Vicky's Story

I grew up in a very critical environment. My parents always compared me to my sisters, always expected me to do well, and I was not given a very good foundation for my self-esteem. I was a perfectionist. When I started high school, I felt like I was going into this huge environment with lots of competitors and I worried that other people might do better than me academically. It started out with me trying to eat healthy, but the stress made things worse and from tenth grade on I had very severe anorexia that was resistant to treatment. Even though I was diagnosed, my family was in denial and didnt take the illness seriously at first. I told my dad, I dont have anorexia. Thats when people dont eat and Im eating fine. But it got worse and worse until finally I had to be hospitalized in the summer after my tenth grade year. It was during my first treatment that I realized I had a problem, but I didnt want to fix it because I wanted the good feelings of being skinny. I felt that I was better than others and more acceptable to myself. I thought that not eating was the only thing I was really being successful at. I could always fail an exam, but my weight was completely under my control and I could do anything I wanted with it. It was more than just the issue of control, though; my whole being was wrapped up in my anorexia. Everyone thinks anorexia is just about dieting, but that became my essence and having that taken away was like taking away a part of me, which is why I think it was so hard to treat. I was completely engrossed in it. Gaining weight was like killing a part of me. It was like telling someone who loves sports that they couldnt play anymore, only a hundred times worse than that. I had to deal with the feelings of inferiority, feeling disgusted with myself, and listening to people tell me that I was not acceptable the way I was. What made it even harder was that I didnt think I was acceptable to begin with. I gained weight so that I could get out of the hospital, but I didnt intend to keep it on after I got out.

I often ate only vegetables because I was terrified of food. I was obsessive about calorie counting, and kept myself under 500 calories a day for a couple of months. I wrote down everything I ate and everything I did in my diary so that I could keep control of my life. I was pretty absorbed in myself, not socializing at all. My life was very simple and very rigid-I had rituals for eating particular amounts at particular time and for exercising. If I was off schedule, I felt like I had totally failed. People think that appearance is the most important issue in anorexia, but appearance became nothing to me. Numbers were everything-calories and pounds. I didnt care if I looked like a model, I just wanted to be thin. If someone told me that I looked bad, I took that as a compliment. I hid my body, though, so that you could tell I was really skinny but not how skinny, and I always ate okay in front of my parents.

I went through multiple treatment programs and finally it came down to whether I wanted to live or die. Not many people face that choice unless theyre at gunpoint. I decided to live. I finished high school through correspondence and things have been easier since coming to college. The key to my recovery was independence, getting away from my family and being on my own. Ive learned that I can do stuff by myself and that I am competent, I can make decisions for myself and carry them out. Ive had lots of life-altering changes but Im glad that I had anorexia because it helped me get to know myself. Ive gained a lot of insights-without it, I probably would have gone through life still focused on grades but now my quality of life is better because Im doing things I actually enjoy. I know to value happiness and satisfaction with myself, to do what I want to do and not what others want me to do.

One of the things Ive learned is how important it is for people to speak up. People dont always tell you what they see, whether its that you have food stuck in your teeth or that youre dangerously thin. They think its none of their business, but if you are concerned about someone you should say something because to them nothing is wrong. If a lot of people, especially my friends, had asked me about my weight, it might have helped and I might have turned towards recovery, but no one mentioned it until I didnt care anymore. I never believed it when people told me that life was better without an eating disorder. I think that I will always worry about how I look-right now Im not completely satisfied, I think Im a little over-but I know that Im okay the way I am. I exercise, but not compulsively, and I like it better this way because I feel like Im more in sync with other things, not always on a rigid schedule. Most importantly, I know that everyone has their positive qualities and that I am a good and competent person.

Last Modified 12/22/2005