Dying to be accepted

by Chad
(Atlanta, GA, USA)

I was only 10 years old when my eating disorder began to take form. My older sisters started poking fun at me for being fat. They even called me names at school, which prompted my friends to follow suit. I was known as "Fatty Chaddy" for several years. I found myself shying away from everyone in my life because I felt ashamed that I was overweight.

When I was 13 I made a promise to myself that before I reached high school, I would be thin and popular. I really believed that being thin would make me popular.

Summer break before 9th grade, I stopped eating anything but saltine crackers. I ran excessively and exercised all day every day. I eventually gave up the crackers because I felt they were too much.

For the entire summer, I would eat dinner and politely go to my bedroom and force the food back up and into plastic bags, which I hid and threw away so no one would know.

It felt amazing at first to know I had so much control over my own body image.

School started back and I was thin. I looked like I hadn't slept in years, but the weight was off and the taunting stopped. I even tried to start eating again, but it wasn't working. At that point, I was naturally throwing my food up without forcing myself to do so. I was suffering from bulimia nervosa.

I struggled most of that year trying to hide what I had been doing and also trying to figure out how to get over it without letting anyone know.

I was eventually hospitalized close to the end of 9th grade when I passed out and slipped into a coma during gym class. I remained in the hospital for nearly two months.

I was anorexic. I weighed 90 pounds at a height of 5'9. All that weight had to have been skin and bones and internal organs.

After months of therapy, several relapses and years of counseling, I overcame my eating disorder issues and now have an appropriate weight for my height.

I still find myself (15 years later) worrying if I look fat. It's those moments when I realize that I love my family and friends and never want to put them through that again. Writing and mentoring youth on the dangers of eating disorders has become my way of combating this disease mainly. I have spoken to many high schools in the state and feel confident that my experiences have deferred others from following in my footsteps.

I only pray that I can save someone else from the clutches of pour body image.