My Personal Story

Hmmm....Where do I begin? It all started when I was in grade 10 in high school. I started feeling the pressures that most girls feel. I felt that I needed to look a certain way (basically, thin), to be able to have friends and boyfriends. I thought that I needed to be skinny for people to like me. I know that I don't need that to have friends now.

I started to try to eat healthy and exercise more so I could lose weight. I would buy all the magazines for girls that gave you ideas on how to lose weight. I would always look at the models and wish that I could look like them. I really wanted to be thin fast. I started to eat less and less until I was eating nothing at school and only eating dinner at home. I noticed now that my marks in school dropped and I had no concentration. My parents never suspected anything, neither did my friends.

Somedays, when my hunger pains were too much, I would cave in and eat, but I would always eat huge amounts of food. Then I would feel very guilty. I learned from watching a T.V. movie about a girl with an eating disorder how to make myself sick after I ate. I thought this was a great trick. Boy, was I wrong. Eventually, by the persuasion of a friend, I went to talk to a school counsellor. I started to get help because I knew that what I was doing was wrong.

3 years since highschool, my eating disorder has gone up and down drastically. Some weeks I feel fine and happy about myself and my body, or even just days, I get very depressed and angry. I know that I have not completely overcome this thing, but I am definitely closer than I ever have been. A few months ago, I hit rock bottom. I don't think that I have ever felt as depressed as I did. I wanted to get rid of this thing and I felt that the only way I could do that was to die. I tried to overdose on pills, but lucky for me, a friend took me to the hospital. He saved my life. I was put into the psychiatric ward for a little while. I talked to many people while I was there. I think the whole experience helped me, too bad there wasn't and easier way to hit rock bottom.

Since then, I've been doing better and better with each little step, I wanted to help other people with eating disorders. Eventually, when I go to college, I want to be a counsellor for people that have similar problems like me. I think that with this web page, and my newsletter, if I can reach just one person, it makes it all worth while. I hope that someone out there goes to get help, and realizes that there is much more to life than an eating disorder. Eating disorders take over and that is how you live. Counting calories and counting situps is not the way is has to be. There is always someone out there to help, even though you might feel completely alone.....