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this is the story about my year battling with anorexia/bulimia and cutting and other forms of SI thanks to divorced parents, a distant father, an unstable childhood, uncontrollable anger, disease, and self esteem issues that began in 4th grade...thank you for reading <3 and forgive me if this isnt written very well, or its choppy...{its really long} **may be triggering to some, please read at your own risk**
I guess everything began when i was about 4 years old, when my father, who pastored a church along with my mother, began to physically abuse my mother and eventually kicked us out of the house, and then left the church. He stayed around for a little while but then he met my stepparent (she doesnt deserve the word mother associated to her name anywhere!) and literally moved to the other side of the country and started a new family.
My mother was strong but we moved around alot, i was never in the same school for more than 2 years, never had the same friends, and lived in some crazy scary apartments. She kept us safe and we never went without but my siblings and i were never really the same. When i was in 3rd grade my father decided he was going to try to get custody of us, which eventually led into a long and crazy custody battle. My father was granted custody by the Louisiana state court, when my mother was perfectly fit to parent, the judge was truly just unfair. My stepparent had even told my mother that she would only care for us because we were Tom's kids, she never wanted us in her life to begin with, we were simply baggage. So we were moved out to California to live with him and we would be there for about 2 years. After the first year though, my father being the selfish man that he was decided he couldnt take care of my older brother and sister and so he seperated us and decided to keep my other sister and myself. Once closer than humanlly possible, my siblings relationships would never be the same.
The next year, my mother was finally granted sole custody when her and my stepdad (who i will refer to as my dad from now on in the story) moved to new york. They built a beautiful house and it all seemed like it was going to be a happily ever after when my four siblings were finally together again, but then my mo got sick. She was diagnosed with primary milo fibrosis, which is pretty much a precurser to lukemia. Around this time it was the beginning of my 4th grade year and i started to have trouble with uncontrolable anger. I would never lash out and people but in the sanctuary of my own room i would bite myself, pull my hair and throw things to help myself feel better. Nothing ever really triggered this anger, to this day i dont really know why it happened but it did. This was also the time that i began to hate my body, ill be the first to admit that i am a total pear shape, although ive always been skinny, or tiny as some people choose to describe me as, ive never liked my body and that would only get worse as i grew up.
I switched schools again for 6th, 7th and 8th grade, to a small private catholic school that my mom worked as a teacher at. The classes were small, our 6th grade clas had 26 kids, 13 girls 13 guys, and a whole lot of drama. In 7th grade the "popular" girls (yes, out of 13 girls, we split halfway between the girls who thought they were pretty and awesome, when in actuality they just hung out with the boys, and the rest of us) got on a weight loss kick, and i wanted to be apart of them so i did to. I always was one who cared too much about what people think, and wanted so desperatly to belong and feel important, i was never sure how long i would be staying at a school so i didnt want to waste time being the loner or make uncool friends, so i did what i had to do. In 7th grade that meant, going online looking for new "miracle" diets or workouts that i could bring to lunch with me. I never lost any weight but this was the beginning of searching for the fastest and easiest way to shed a few pounds, i was about 12. I started to feel that if i looked perfect than people would like me, that no one could truly like someone who was round and flabby.
Ever since i was about 11 i have always been an athlete, my mom would jokingly say that i had the magic touch because any ball i touched or sport i tried, i excelled at it. This included basketball, volleyball, soccer and track. Being active also helped me to be able to eat what i wanted when i wanted and stay very thin, my family used to call me the garbage disposal when i was growing up.
So after i graduated 8th grade and entered into high school, everything was looking up for me, i had gotten a small scholarship to a catholic high school, Mount Mercy, had found my group of friends, i was playing varsity volleyball my sophmore year, was apart of the best girls volleyball club in Western New York and i liked my body. More importantly, i was happy and my relationship with God was amazing. I had always had a strong faith in god and my mother is a big part of that, we were led by example that god truly gives us strength in our times of weakness and he provides for us when there is no other way. My sophmore year was difficult because my brother had decided to turn to drugs and alcohol and SI to deal with the pain from my father, and many nights i cried myself to sleep out of fear for what my big brother would do next. But it was the summer before and my junior year that would be the straw that broke the camels back and would lead me down the road to self destruction.
I had gone to Ecuador to live with a friend for a month and gained some weight thanks to elaborate meals 3 times a day. At the time i was 5'4" and 126 lbs, average for my height but not average for me, i felt like a balloon and once again, i switched schools. At Mercy, my grades had begun to slip and girls that i had spent 2 years of my life with began to reject me for no reason. Over that summer i tried to keep in touch with them through Facebook and texting but they decided that they didnt want anything to do with me. I was the traitor and they felt that i left Mercy because i was too good for them. Once again i wasnt good enough, and it broke my heart. When i entered my new school Mount Saint Marys, i tried to stay positive. The first day of school wasnt bad, some girls had taken me under their wings and shown me the ropes of the school. But then my mom began to get worse and the doctors gave her 3-6 months to live around december of the same year. I became bitter and angry and had a constant attitude towards my family. To make matters worse, at school the girls began to reject me, and ignore me because i couldnt always hang out with them. I was merely convience and when they realized they couldnt mold me into a band/drama follower, i wasnt good enough all of a sudden. I allowed myself to become invisible at school, always with my headphones on, just going through the motions. It was during December of that year that i first cut myself.
Before that day, i had usually just scratched my arms with my nails or used toothpicks or something to make surface scratches. But then i decided that wasnt good enough. One day a few days after christmas, my dad was hula hooping on our Wii. We were all laughing about how goofy he looked and i made a comment that i felt was harmless about how he didnt know how to move his hips, but my family took it personally. They all decided that was the right time to tell me how awful i had been acting. My sister told me that everything i said those days was b****y, my dad said that i was always treating him like crap and my mom couldnt believe i had said what i said. My other sister was the only one who stuck up for me, and told them to chill. I didnt want them to see me cry so i went upstairs, grabbed and old metal compass *the kind that you use in school to make circles* and went in my bathroom and cut a line into my left arm. It wasnt deep, it barely bled really, but it was just enough to release the pain that i had been feeling. I thought i was done, but i heard my family laughing downstairs while i was upstairs crying a hurting myself so i cut another line, the same as before, it didnt bleed much but it was just enough.
I didnt tell anyone, i mostly wore long sleeves or sometimes didnt even cover them, but no one noticed. The same week i had a counseling appointment with my Hospice counselor who deals with grief/and loss to help me cope with my mom being sick. I had been seing her for awhile and we whad become close so i showed her my cuts. She had me sign and anti-harm contract that i ended up not sticking to. It all got worse when i went back to school. Luckily, it was winter in Buffalo, New York so it was freezinggg! I wore my school fleece everyday and no one saw my cuts. I didnt cut again until a few weeks later when i forgot my fleece in the car and due to uniform dress code i couldnt wear my hoodie, so i just had my short sleeved polo on all day. No one even noticed my arm, and it hurt. So i went home, went in my bathroom and cut again, just as deep as before. This continued for awhile, i didnt tell anyone besides my counselor and no one asked. This was the foundation for my own world that i had begun to build around me. It was as if i was all alone in a crowded room, screaming at the top of my lungs, but everyone who claimed they cared was ignoring me. So i cut to bleed, and i bleed to remind myself that i am in fact aliv and have something to live for.
My eating disorder kicked in around january, it all began with a diet. I had not made the club volleyball team i had hoped for so i quite volleyball after 6 years of year-round playing. I remember that hit me really hard, and i didnt know what else to do. So during my january break, only one week, i decided to start working out at home, i felt like i needed control. I wasnt restricting at this time, i would just eat a salad for lunch after i worked out or something but i would eat whatever i felt like eating during the rest of the day. But when i started going back to school i remember feeling like i needed something that would make me feel strong, so i usually never ate breakfast, but i began to not eat lunch either. I would just bring a book with me and a bottle of water and maybe some fruit and sit at the lunch table silently. No one said anything, no one cared, i had successfully become invisible.
It all went downhill from there, my siblings had all moved out or gone onto college so it was just me and my parents. My parents had become really busy with work so it wasnt uncommon for them to get home later than usual, and because of her disease my mother would usually come home from work say hello to me ask me how my day was and then go to sleep because of how drained she was. So i strted skipping dinner too, whenever i could. I begun to embrace to feeling of hunger, i would watch other girls eat at lunch, and feel sick just from watching them scarf down their food. I started to read books on anorexics and bulimics and became addicted to pro-anorexia websites online, where girls would post tips and trick son how to fool people around you. I started to lose weight but no one noticed. It was my very own secret, my control that no one could take away from me, i became obsessed with working out and getting through my days even though i was tired and weak. I felt like superwoman survinving on about 300 calories a day.
It wasnt until the end of february that i began to make myself throw up or purge. I remember eating too much macoroni & cheese at dinner and i sat in my own bathroom in front of my toilet for about a half hour deciding what to do. My body won and i stuck my fingers down my throat and made the food come back up. The feeling afterwards was euphoric, i had lost control but then gained it back again in about 5 minutes. I felt empty and weightless, and yet guilty and i had a hole in my heart from what i had just done. I started to purge a few times a week, when i would have meals with my parents or go out to dinner. 2 weeks later i visited my sister in mew jersey and took a trip with her and my cousin to NYC for the first time. It was then that i first purged in a public bathroom, i became obsessed.
Throughout march i began to purge everyday, i wouldnt binge like most bulimics, but i would eat when i had to and purge afterwards. The cutting had gotten worse as well. In april i went to visit my father and that was when i began to use blades to cut myself. I was obsessed with making myself bleed as much as i could. I also began to struggle with depression during this time, i had gotten myself down to about 114 lbs, but it wasnt enough. I had allowed my counselor to tell my family about my struggle with my ed and cutting, and we were looking for therapists and i had to start going to and ED specialist once a week. I never slept and was always anxious before i had to eat, i would have mini panic attacks on my way to the table or the lunch room. So my ed doc, gave me Clonazepam for anxiety, right before i left for california. I was supposed to take one pill 3 times a day about a half before eating. The problem was that i wasnt eating regularly because my father didnt know what was going on, because i didnt want him to find out and take my mother to court again because of it all, he had done that before with my other siblings issues. To make it wall worse, the pills gave me a high feeling, so i began to take two at a time, and then three in the morning and i would randomly pop a pill throughout the day to help me get through. One night i stayed awake and contemplated suicide, i had hit rock bottom. I called one of my friends from my youth group and she prayed with me ad helped me feel better, and then she called my mother to tell me what was going on, i didnt know until i got back home to new york.
My parents let me stay home from school the day i got home, which wasnt anything new, but the deal was that i had to stay next door with my grandparents. I liked hanging out with them so i didnt mind, but it was also easy for me to say i forgot something and walk home, so that day i did just that. I didnt want to cut at their house because i wouldve felt too guilty so i went home and cut. This time i wanted to see how deep i could go so i kept cutting until i saw a vein sticking out, which scared me so i cut another line, just as deep. I put on a hoodie and walked back over to my grandparents house, still bleeding. Later that afternoon i had my weekly doctors appointment, and she saw my cuts and didnt say much, just that i should keep it clean, it had stopped bleeding but it was wide open. Later that night i decided to show my mom because part of the vein was sticking out and i scared me. So we ended up going to the hospital, which was the beginning of the longest 10 days ive had to endure so far. After i got the stiches and had told the nurse how the cut truly happened, they made me meet with the psycologist. After meeting with both myself and my parents, they decided i would be admitted into the Adolescent Psych Ward for a few days because they were scared about how non-chalant i was about if i were to die. I was down to 112 when i got into the hospital and after the first week i lost another 3 lbs. I wouldnt eat and the second day i passed out after htey took my blood. They couldnt force me to eat because they mainly dealt with cutting and suicide. I kept to myself and refused to socialize with the kids around me, they were nice but just from different walks of life than i was. But for some reason i felt comfortable there because i didnt have to be ashamed of my scars and it wasnt new to anyone. During this time i witnessed some of the worst things i think i will ever see or hear in my life. 2 people were so out of control that they had to call hospital police to strap them down and sedate them, and one day another girl tried to hang herself with a rope she made from strips of her pajama pants. I just tried to be quiet and do what i had to do to get out of there, after 9 days the dr gave me a script for an anti-depressant and let me go home.
I stopped cutting for a few weeks after that and then started up again. I didnt have to go to school any longer and stayed at my youth leaders house during the day. A tutor came for home instruction 3 times a week and i rarely ever did homework anymore. I strted to a eat a little bit but was purging more than ever. My body was so exahusted that i was taking 2-3 naps a day, this kept me from passing out. It was during this time that i strted to carve words into my skin and was cutting about every other day. My lowest weight was about 103 lbs and i still wasnt happy wiht myself. I also started to struggle with my anger again. One night i woke up at 3 am so anger that i pulled my hair and bit my skin and threw stuff all around my room. I tried to do push ups but when that didnt work i slammed my head against the ground to try to make myself pass out, the next morning i had seriously begun to think about suicide, and i haunted me for a few days afterwards as well.
I felt like i had reached my absolute lowest point at this time, which was only a few weeks ago. Everyone was moving on without me, it was like i was trapped underwater and i can see everyone having fun at the surface and laughing and playing and im trying so despratly to get up there but with evey stroke i take, tey get further away. I have gained about 10 lbs and have started a therapy program known as DBT which is group once a week and one on one counseling another day a week. I have come to the point in my life where i either have to choose Gods way or my way, and its something that i struggle with on a day to day basis. I have strted to actually pay attention in group and am using the skills they teach us. I have also been able to use pen and paper to get my emotions out by writing poetry and i always have rubber band around my wrist to snap against my skin when i get anxious or want to cut. I also have discovered boondoggle, as dorky as it sounds haha, to keep my hands occupied and i am never really allowed to be alone for long periods of time. God has also brought my best friend named Katie into my life from this one pro-ana site. Girls from all over the world are on that site and we found out that we live 25 mins away from each other and actually went to school together for a year, i was a freshman and she was a senior. God has allowed me to lead her to the Lord and we are both trying to recover together. Im on the waiting list for and inpatient program in Nashville as well.
Im not going to lie and tell you that everything is peachy keen right now, i still cut and purge but not as often. I have to text two of my counselors every day to check in with them and i have a good support system that i can turn to when i feel destructive. This is a battle that i am far from completeing, but at this point i finally feel hope.
If any of you reading this have struggle with any type of SI, i know youve heard it a million times, but ill make it a million and one more, please PLEASE tell someone. I know what its like to now want to let anyone in your world, and how scared out of your mind you feel when you even think of telling someone you dont eat, or showing someone your scars. But i can promise you that there is hope for a future and God will be there with you every single step of the way, and he will use your story to help others who are in the same boat as you.
Thanks for taking time dear reader, and i hope my story has helped someone to find the courage and strength to stand when the world encourages us to stay down. <3
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