore tight clothes that showed off my body. I didn’t like the idea of other people looking at me, judging me, and maybe thinking I wasn’t skinny enough. I drank coffee and diet sodas and teas constantly so I could get through a day without being so tired. I was always cold and dizzy and weak.

It just got worse. At first, I wanted someone to realize I had a problem. I desperately wanted someone to stop me, because I couldn’t stop myself. I wanted someone to see how much pain I was in and why I was doing this to myself. That changed as time went on.

I began working extra hard to hide my eating disorder from everyone. I didn’t want anyone to stop me; it was my main focus in life, my one source of control. I was happy as long as I could control what went into my mouth. I started exercising. If I ate a piece of chocolate I would jump rope until I was exhausted. It consumed me. My journals were filled up with my talk of food and weight and exercise and calories, it was an obsession.

I am sharing my story, my struggle, because I think people, in particular teen girls and their parents, are not as informed about eating disorders to the extent they should be. Eating disorders are not something you can just stop. It is not about being thin. It may start out that way, but it develops into something else: being in control. It’s a frightening disease, it takes over your mind and body, and you truly think you’ll starve yourself forever. I spent the summer after that school year with my dad. And slowly I began to face all the things that had once caused me to retreat inside myself. My dad was a bit pushy, and I slowly began to eat more. By the time I left his house, I was at a pretty stable weight of 103 pounds. I eat normally now. I don’t skip meals, even if I’m not hungry enough to eat a full meal I try and eat a little something, so I don’t ever feel like I can do what I did to myself again. I’m terrified of ever having to diet in my life because I’m afraid of falling back into skipping meals, and eventually, developing an eating disorder again.

"I didn’t think I had a problem for a very long time, and even as I realized I did, I felt trapped and unable to get help"

Anorexia is a growing problem among teenage girls. The media doesn’t help either, plastering paper thin celebrities everywhere; it almost makes eating disorders appear glamorous. There needs to be more education, more awareness, eating disorders need to be talked about! People don’t understand the dangers of them, and girls don’t know who exactly to go to if they need help. I didn’t think I had a problem for a very long time, and even as I realized I did, I felt trapped and unable to get help.

To anyone who is struggling with an eating disorder: it IS a disease, and it DOES need to be treated. Tell anyone, your mom, your sister, your brother, boyfriend, doctor, teacher...but do not be silent, do not let the problem go any further. You may feel powerless knowing that you don’t have this control anymore, but realize that in a few months, you’ll be so grateful that you sought help and are getting better. To those that have struggled with an eating disorder: it’s ok to come to terms with it. It’s ok to face it, to share your stories and struggles with those you care about. Tell your stories, speak up about it...the world needs to realize just how common these problems are becoming.

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Photography by Christina Eriksson