My Experience With Eating Disorders

My experience with eating disorders has taught me about the importance of asking for help and showing self-compassion. Mental illness can be embarrassing, specially because a large amount of stigma still exists around the topic today. For months, I refused to admit that anything was wrong, oblivious to the consequences of doing so. I found myself constantly avoiding situations involving food and slowly becoming more and more isolated. The depression and anxiety I experienced in these moments was torturous. Looking back, I wish I could have told myself sooner that she is worthy of respect, regardless of how she worthless she feels. When I finally pushed myself to open up to one of my friends, I began to realize how important this self-compassion

In times of potential criticism, I found myself agreeing with everyone, keeping my real opinions bottled up as a way of protecting myself. It wasn’t until high school that I began to understand how detrimental this was. To combat this, I’ve been determined to stick up for my own opinions and refuse to get trampled over. This has been incredibly challenging because I was always so tempted to avoid any social interaction whenever I made mistakes. However, I've found that persisting through rough times and trusting others’ assistance has helped me understand how irrational this was. By trusting my friends and family, I could gain their insight and move forward. They've taught me that it is much easier to learn from mistakes, rather than let them consume me. As I continue to express myself more, it has become easier to open up and be vulnerable to others' perception of me. Inevitably, I still find this challenging in some aspects today. However, I am more willing to contribute in social situations and I continue to pursue these situations outside of my comfort

I gained a lot of meaningful relationships along the way which encouraged me to persevere. However, I've learned that getting along with people can be difficult. I often avoided people when I got frustrated with them but I've learned that these problems do not disappear when you avoid them. By confronting situations when I was unhappy, I developed greater communication skills and, in fact, improved some of my relationships with these people. Over time, confrontation has gotten easier and I am grateful to have found my voice in certain cases. In track and field, I specially developed greater communication through relay races because we all had to work together to achieve our best time. I was often the first leg of the race because I could provide a powerful start to benefit the team. However, track and field is a fairly independent sport and it has taught me the importance of working to achieve personal bests, rather than comparing your best to others. Overall, I am humbled by the amount I've learned and I cannot wait to experience more in the