Narrative Essay On Eating Disorders

One minute I am sitting at the dinner table, smiling and laughing in the company of my friends. Then there is a sudden change of thought and out of nowhere I find myself headed upstairs in a panic. I know this feeling all too well by now and I know it is a feeling I have no control over. I try to calm myself down with deep breathes, but I cannot help the tears that starts inevitably streaming down my face. In an effort to hide my emotions I lock myself in the bathroom stall and slide down to the floor, rubbing both hands against my face to whip away the tears. I tuck my knees towards my chest and wrap my legs with my arms in an attempt to find some sort of comfort. It takes all of the energy out of me to stay quiet in hopes that no one will hear. I cannot fathom the idea of my strong, perfectly projected image

being compromised or even worse, someone finding out my secret.
The bathroom stall is small and white and the walls seem to be closing in on me as I sit trying to fight the thoughts running though my head. There are so many rushing in and out and like that initial panicked feeling, these thoughts are not new either. I think about what I ate and how much, the tight leotard I have to wear to ballet the next morning, and the last number I read on the scale that has been running through my head all day. Unlike some people who start their day by reading their horoscope, I start my by reading the scale, which determines my mood and course of action for the remainder of the day. Sometimes in this tiny stall I start to pray to God or any angel that might be watching over me. I ask to be normal, whatever normal means, and for these feelings to stop haunting me and consuming my thoughts. I hold strong in my belief that everything happens for a reason, but I pray that I will soon see positivity from this struggle God has given me.
Eventually I need to make a decision. I look at the toilet that seems to almost taunt me as I imagine all of the food I just ate being flushed away. It seems like such a simple solution to make it as if none of those calories ever happened. As much as I want the food gone, I imagine that awful burn in my throat as the stomach acid tears through my esophagus and the cramps in my stomach that can last for hours afterwards. I remember the regret that follows as I feel helpless and hopeless in this never ending cycle, like I have lost all control and am merely a puppet of my irrational thoughts. It seems senseless to deal with all of the mental and physical pain for a temporary moment of relief from the fullness in my stomach. Yet more times than not, I choose the temporary relief and the cycle starts again.
When people hear the word eating disorder they assume it means an obsession with calories, weight, and food. Though mostly true, I think the underlying obsession is with perfection. Our society is fixated on perfection in all aspects. We expect and desire perfection in school, the workplace, appearance, relationships, and in the world as a whole. One incorrect pass in can cause the team to lose the game and a wrong note on the cello destroys the sound of entire orchestra. When I think about the sports and instruments I played, dance remains the activity where perfection was emphasized most. If your foot was just an inch out of place or your timing was half of a second off beat, it was wrong. Early on I began to associate a wrong action with imperfection. I figured out that the goal in life, or at least in my life, was to be perfect. How I got there was not important; all that mattered was that I achieved perfection in all aspects of my life.
I grew up in a dance studio where the best dancers were the thinnest and skinny compliments were among the highest form of flattery. There were dieting books in the dressing room and our ballet teacher gave us advice on supplements to boost our metabolism. These books gave information on strict caloric intake as well as the ideal body mass index and weight for a professional dancer. I have never been overweight, but I quickly learned from those books that I would have to drop a significant amount of weight in order to make it in the dance world. Our teachers often referred to the perfect dancer body and I wanted more than anything to have that unblemished body.
At twelve years old I went on my first diet. I am not sure how this short term weight loss plan turned into such an addiction, but I found myself banning more foods and eventually skipping meals altogether. The praises I got in dance class by both students and teachers gave me a sense of accomplishment and strength to continue my weight loss journey. Soon enough my friends, family, and teachers became concerned, but I assured them I was fine. I lied to doctors about my daily food routine and had my parents convinced that this sudden weight loss was accidental. I hid weights in my clothes, up to fifteen pounds, to please the doctors and prove I was willingly and gladly putting on weight. In front of my parents I would stuff food in my mouth with a smile and then leave the room to spit out and dispose of it. I felt like a genius for having my gullible parents tricked and doctored fooled and these patterns continued.
It is extremely rare for someone with an eating disorder to overcome it alone, but when I started high school and joined dance team something changed.

The team had girls of all sizes and I was surrounded in an environment with so much positivity. I found myself slowly losing the control I had over food, eating more, and putting on weight. Although not happy about the weight gain, I did not feel as pressured to be stick thin and so I let it slide. I had many failed attempts over the years to restrict my food intake and accepted the fact that my wonderful self-control was gone. It started to hit me that I was losing the ideal body that I had worked so hard to get and without this body, I was losing perfection. I began to miss being underweight, being able to count my ribs through my back and going to sleep at night with my hips protruding out over my concave stomach. The idea of purging sat quietly for years in the back of my mind as I always knew it would be a last resort if I needed to lose a few pounds. With college dance program auditions coming up, I knew that I had to get back the perfect dancer body that all of those books deemed necessary for

success.
I felt as though there was a monster in the back of my head patiently waiting for me to crack and eventually I did. The night I decided to start throwing up was the night where perfection was placed as my top priority. For whatever reason, rotting teeth, stomach ulcers, and throat infections did not count as imperfections. In my mind, these were merely small sacrifices that were necessary in order to get the results I wanted. My journey with an eating disorder is a little different than most. Research shows that a skewed body image is what drives people to starvation and other dangerous behaviors to achieve weight loss. After my first significant weight loss, I knew exactly how thin I was and I loved being that way. The desire for perfection was what brought on this eating disorder at age twelve and that same desire kept me from being able to admit that I had a problem nearly eight years later. I knew very well that I had a problem, but I felt the need to maintain the perfect and optimistic reputation that everyone saw in me. People came to me with their problems, not the other way around. I always thought that I should be strong enough to deal with my problems on my own, because if I admitted that something was wrong with me, I was admitting to imperfection.
I still have trouble associated myself with the term eating disorder. Sure I had some issues with food and occasionally made myself throw up, but giving it a label just felt too permanent and personal. Although hard for me to admit when I have a problem, I am smart enough to know the damaging effects that come with an eating disorder. I knew something needed to change and decided that by removing the things in my life that made me feel pressured to look a certain way, the desire to perfection would leave. Because dance has always played such a factor in my ideal body image, I dropped my dance major in hopes that without these pressures I could return to a normal relationship with food that I had a number of years ago. It took me some time to realize that dance was not the sole cause of these destructive behaviors. My parents have only ever encouraged me to do the best that I can, so why I put such pressure on myself for high success, I have yet to figure out.
Everybody has something about their lives that they wish they could change or at least something they can improve on. For me, my eating disorder is the one thing in my life that I struggle with and would do anything to get rid of. I do believe that God only gives you what He knows you can handle and this gives me hope in recovery and confidence that I will one day see the good and the lessons it is meant to teach me. If anything, I have learned that there is no such things as perfection. I have been able confront the fact that I did have an eating disorder eight years ago and I continue to fight that eating disorder. It seems as though God has finally answered my prayers from that tiny bathroom stall and has given me the gift of acceptance. Acceptance of my flaws and hopefully one day acceptance of myself with all of these flaws.
Our society is certainly far from perfect for one with such high standards. Not every sports team can win every game, no cellist plays flawlessly every single time, and not every dancer has the same body type. We are all perfect in our own imperfection and flaws which make us individuals and unique. Being able to see the imperfection all around us makes it easier to accept these flaws and own up to our personal struggles. Having an eating disorder does not mean I have failed, but that I have given into the frame that society demands we all fit into. Everyone has something that they are dealing with either emotionally, physically, mentally, or spiritually and until we realize these struggles are part of human life, we cannot acknowledge them as problems. If I was perfect, I would be the exception to billions of people who walk this planet. Of course I would love to win every game and ace every test, but by welcoming imperfection into my life I have found much more peace, fulfillment and happiness.