Defeating Anorexia

Anorexia: a lack of loss of appetite (as a medical condition). An emotional disorder characterized by an obsessive desire to lose weight by refusing to eat.

Hi. You probably clicked on this article thinking "wow, this is dark," or maybe you clicked this article because you wanted to know how one can even defeat anorexia. I'm just going to say this one thing. If you want to officially defeat anorexia, go get help. Go tell someone how you truly feel. They won't judge you and as you will find out later in this article, you cannot just stop without telling people. That was my mistake. But I don't want to write this to encourage anorexia. I just hope that sharing my story could maybe help someone out there who thinks they won't ever defeat the disorder.

My teen years were a difficult one, as you can also see from my other article about social anxiety. I was a heavier child entering middle school with all these beautiful girls who were all skinner than me and plus those pesky magazine photos of models didn't help me one bit. I did suffer from depression before anorexia hit and I have also lost my father at the age of 13 in September 2012. It didn't help.

My grandmother spent my entire life telling me how girls my age are supposed to be skinny and pretty, and I felt like I had to live to make her proud. She would show me pictures of models and tell me that I could look like that if I tried, and of course... I believed it.

At the age of fourteen I had learned about anorexia and how it can help you become skinny like all those girls I've seen in school and in magazines. Of course me only being fourteen and wanting to lose weight myself believed it was just a healthy little diet. I started off just skimping off on dinner a bit. I would eat less for dinner than I usually would. That began being skipping a meal during the day so instead of three meals a day I'd eat two. Soon enough the two meals a day rule became a one main meal and maybe a little snack here and there. I never saw a problem in it. I just told myself "it's dieting, everyone does it."

Yes. I knew what I was doing was bad. I knew it wasn't a diet anymore after I started skipping on meals. But I couldn't stop. I was too focused on being skinny. I kept telling myself that skinny girls are pretty. I couldn't handle letting the truth of what was actually happening go into my mind.

It's like what they say; people enjoy doing what isn't good for them.

I finally told myself this was not normal at the age of sixteen. Of course, I still suffered, but I finally managed to confess to one friend about what was happening to me and even if I told only one friend, I felt like a huge weight got lifted off my chest. This friend helped me fight it through. She got me the courage to go up and confess to my mom about it, and even though I didn't tell her the entire story or how long I've had this issue, but it felt amazing to just tell her what was going on.

I never officially told my grandmother about it until I was eighteen and it was actually quite a funny yet sort of terrifying story. My mom knew about how I've started because of the remarks my grandmother had made and she understood because my grandmother (her mother) had made her feel the same back when she was a teenager.

[Disclaimer: My mother has actually officially dropped her for ruining her life, I'm still stuck in that train of love that I cannot ever see how bad her actions are towards me, but at the same time I know she can be emotionally abusive towards me.]

So we skip ahead to when I told her. It was night and my mom and my grandmother were in a fight, it was typically always started because my grandmother said something that had a negative affect towards us or something. Anyways... she mentioned how everything she did was for me and from the goodness of her heart and how nothing she ever did ruined someone. So my mom confessed to say that my grandmother made her feel depressed at times growing up. Yada... yada... bickering happened. Suddenly, it was said. I was asked to tell my grandmother what she made me do by my mother. But even though it was forced out, I did feel better after confessing to her, especially after admitting the entire reason behind why I was anorexic in the first place. Of course their were tears, of course their were I'm sorrys, I didn't knows, but it still felt great to be able to admit the truth.

I never officially got doctor's help and I must admit that if you did want to truly stop, I recommend it. I still get those temptations sometimes when I feel depressed every now and then.

But I wanted to share my story so that you know that you can get through this. If I can do it, so can you. Just if you are struggling, start off slow and tell a close/best friend first... and slowly ease up to telling your parents. I took a few years to tell everyone so I am here to tell you to not do anything until you are ready. But if you truly want to admit that anorexia is bad, you have to be able to tell yourself that what you are doing is bad. Confessions are hard, but after its done, you will feel so much better.