(Based
on an article in “South Asian Generation Next” newspaper, Vol 6, Issue: 342,
May 2013)
My name is
Petra. I want to share my story with
other girls my age. I had a monster in
my head, a real monster, screaming at me all the time not to eat. It was virtually impossible for me to resist
it and eventually, the monster took over my body. Because of that, I was no longer me. I ate absolutely nothing and I worked out all
the time. My eating disorder started in
December 2012 when I was only 16 and it lasted for almost 3 months.
The biggest disappointment and sadness
in my life became my eating disorder. This
monster almost ruined my life. Horrific
thoughts lead me to it and were very unhealthy for me. I could only think about losing weight. It started out with thoughts in my head whenever
I compared my body to those of others. I
convinced myself to starve for a whole day and that’s how it began. To me, this decision felt safe and good. I would not eat like before. Instead, I would start on a secret and innocent
diet that would not last long. I began skipping meals and eating less and
less even when being asked to eat. I
became obsessed with every single calorie I took in.
The results came slowly. In the beginning, I was happy when I lost my
first few pounds. But then, I looked at
myself in the mirror and still didn’t feel perfect. No matter how much weight I lost, it was
never enough for me. I would exercise
more than I ate, which caused me to have abnormally low blood pressure. I did purge rarely, but during my trip to
Pakistan in December, I decided to purge for three days straight and it lead to
dehydration at a mall, which caused me to pass out for a few minutes. I was constantly searching for ways to lose
weight. I had many symptoms, such as
always feeling cold, and dizziness whenever I stood up, and perpetual mood
swings.
With pound after pound lost, at first
I felt more confident and better. It
gave me a kind of strength to be thin. I
became obsessed with taking pictures of myself to see how thin I was. Yet, the mirror always lied to me. My best friend, my parents and my siblings
started to notice that I was losing weight really fast in too short a period of
time. Soon, my teachers started noticing
it too. I had a monster in my head,
screaming at me all the time not to eat.
It was too tough to resist it and I kept on losing weight drastically.
Sometimes, I would try to forget about
my eating disorder for a little while and try to eat normally. But then, I would feel really guilty
afterwards for eating anything at all and this would cause me a lot of
stress. This stress often lead to
sleepless nights just worrying about the food I’d eaten and “whether it would
make me fat”.
Next, what really scared me was that
my weight started dropping so fast that I became extremely underweight. I didn’t look good at all because my bones
and rib cage started showing. My cousin
told me that her friend was in a similar situation as mine in which she
continued to eat less and less. Eventually,
her friend found out that she couldn’t have children in the future. This really hit me because I love kids and
not having my own in the future would probably break me.
Thankfully, by the end of March 2013,
I somehow started to recover from my eating disorder. I felt so blessed to have such an amazingly
supportive and caring family. Also, my
friends and teachers helped me to realize how unhealthy this pattern of
behaviour was for me. If I had continued
it any longer, I would probably have ended up in rehab or a hospital, waiting
for death. But, it was very hard to turn
things around at first.
To begin sharing my guilty thoughts
and feelings with my parents and my best friend, I started out by telling them
how I felt. Somehow, they always knew
the right thing to say to make me calm down.
I’m so thankful to have such wonderful people in my life because,
honestly, they helped me towards a full recovery by getting me out of my life’s
biggest crisis. What really opened my
eyes the most towards recovery was seeing my best friend, Becca. Literally, everyday during recovery, when I
came to school feeling depressed, my thoughts and depression would go away
whenever I saw her. She helped me to
realize that I should not care about
the negatives in my life nor let my insecurities control me. What she did do was to help me understand
that I should live my life to the fullest.
She inspired me like no one else could, thus, my best friend motivated
me even more towards recovery.
My mother and her brother also really
helped me through my eating disorder. My
uncle kind of became my counselor. He
would ask me to call him whenever I had these dreadful thoughts so he could
help clear my mind. He made me aware of
how very harmful this was for me and of all the bad consequences, which really
opened my eyes. He said things like, “If
you continue, you will not be able to have children in the future”, and, “There
is a high risk of diabetes with this disorder.”
During recovery, I also looked at positive affirmations and read recovery
stories and quotes to encourage myself like my uncle asked me to.
I am very proud of myself today for beating
Anorexia Nervosa. This was not an easy
thing at all to do, but I definitely made my way to recovery. I am truly happy that I am through with that
tortuous lifestyle. I feel blessed to
have such compassionate and caring people in my life that I love more than
words can express. They were always there
for me. Without them, I would not have
been able to beat this monster. Now that
I have beaten it, I can live my life the way I want to live it.
copyright 2014, Anne Shier. All rights reserved.
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