Eating Disorders in Disguise | Teen Ink

Eating Disorders in Disguise

January 5, 2022
By Anonymous

“She looks so bad. I've never seen her this small.”

“Yeah, she's starting to look anorexic.”

 “She just won't even eat anymore, it's so stupid I don't get it.” 


There I was in my room just to hear my mom and stepdad talk about how I looked. I had just woken up and started on some homework that I had to make up for school. Of course, they didn't know I was awake and they still don't know I heard that to this day. I didn't know how to react to that. I didn't know if I should have just gone down there at the time and exploded on them and just spilled out every detail that's been trapped in my mind or not let them know I heard what they said. I went with the second option. 

 How I felt after that was horrendous. I  never thought in a million years my own mother would say that about the way I looked when she knew I go to the gym every day trying my best to gain the weight back and to fix my bad eating habits. Not that I wanted to gain back any of it that I had lost but I knew I needed to. It was hard to realize that I had an eating disorder at first. I didn't really think I did for a long time and I didn't want to accept it. I went back and forth on different types, binge eating and anorexia, I didn't think I had either of them at first because I was always doing one of them and I didn't think having both was possible. To get over and past something the first thing that needs to happen is you need to accept it and that was by far the hardest part. 

At first I didn't think it would affect me and I would just brush it off. That was not the case at all. I found myself forcing myself to eat throughout the day so my mom would notice I'm eating more. I didn't want to gain back the weight I had recently lost, I was happy with my weight and proud I got down to 105. My family constantly told me that i look smaller and i need to eat more did not help me whatsoever. I made an effort for a while before I could actually do it. The words I heard out of my mom's mouth just kept replaying in my head over and over and over. It made me feel like i had to gain the weight back if i wanted to or not. 

I constantly wonder why she said the things she did. It was eating me from the inside out. I didn't get how my mom who knew how id gone to the gym and absolutely killed my body so I could look like the other girls on Instagram looked. I know comparing isn't good and you shouldn't do it but every teenage girl goes through it. I was made an active effort to get my health on track. I go to the gym everyday and eat more and better than i had been. I've seen changes and it helped me to continue. 


The author's comments:

Im a sophmore in High school and this essay is about eating disorders and family members not being the best with helping.


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