I went through eating trends. For example, the period where I only ate oatmeal for every meal. Or the period where I ate nothing ‘til 4 p.m. and then, like clockwork, I ate everything I could find, only to throw it up half an hour later. I would eat even after my jaw hurt, or my tongue was painfully raw from too much salt. I felt like I couldn’t stop. Mealtimes were a competition; depending on my mood I either had to eat less than everyone else, or had to eat more. The latter determination was followed with a trip to the bathroom, and often the former was too.
For four years (but for what seemed like a lifetime) I thought about food approximately once every 60 seconds. Where would I eat? What would I eat? Was I eating too much? Where was the nearest bathroom? Would people notice? I carried gum with me everywhere I went to cover my tracks. And while I constantly felt guilty or scared, I also felt proud. I had something that was mine and that I thought I could control. It became such a crucial part of my life that I thought it was a crucial part of me. I wanted to stop, but I was terrified of what that would mean. I would have to change my daily thought processes and routines, and I thought that would mean I would have to change me.
I didn’t really have a turning point or a revelatory moment that made me want to denounce the identifier of having an eating disorder. And it certainly has not been a straight path to where I am now. It was gradual and filled with many ‘one step forward, two steps back’ moments. At some point, the thoughts and food anxiety began to ebb away, and now I only think fearfully of food once or twice a day. It feels like this will always be the case, but then again last year I thought I would always think of food every minute, so I’m hopeful. Yesterday, when I was asked by Street to describe my identity in up to five words, ‘eating disorder’ didn’t blaze in my mind as it used it to. I suppose that’s why I wanted this to be anonymous—I no longer identify myself as having an eating disorder, and I don’t want anyone to have to either.
