Age 20

The dieting started when I was only 12 years old. My "best friend" at the time always had something to say about how I looked or what I wore. I felt as if I really had no friends and no control over my life.

That girl, I thought, was the best thing to ever happen to me; she was like the stylish older sister that I never had – she always had cool tips and advice for me and made me feel like I belonged somewhere. For once in my life, I didn't feel friendless and alone at school. But she took advantage of that.

Her bullying worsened through that seventh grade year when I began my battle with anorexia nervosa. I even told her hoping, as my best friend, she would help. From there she only saw my weakness and escalated the teasing after that. When my mom started to notice my eating, I began eating dinner...and with that I gained weight. I couldn't take it any longer and before I knew it I was purging.

I was 14 the first time I tried to stop, but I only relieved the symptoms, not the disorder. The longing for the feeling starving, binging and purging had given me lingered for years. Throughout high school I relapsed a few times, but never really recovered. It wasn't until I went away to college that I began to heal and now I can say that I am truly cured…and will never return. I haven't spoken to the girl I called my "best friend" in four years and it's been a long 8 year struggle with my disorder. But it gets easier with every passing day…and I feel stronger as a result of it.

Age 18

All my other Asian friends are skinny. Size 0, 25 inch waists, beautiful slim figures. And then there’s me. The short, “chubby" Asian who eats healthy but unfortunately doesn’t look very “slim" for her religiously attained healthy lifestyle. Okay, I know that I’m not fat. But only factually. 5’2”, 120 lbs. Rock solid quads from endless hours of cardio and strength training. No bulgy stomach…just a thick looking waist. Some people even say I’m attractive. That I have a princess face. I don’t see it.

My skinniest was at the peak of my diet back in 2012. I got down to 110 lbs in three short months in the summer. I was the “happiest” I had ever been with myself and my sense of self-esteem was actually present. Since then, after reverting to my pre-diet eating plans that didn’t consist of consuming half a bagel for breakfast, the other half for lunch and half a bowl of veggies and/or meat for dinner, I (of course) gained all that weight back. Even today, I look back to that summer diet for “fitspiration” and motivation.

To this day, I can remember every single thing that goes into my mouth on a daily basis. I workout at least 2 hours a day when I can. Every thought that passes through my mind daily is what I should eat for the next meal and when my next workout session should be. I am afraid of junk foods like chips, Starbucks beverages, cookies, ice cream, you name it. When I DO eat those foods on occasion, I feel like killing myself on the inside. I always have to compare what I’m eating with what other people are eating – is my meal healthier than theirs? Did I pick a lower calorie option? Am I eating less than they are?

EDNOS. It may not always show as plainly as anorexia nervosa, but hating my body and myself for eating food, the very thing that keeps me alive, is no doubt my own disturbed perception. I haven’t told anyone else because I’m afraid that people will think I want attention. The reaction I’ve gotten when I hinted my problem to my family is that I’m just thinking too much.

They’re right. I’m thinking way too much. About food. It’s all I think about. Eating it, not eating it, burning it off, fueling with it, crying from it, regretting it, hating it. And hating myself.

Age 19

I eat. I am a size double zero. I am 5’1. I have big, green eyes. I have straight teeth. I have silky, dirty-blonde hair that shines in the sun. I have abs when I engage my core and a tight little stomach when I do not. I have toned, beautiful legs. I can do the splits, I can run four miles and for a petite lady, I can jump very high.

90% of the time, I cannot see these beautiful features in myself. It drives my friends and family crazy.

I am a pre-professional dancer. I am surrounded by the pressures and demands of this strange, beautiful field.

“Hold in your stomach!”

“Hollow stomachs, ladies.”

“You think you’re working hard now? You’re barely skimming the surface.”

“There is always something to be improved.”

“Study everything. Practice outside of class.”

“If you question whether you want to be here, if you have doubts, then this field is obviously not right for you.”

Body hate tends to be an unspoken necessity to the job description. It’s ironic, because the dancers are the most physically fit, active students at my school. We can do the superhuman, yet most of us can’t stand what we see. Staring at myself in a leotard and tights in front of a mirror for six hours a day does nothing for my body-appreciation. Especially not in such a competitive environment.

I am cruel to my body.

I read a quote somewhere that was along the lines of, “Would you have any friends if you speak to them the way you speak to yourself?” This quote completely describes me. Although I suffered from a nasty bout of EDNOS that was sending me towards the low 90lb range, today I am maintaining a stable weight. I am physically very healthy. The ruthless self-hate talk is all that remains. It is obsessive. It is anxiety-driven. It is unfair.

“If you don’t work out today, you will become fat.”

“You can’t wear that outfit, it will show your flaws. Go put on a baggy, black t-shirt.”

“You don’t deserve two desserts in one day! No one needs that. Eat some fruit instead.”

“You are out of control.”

“You can’t risk losing your figure. You do want a job, don’t you?”

“You are a failure. You will make nothing of yourself.”

I could never speak like that to a friend. Or a child. It dawned on me this evening that some parents do speak like that to their children. I tried to imagine how much worse off I would be if my mother spoke to me like I speak to myself. I wouldn’t want to be her friend or her daughter.

If I wouldn’t tolerate that kind of talk from anyone else, why should I tolerate it from myself? Why should it be something normal to think? It would make me angry if someone else told me that I wouldn’t get a job if I gained some weight. Or that I didn’t deserve two desserts – frankly, when should food be something to be earned? It is a human need.

Here’s to the people who understand what it feels like to be your own worst enemy. The beautiful thing about this is that we have the power to turn it around. The only thing we can control is how we feel about ourselves.

Age 25

I have had a balanced relationship with food (with one small relapse) for about 3 years now. I have stayed away from all my disordered habits and have fallen in love with eating again. This was obviously excruciatingly hard and took almost 2 years. Although I am happily eating and enjoying the benefits of energy, positivity and strength, I am still unable to fall in love with my healthy body/natural weight. I have stopped working on becoming fully recovered because I felt that having a healthy relationship with food meant I was healthy enough to stop working on becoming recovered. I felt it would just happen over time living a healthy lifestyle. I did not realize that I still had a lot of work to do. What brought this to my attention stemmed from injuring my stomach muscles. I was told to do nothing except relax. It has been weeks now and I am still not fully healed. I couldn’t figure out why – I was barely doing anything. Just taking some light walks around my village. Then it hit me – I haven’t relaxed my stomach muscles in years. Of course, body image issues started long before my eating disorder and I think holding in my stomach was one of the first things I learned to do to feel like I looked better. I still do that. And I don’t think I ever realized how unnatural that was until this moment. I can’t relax my stomach muscles because I am seriously unhappy with my natural body weight. I don’t want myself or anyone else to see the way I truly am. I can’t stand to really look at my body in the mirror, with or without holding in my stomach muscles. My first step is to relax my stomach muscles around the house. But I only feel comfortable wearing loose fitting shirts and dresses. I know I can’t relax my stomach muscles in public yet. I am isolating myself to feel comfortable, but that doesn’t make me happy. I want to be able to feel comfortable in my own skin around myself and others. My eating disorder might be gone, but there is still so much work for me to do.

Age 19

Last week my boyfriend admitted he lied and cheated. I broke up with him then took a 6 AM flight home for spring break.

And then I lost control. I couldn't stop crying or obsessively checking my phone or picturing him with this other person. So, I started eating my emotions. And then purging. And then eating my emotions. And then purging – something I hadn't done in weeks, something I thought I'd finally gotten over. But the habit came back so easily, so naturally in a moment of stress.

I realized I needed help. So I called a helpline and spoke to a really awesome woman. I said those awful, terrible, humiliating, honest words out loud for the first time: "I have an eating disorder." From this moment on, I decided to love my body.

I went upstairs, stripped done in front of my mirror, and apologized to every inch of my body. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I will love you. I will love you. I will love you. You are beautiful. You are beautiful.

Age 21

"Thinspo." That evil word still haunts me to this day. It's been almost 3 years since I've looked at pictures like that. It's also been almost 3 years since I shut down my own thinspo website.

It sickens me to think that I ever participated in that realm of the virtual world. If I wasn't at the gym, jogging outside or secretly doing leg-lifts in my room, you could probably find me looking at thinspo. For hours. And hours.

Looking back on it, I don't even really get it. Why should looking at pictures of these random people even impact my life at all? At the time, it certainly did.

It's been almost 3 years since I shut down that website. It's been almost 3 years since I weighed 92 pounds (for reference: I'm 5'5"). And yet, not a day goes by where I don't struggle with the voice inside my head. It still tells me I'll never be good enough. It still makes me cry.

Selfie

Two Middle School Girls (Age 13) Create Award-Winning PSA About Eating Disorders

Women's Empowerment Award

Age 29

Ten years flies by in the blink of an eye…a cliché, overused phrase often times used by “grown-ups” in an effort to help those who are younger and “less experienced.”

Ten years ago, at the naïve age of 19, I embarked on my “dieting journeys.” The first few pounds were a fluke; grief pounds that dissipated from the death of my grandfather. The next several pounds were intentional. I’d fallen into the dangerous trap which kept me obsessed, occupied and entangled for the next decade.

Throughout my twenties, I’d approach every New Year vowing that this is the year that I’m living without my ED. I kept breaking that promise to myself year after year. With every pound I lost, my life became a hollow jumble of deceptions and superficiality. The things I was once passionate about took a back seat, because all I wanted to do was lose weight and become skinny – really skinny.

Through exercising, purging, restricting, consuming diet pills, laxatives and diuretics, my sense of self-worth slowly melted away and I soon donned an estranged, new persona. Paradoxically, my out of body experience grew with each bead of sweat, each purge, each pound I lost and each time I denied myself of essential nutrients. Food had become the enemy and I was convinced that anything I ate would turn to fat on my body.

Those who knew me told me that I had “changed.” My therapist told me any remnants of life I possessed had been depleted and my doctor warned me that I could die, correction, I WILL die unless I “knock it off” – and I didn’t give a shit, hoot, crap, a care in the world. All of my passions were a distant memory as nothing interested me one bit. The only thing mattered to me was how much weight I can lose and how fast I can do it. I wanted to fit into the smallest pant sizes and have them hang off my body. There was a morbid giddiness that would pulse throughout my body when my once skinny jeans were no longer tight.

When I finally hit my rock bottom, my all-time low, and the goal weight that I’d been pining for, years in the making, I realized that this person that I’d become is NOT who I want to be. Had I become “that” self-involved girl who was so fixated on her weight that she was blind to everything else? Yes, I was “skinny” now to the point where random strangers at the store would give me apprehensive glances and the occasional lady would comment on my “thinness.” I had become a shadow of my former self in all aspects, and it was time to face the consequences of my actions.

Slowly, as reality set in, I saw my future husband and children disappear alongside the cessation of my menstrual cycle. Grad school no longer an option because I wanted to lose weight and become “thin.” I couldn’t eat many of the foods I once loved because I was terrified of keeping it in my body.

As I look back and reflect on this point of my life now, I find it repulsive. I spent my twenties unknowingly attempting to look like a cadaver, slowly committing suicide. I lost my soul at an age where I could have been exploring my passions. My peers began to find a sense of self, while I remained lost and even more insecure than I was during those awkward years of puberty! I understand that I cannot be too callous, as the weight loss and eating disorder began as a means of filling this emptiness and self-hatred within me. As my therapist and dietitian say, “It was there to serve a purpose and to protect me.”

As I cautiously venture down the path of my recovery, I’m starting to see things that previously weren’t in my peripheral view. I have appreciation and gratitude for things I was too distracted to notice before. I’m starting to see that others respect me for my character and personality - two aspects that I have lost among the emaciation and malnutrition. From time to time, I look back at some old “sick pictures,” and long for that bony, hollow body, but soon snap back to reality. Despite feeling constantly afraid, conflicted, apprehensive, anxious, insecure and uncomfortable, pushing through this has been worth it all.

Although I find it hard to accept the fact that I’m “good enough” and people like me for well, “being me,” I’m trying to focus on diminishing my distortions and developing my true, inner self. Now, at the age of 29, I’m embarking on my mission of how I truly want to be “seen.” I will not let the last year of my twenties slip out from under my feet to become regret. This is my year to take back from ED.