Apology

I’m going to tell you a story. It’s basically the last 3 years of my life summarized in my google docs. I will start with an apology, I am sorry. I am sorry for radiating self-care and body positivity when I was unable to treat my own with the love it deserved. I am sorry for leading you to believe that I was happy with who I am and encouraging you to do the same. I apologize for being a hypocrite and I hope you forgive me.

At the end of sophomore year, I decided to take on the challenge of veganism. This new objective was driven by my lack of body confidence. I was determined that a diet change this severe was the answer to all of my struggles. This included me giving up all forms of animal-based products and eating a plant-based diet. This restriction lasted for half a year before I entered my next phase: the fitness phase. I became obsessed with counting macros and exercising daily for a minimum of an hour and a half. My body was my punching bag. I hated what I saw everytime I lifted up my shirt. I hated how my legs touched when I stood still. I used a number as a source validation, the lower it sunk, the happier I became. This three-digit number controlled every meal I consumed, every sweaty evening after school, and every early morning. I began to measure my consumption to the tee and use public figures as my goal.

The Summer going into my senior year I chose to compete in a Miss Texas preliminary pageant, to my surprise, I won. It gave me this feeling of affirmation that I needed and this drive to work harder than I had so far; thus begins the Miss Texas preparations. The training started with mock interviews, tearing down every opinion I had and polishing it to fit into a mold. Every sentence was rehearsed from my thoughts on gun control to my favorite pizza topping (and why). I was a script waiting to be read by the producers and eventually tossed out. The worst part was the modeling. I was shoved into dresses that squeezed my most insecure parts. I was taught how to stand to make my stomach look flat and what workouts I needed to do to tone my “problem areas”. I was so kindly informed of what not to eat and how often to do cardio. The gym literally became my home and food became my worst enemy. I tore my body to the bone and watched the weight shed off and guess what? I still lost the fitness preliminaries. So that was the beginning and end of my pageant career, moving on.

Once I didn’t have any particular goal to reach anymore it kind of became a game. The objective was to see how much time I could spend at the gym and how little I could eat without giving in. Surely then I would have abs, right? No. Instead, I was greeted with visible ribs instead of a six-pack. My boobs were a size smaller and it hurt to sit down because of my tailbone driving into the chair. My hair began to fall out and I would experience blackouts frequently. Something eventually clicked and I begged my mom for help. I genuinely felt like a prisoner inside my own body, being compelled to say no to plans with friends in fear of seeing food or going to a restaurant where the calories were unknown. Within a month of my senior year, I was admitted to an outpatient eating disorder treatment center where I was then diagnosed with Anorexia Nervosa.

I covered up my weekly visits to the treatment center with half truths of saying that I had a heart condition. It wasn’t a complete lie, the lack of nutrients had caused my heart to shrink and my bones to lose density. Once the bone density test results came in I learned that my lack of nutrients caused me to develop Osteopenia, the reversible step before the irreversible diagnosis of Osteoporosis. My heart rate went from 50 to 110 just by standing up. I was a shell of a human being. I lost my happiness, I was not the person I once was and others noticed. I began to sleep all of the time and lost connections to people that meant the most to me. I guess it’s true that you’re not you when you hungry, spot on Snickers!

Three months into the program, late December, I was admitted as an inpatient at Arkansas Children’s Hospital. To sum that up briefly, it was living hell. A week while my friends were on Christmas break I was subject to a hospital bed being brought six meals a day to begin the refeeding process. Although it was terrible, I would never be where I am today without experiencing this. I can honestly say that it has been seven months since I worked out and I don’t plan on ever again owning a gym membership. I’ve learned that there are so many ways to be healthy without lifting weights or only eating chicken and broccoli. Though the last few years have been the hardest I’ve yet to face I still have a long way to come.

I will be moving to Manhattan this August and will be facing a whole new level of life. I will have to learn how to recover for myself instead of for those around me. I will have to make the choice to live my fullest and brightest life driven by special moments instead of a number. New York City has been my dream since I was capable of producing one and it will not be tossed aside because of this eating disorder.

If anyone reading this has ever felt less than beautiful or unworthy of all of the love in the world I want to be the first one to tell you, you are wonderful. This world would be a shade less vibrant if you weren’t here. Thank you for being you and I am so blessed to say that we get to share the same freedoms. No one should feel that they don’t belong because of the size of their waist. You are built differently than 7.6 billion people. That’s something to celebrate if you ask me, go get a cupcake.