I had never been a picky eater. If you placed food in front of me as a young child, I would have eaten it. Food had never been an issue for me, and I remember numerous times growing up that I actually got into trouble for eating too much.

I was eight years old when I began to believe I was fat. Around the same age, I had begun to hurt myself in ways that I now understand was not normal. I remember being given a pocket knife by one of the ‘bad kids’ in my neighborhood and when I was alone, I slid that blade across my arms gently, just urging for the courage to press down harder. At the time, I didn’t know why I did this; I thought it was completely normal and never told anyone what I had done.

I had always been at a normal weight until I was eleven years old. After spending a summer with a friend who ate unhealthy foods and rarely exercised, I too began to put on the weight she had. I truly hit the ‘freshman 15’ when I was at her house for the summer, at eleven years old. When I returned home, I was thirty pounds overweight, and was teased for this when I started my next year of middle school at 7th grade.

During my 7th year of school, I was repeatedly attacked by several girls in my school, and made to feel fat to the point where I refused to dress in the locker rooms. I remember feeling so worthless and fat that I would often restrict from eating, skipping my school lunches and giving them to other people in my class. I still hadn’t realized there was a problem, and I continued to eat my breakfast and dinner normally. During that year, I also began to self harm, taking my razor and cutting my legs with the blade. I remember the first time I had done this and couldn’t help but feel a great sense of euphoria and security. I was removed from that school and brought into home-school when I was twelve years old, and the problems eventually went away, and I remained relatively normal.

I stayed in home-school for my 8th year of school before I wanted to go back for high-school. I had been overjoyed at finally being old enough to be a high-school kid and do all the fun things like homecoming, prom, and parties all night. Of course, that’s not how high-school really is.

I was thirteen when I made the decision to go to high-school. I was thirteen when I made the decision to hang out with a friend of mine from middle school. I was thirteen when I was raped by this friend, and I was thirteen when I was told I could either choose to socialize with people my age or go to therapy. I chose high-school with people my age. I was fourteen when I entered high-school and confronted my rapist. I was fourteen when I told my friend what he had done to me, and I was fourteen when she began to date him and told me that I was a liar; that she had asked him and he claimed me to be the liar.

I was fourteen when I began to stop dressing out for P.E. again. I was fourteen when I began restricting my meals. After my grandmother died and my grades plummeted, I was once again removed from my high-school and was placed into online classes where I struggled for the rest of the year.

When I turned sixteen I entered an adult education program at a state college five minutes away from my house. I had continued self harming throughout the time and was on and off with restricting my meals. I had gained weight once again and was going to school without a load of problems on my shoulders. I was away from my rapist, I had no friends from my previous schools, and I believed I could truly do this and get over these aching feelings inside of me that I hadn’t known at the time were symptoms of depression and anorexia.

I continued self harming throughout the entire time I stayed in the education program. I was caught several times by my parents, and I believe they seemed more and more surprised each time they discovered it; like they hadn’t even remembered the previous times I had done this to myself.

My favorite place to harm myself was on my right wrist. It sounds so messed up when I think about it; I have a favorite place to hurt myself. When I entered my first spring term of the education program, I began to restrict my meals once again. I wouldn’t eat breakfast or lunch, go home, binge, and cry, just wishing I could throw up everything I had consumed, yet not having the guts to do it. During this ordeal, I managed to gain even more weight and weighed approximately 160 pounds by that thanksgiving.

During the spring, when I still weighed 143 pounds, I was baker acted after telling a teacher I wanted to kill myself. I remained in a behavioral facility for two days where I was strapped to a chair, laughed at, stolen from, and given one meal during the entire stay. After I was released, my parents took me out to eat where I screamed at myself that I had gone through all the progress to starve and now I was ruining it.

After that incident, I tried to pull myself together. I took a summer term of school and began to go running every other day and eat breakfast and dinner. I still skipped lunch on a regular basis, but tried to stop the binging. After I was once again found out for cutting myself, I stopped going running. I stopped eating once again, and I began to sink further and further into a dark pit that was my depression. I was told my depression wasn’t real and could be cured by me eating right and exercising, but I could barely get myself out of bed to exercise, and eating would enable my self-harming.

By thanksgiving I weighed 160 pounds, finding every excuse I could to not eat. My most common were to claim to have already eaten or that I hadn’t felt well. I was overweight and displaying symptoms of anorexia, believing that I could not possibly have an eating disorder because I was overweight. I knew no one would ever diagnose me with an eating disorder unless it was binge eating disorder because I was so large.

When my nails were turning blue and I had lost twenty pounds, once again at 140, yet still overweight at the small height of 5’3”, I told my mother I thought I had an eating problem. I told her I thought something was wrong with me, and that I wanted to go to the doctor, and I remember exactly what she told me. My mother looked me straight in the eyes and said, “Your body just doesn’t get hungry because you skip your lunch.” No, mom. I’m starving. My stomach sends pains throughout my body, my legs cramp due to lack of nutrients, I had dark circles under my eyes, but as long as I wore my hoodie and jeans, no one cared or noticed.

When my parents left for their anniversary, they were gone for three days. During those three days, I didn’t eat anything. I was so proud of myself for not eating and I was happy that I could feel my hipbones. But no one would diagnose me as anorexic because I was overweight.

Every day that I eat I exercise excessively. I worry over if anyone notices and force myself to eat if someone hands food to me. On a good day I eat 500 calories. On a bad day I eat 10. On a day that I really hate myself, I’ll binge on everything in my house and cry in the bathroom, just wanting to throw up with my toothbrush. Sometimes I think that should be my alternative method. Others I know that’s sick and disgusting. Most of the time I wish I had the courage to do it.

To this day my nails are blue. Though I hate looking at them, they’re what makes me know I’ve done ‘good’ on my calorie intake. I look at my nails, and if they’re blue, I know I can continue to go on. If they even dim to pink just a bit, I fast for a day or two. I hardly remember my life without eating problems, but maybe writing this out will help me find the glimmer of hope in recovery or at least help from others. All I know is, I’m too fat to be diagnosed as an anorexic.