I never really knew that something was wrong with me.
By: Izzy Irvine
Tags: Memoir, Recovery, Eating Disorders, Mental Health, Teens

I never really knew that something was wrong with me. I thought it was normal, that it was something every girl worried about. Really it is, but not to the extent I went. I always looked down at the scale, and looking at the number made me feel disgusting. I’d look sideways at the mirror, looking over my side, then turning to my front. It became a routine that I did every night before going to bed. I wanted to be thin. I wanted to have the flat stomach and small thighs I saw on everyone else.

Since I had started school in elementary, I had been called fat. I remember it not affecting me, because at the time I didn’t care. Around fourth grade is when it really began to sting. That word had followed me all my life up until seventh grade, when I was still being called fat by people I knew and people I didn’t. I was a healthy weight, but that wasn’t what I saw.

Slowly, I stopped eating. Meal by meal, the food on my plate started to look unappetizing. It’s not like my mother’s food wasn’t some of the best food I’ve ever tasted. First, I stopped with breakfast, making an excuse that I didn’t have time to eat or just wasn’t hungry. Dinner soon followed, but the excuses were so much harder to make then. I only ate lunch at school when all my friends were there, watching me. I really didn’t realize I had slowly stopped eating. It was a thing that I don’t even remember choosing to do. I was unaware of what I was doing, unaware of who I was beginning to hurt.

My weight slowly dropped. My nightly routine soon became my favorite, getting to see those numbers drop. It was slow paced, but I remember my smile growing each time. It faded though once I looked in the mirror and still saw what I wasn’t. Just the word everyone had called me all my life lingered in my head. It projected that image onto me, like that’s what I really was.

After a month, I reached one hundred twenty pounds which was under what I should’ve been according to the BMI chart. I beamed as I stared at that small white scale. I still had no idea how I had done it; I had no idea I was starving, no idea that I was slowly killing myself. I got compliments over and over from students who hardly talked to me. “You know for a seventh grader, you’re really pretty,” a sophomore boy had told me. I didn’t know him well, but I blushed because someone actually thought I was pretty. Someone besides a family member or a friend who I thought were obligated to tell me these things. I rarely had ever gotten compliments from anyone else besides them, especially not from boys.

I kept going, and it kept getting worse. A stick of gum now seemed to have too many calories that I decided to only have half of it. Soon the numbers were dropping faster and even though I still saw myself as fat, my friends began to notice my changes. My collar bones were now sticking out. My jaw and cheekbones had become more defined, but not in a healthy looking way. Soon, I didn’t even need to suck in my stomach to see my ribs they were just there. My friends kept worrying without saying a word until eventually they couldn’t take it. Really though, it wasn’t words. It was actions. It was trying to feed me. The force feeding was slow at first. They would try, and the first time I denied, they stopped asking. Eventually it was like a tug of war between me and them.

I sat on the couch and my two friends were talking in the kitchen. They walked out, crab legs in hand. I stared for awhile as they walked towards me. My heart palpitated as my friend began unwrapping the crab leg. He came to me with it, putting it closer and closer to my mouth. “Just eat it,” he said. “Please.” I would shake my head and begin to breathe heavily. He kept insisting and pushing until I finally snapped. I screamed at them and ripped the food from their hands, throwing it to the ground. I yelled at them again before leaving the house, slamming the door behind me.

The weight kept dropping faster and faster, but I just wanted to be lower. I continued eating lunch and my friends smiled as I did, thinking I was getting better. But after dumping my tray, I’d say, “I’m heading to the bathroom.” Little did they know what I was really doing. I made sure no one was in there. I locked the stall and sat down. I began shoving my fingers down my throat, causing myself to throw up what had just been eaten. I satisfied myself, but at the same time I was repulsed by myself.

Week by week, the weight kept dropping. One hundred ten…one hundred…ninety-five. It kept going and going and going. I looked in the mirror and smiled. My ribs and hip bones were protruding from my body. My collar bones caved in so much, and my wrists looked so fragile. My thighs weren’t touching. I felt so successful with what I had done to myself. I walked the halls with confidence that I had never felt before.

I finally realized what I was doing, though it took me awhile. I finally realized I was anorexic. I had been at home, and I was lying in bed. I slowly got up, but something felt wrong. I stood up and everything went dark and everything felt numb. I collapsed onto the ground, motionless for what felt like hours. My eyes slowly opened and I stared at my ceiling, my head hurting from the fall. I got up and I stared at myself again in the mirror. Seeing myself had then changed my point of view. I no longer saw this perfect body. I saw a skeleton that was hardly there. My eyes were sunken and tired, my lips were cracked. It hadn’t been what I wanted at all.

I slowly began to eat normally again, even though it took a lot out of me. I cried looking in the mirror, but I knew I was getting better. I needed to get better, not just for me, but for my friends, my family, and everyone who cared about me.

I don’t listen to people who call me fat now. I think about that experience and knowing that letting it get to me will put me through it again. It’s something I don’t want to go through again or have anyone go through. Other things still affect me, but not as much as it used to. It truly has changed my perspective on a lot of things. It’s changed my perspective on myself, people, and other’s opinions.