Everyday was a new struggle, a new battle, facing a war that I thought I could never win. I would tell myself,

“Just one more day, just one more day without eating, you will be fine.”

One day turned to weeks, weeks to months. I starved myself for three years just to try and accomplish a look and be a person I wasn’t. Drowning in the disease of my own lack of self confidence, it wasn’t until I was at my worst that people started to question me and be concerned. I sat alone. I refused to eat. I felt judged by people who I thought were my friends. I grew sad, lonely, and depressed. I as a human, began to get diseases in a domino effect. Anorexia, then depression, insomnia. One by one they began to overwhelm me and consume me to the point of no other human reaction. I didn’t know what was wrong with me, all  I knew was that I wanted it to end, and soon.

I would walk around with scars on my arms, each one representing one more unhappy, negative thought after the other. Physically healing but never mentally. The scars of my misery remain permanently etched into my mind, reminding me of my own fiery pit of hell that lived inside my soul. I wasn’t okay, even though I would have liked to think so. I lived this way for three years. Always hiding my face, sitting alone, never realizing the physical and mental harm I was conflicting on myself. The day, the moment, the second I realized I had been slowly killing myself, without even knowing if I wanted to die, was a day I will never forget. I got angry at myself and screamed until there was no air left in my lungs,

“ What am I doing To myself? Why am I doing this? I don’t want to die today! What’s the point? I need help! It’s time to get help!”

I sat in my room for days just contemplating what to do, and how to do it. There is no rewind buttons or undo codes in life, so how was I to fix one of the biggest mistakes I have made.

The day I came to my senses and realized that by definition I had a curable disease, was when my doctor started to question my drastic weight loss. I began having extreme, sudden jolts of pain run through the back off my head, at some points almost making me collapse. My face started drooping, my bones started snapping. I was taken to the hospital several times due to malnutrition and dehydration. They would pump fluids into me that I couldn’t even pronounce, and that made my mouth have the slight taste of bitter copper. There were tubes and needles coming from my arms, heading into all directions. I tried to refuse treatment but my eyes opened wide as I started to see that I wasn’t only hurting myself, but I was hurting the hearts of everyone around me who cared.

I was aloud to leave the hospital but not how I thought. I left with a chart that told me that I HAD to eat, that I HAD to talk to someone, and that I HAD to see a nutritionist. All the things that I didn't want to do and hadn’t done for so long. I would ask myself,

“Do I still even know how to eat and talk to others?”

Those requests were only temporary, until they thought I had a grip back on my life, though it's not the only thing I left with that night. I left with drugs, and a lot of them. Some I didn’t even know why I was taking but the others made slight sense, with the little awareness I had at the moment. I am also now stuck with a permanent protein disorder, not allowing my bones to receive proper care. Due to the desperation to be perfect and the self harming, I can no longer do the things I love without painful consequences.

I was a dancer, a softball player, there was so many things that I wanted to be but I couldn’t because of the selfish demon inside holding me back. My bones snap, my joints constantly ache, and it is something that will never end. The friends and family I thought at the time were against me, were only actually there for me. They forgave me, as I forgave myself. I came to accept the fact that I did this stuff to myself and it’s unforgivable. I realized that I was anorexic, and I had a problem. I am living with my regrets everyday but one thing that I don’t regret is the outcome of it all, and the fact that it made me the very strong individual person I am today. By speaking out and letting people know they are not alone, means that I am fighting for not only myself but for others who also suffer from the disease that almost consumed me.