Being only sixteen years old, I have already been faced with many decisions in my life. Some decisions I had to make determined my quality of life. The biggest decision I have had to make is whether or not I wanted to stay in my eating disorder or recover. That was the toughest decision I ever had to make and I am not quite sure how this story is going to end but I do know this. Recovery is a choice.

Throughout grade school and my first year of high school, I was a great friend, student and volleyball player. I was a young woman with the world at her fingertips. My personality was always happy and fun, I was a social butterfly in and outside of school and I spoke my mind without any worries.

A reason I might not ever know but I developed depression. I stopped going out with friends, I stopped talking in school, my academics and athletics suffered. The depression came fast and hit full force. I did not want to go to school anymore, and that was a weird feeling to be felt because I use to never miss a day of school. I did not want to wake up in the morning, and if I did I did not want to get out of bed. I was so scared but I never said anything to anyone. For some reason, I thought that maybe if I was skinnier I would be happy.

The end of freshman year came around and I was still dealing with this awful depression and on top of that I developed anorexia. I thought that if I lost 10 pounds I could stop and go back to eating. But with eating disorders, it does not work that way, once you start, it feels impossible to stop. I followed guidelines that I outlined for myself. I was only allowed to eat X amount calories per day. If I went over that, I had to exercise until I could not breathe. Eventually, the eating disorder thoughts decided that I couldn’t eat anything anymore. I would go days without eating. I was able to hide it so well. I always wore baggy clothes so no one could notice the dangerous weight loss. I did not know how I got stuck in such an awful cycle but I did not want to stop. Because like I said earlier, if I am skinny then I will be happy. The skinner I got the more sad I got because the number on the scale was never good enough for me. 

I was so depressed. I did not know where to turn. I lost my friends that I had because no one wanted to hang out with the “psycho anorexic” anymore. I felt so alone and I knew if I told my mom what was happening she would lock me up in a hospital or send me to a therapist. I did not want that. I wanted to keep getting skinnier and skinnier until I felt happy. At home, I would alternate between yelling at my family, crying and hurting myself.
Things just kept getting worse. I knew what I was doing was dangerous but I could not stop. I knew it was dangerous because I could barely stand up without blacking out, I was getting chest pains, and I had a hard time walking up the stairs. I still had the idea in my head that if I was skinny I would be happy. With eating disorders, you look at yourself in the mirror and you only see fat. Even when my weight was dangerously low I would still consider myself fat.  This continued throughout my entire summer and sophomore year.

One night my mom was cleaning my room, and she decided to look under my bed. Under my bed was diet pills. My mom immediately asked what they were. I pretended I did not know and that they were not mine. She had no idea what to do besides cry. She looked at my fragile body and finally saw that the spark in my eye was missing.  My mom called my doctor crying and asking what to do. My doctor told my mom I needed the go to a hospital. So my parents and I hopped in the car to a hospital two hours away in a snowstorm.

At the hospital, they had to do a general weight. My mom asked why my weight was so low and I said “oh this a normal weight for me!” No one believed me. They suspected I had an eating disorder. I did not want anyone to know my secret. I wanted to keep losing weight. They put me in a hospital gown in an empty room with a security guard outside my door. I met with a social worker and she asked why I was starving myself and I kept saying “I don’t know, it was just a diet that went too far.”  She let me go home that night and told my parents I needed to see a therapist and dietitian. I remember going home that night asking if I had to eat and hearing the words “yes you do” and I bursted into tears. After that I fought and cried everyday and saw three treatment providers a week, but I kept getting worse.

Eating disorders are not about the weight. I always thought they were. I thought skinny was equal to happiness. But no one in the right mind thinks that. I was doing this because I hated myself. I hated the indent in my chest that people would make fun of, I hated that I needed to study for hours to only get a B, I hated my shape, I hated how everyone would call me a tree because I am so tall, I hated my “need to be in control”, I hated my personality, and most importantly I hated myself. What I learned in recovery is that you can love yourself and I have the choice weather I want to change this or not. Loving yourself is a choice and hating yourself is too.
Its the beginning of March of my sophomore year and I am still not eating. I went in for my weekly weigh in on March 6th, 2014. Since the week before I had lost fourteen pounds. My mom took me to my medical doctor and the doctor looked at me and said I needed to be hospitalized immediately and if I did not go I would not be alive in two weeks. That night I was a direct admit to Linden Oaks Hospital in their eating disorder unit. I stayed there for a very long two months.

Being in the hospital was the scariest time in my life. I was locked in a hospital surrounded by four yellow walls with no connection to the outside world. My heart was attached to many different wires and tubes up my nose to feed me. I was wheelchair bound. I couldn’t call the friends I had left, only family members. I couldn’t walk around without getting yelled at. And the scariest part of it all was that doctors and therapists told me I am slowly killing myself and I didn’t even care. Everyone was telling me it was my decision whether or not I wanted to recover and I knew deep down recovery was the best option and I did not care.

After two months in the hospital, they put me in a day program, which was not enough support for me. I relapsed very quickly and was sent back to the hospital. After my second hospitalization I felt like I got stuck in a revolving door with no way to get out. I would go to the hospital, go home, relapse and go back to the hospital. It felt never ending.

After being in the hospital four different times, I was sent to a place called Arabella House. I lived there with 7 other girls for 3 months. I gained my weight back, I got on track with eating normally and I was being honest. By the time I left Arabella it was the end of summer before my junior year.

I started my junior year. It was a complete disaster. I had no more friends, I wasn’t playing volleyball and I did not care about school. I got so depressed again and I started skipping school. I thought that maybe this time, if I lost weight things would get better but it did not. I was put back in the hospital for the 5th time. After being in the hospital, I did a day program at Arabella House. Thats when I decided it would be best if I transferred to a new school.

I transferred  and things were getting better and I started to make some friends. My old self was slowly coming back. Over winter break of this year, I relapsed again , not with only anorexia but I developed bulimic tendencies. I overdosed on diet pills, with hopes that I would either lose weight or die, whichever came first was fine with me. Things got bad and my doctor sent me to the hospital for the 6th time. After the hospital, I went to Center for Discovery and lived there from January to April. I hated being there, but I only hated it because it helped. Coming back to school in April has been, without a doubt,  tough. My eating disorder has been so tempting to fall back on. I’ve learned from others that recovery is possible though. I’ve also learned that I am in control of my own behaviors and decisions.

Now its time for me to make the decision. I got all the help I can get. I go to therapy twice a week, see a dietitian once a week and a psychiatrist for antidepressants. Do I want to stay in my eating disorder forever or do I want to live? I pick living and recovery. With recovery, I can go away to college like I always hoped, I can play volleyball, run and make new friends. My eating disorder was not a choice, but recovery is.

I still think my hips are too big and some nights the sadness is overwhelming. There are days where I want nothing to do with myself.  Some days I don’t want to get out of bed, but I do. I eat my breakfast and pack my lunch. I choose food I like instead of which food has the least amount of calories. I don’t feel faint at school, I walk tall and strong and smile at people and sometimes they smile back. I speak my thoughts and feel my feelings and I am not afraid to ask for help. I still need help. Some days I want to stop eating and some days I cry because my jeans are too tight. I don’t have a thigh gap anymore. But I do have legs that walk me all over the place. I’m living a life I chose because I choose to live.