In the seventh and eighth grade, I was viewed as the smart kid of my class in middle school. I felt pressure from all angels to perform perfectly in all areas - school, art, music. And at this age, all girls start looking around and comparing themselves to those around and wondering where the differences were. I wanted to look like the skinny girls in my class, who hadn't develeoped as fast as I had. So at 5'2, I was about 130 pounds in the seventh grade, a little heavy for my small build. By March of eighth grade, I was barely a hundred pounds. The week of Westest standardized testing I was hospitalized for EDNOS (eating disorder not otherwise specified). I had lost enough weight to be considered a danger to myself, but hadn't yet went below the 15% under ideal body weight required for an anorexia diagnosis.
These two pictures are me somewhere around 95 or 100 pounds.
I don't remember much about how I got there, but I remember cutting out images from Seventeen, Cosmogirl, ElleGirl and Teen Vogue magazines and making a collage I called my Ana book after I found out about the pro-anorexia movement. I was never into pro-ana, because I was sort of proud of the disorder, and called it a disorder, and didn't appreciate it being called a "lifestyle" by dumb girls on the internet. I wrote down CW GW1 GW 2 UGW on everything: current weight, goal weights one and two, and ultimate goal weight: mine was 85 pounds, because Mary-Kate Olsen was that weight when she admitted to being an anorexic.
Anyway, the day I went into the hospital I was 96 pounds, pale white, and they didn't have scrubs to fit me. I stayed there for a week, forced to eat alone. I was the only one there for an eating disorder, the others were all there for drug addictions. I don't think the hospital helped me so much as the follow up psychologist sessions did. I went to therapy every two weeks until sophomore year of high school, when I exited at about 130 pounds again.
This is me right after I got out of the hopsital in March or April. Notice how pale. (I'm not putting my face on this.)
It's always hit me hard how the images in magazines triggered my own feelings so much. It's hard to see a picture and be instantly hit with feelings of not being at all good enough, feelings strong enough to put an otherwise healthy 13 year old girl into psychological treatment. I'm not saying that the media CAUSED my eating disorder, but it certainly plauged me the entire time, and still today I struggle with body image.
But, that's the reason I chose this topic: to help fight against something that hurt me personally, and hurts millions to this day.
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