I lie in the foreign bed within the unfamiliar room, staring up at the unknown ceiling. My heart is galloping like a bronco inside my chest, and a piercing ache develops inside my head. My muscles appear to be in pain, although this could be an illusion. In truth, everything around me could be a mirage. The anti-ligature luminaire attached to the ceiling or the highly secured windows, as well as the fragrance bulbs generating a bittersweet scent, can be a deception. The thoughts in my head run in an infinite cycle until the sense of worry awakens inside my chest, prompting me to deeply breathe in and lightly breathe out. This method clears my mind of superfluous notions, leaving only one thought: I do not belong here. These last several weeks felt like an eternity. I'm trapped within this facility, not even permitted to get some fresh air like a "healthy" person would. I am continuously accompanied by an adult who most likely does not understand me. They do nothing except feed me a lot and tell me that gaining weight is necessary for me. They have no sense of humour or sympathy. What they value the most is when their patient follows their instructions. For me, they are living machines who exhibit no empathy for the most vulnerable individuals. And they claim to understand me: lucky enough to be swapping shifts with others in order to return home, while I'm compelled to stay in this building for the entire time! Each guardian is slightly different, but they all share one trait: they care more about my weight than what goes on within my warped mind. Every day, I'm expected to eat six times. This is more irritating than listening to an OCD girl ask her guardian thousands of questions or seeing a depressed female sob in the restroom. And even though the amount of food I have to consume frustrates me, I refuse to give up; every mouthful I make, every sip I take, is for my family. My parents simply deserve a healthy daughter, not one who is locked up in a psychiatric clinic for months when she could be at school working. The wall of my temporary room is adorned with images of a happy family, a family that is mine, and I don't want to destroy something as valuable as a family just because I couldn't beat my eating disorder. This condition isn't worth it. I must continue to fight. For the sake of my family; for my own benefit. And, while I don't understand some of the other patients, I'm confident that they can all do the same thing: keep on fighting for the sake of their loved ones. As difficult as it is to overcome a mental illness, one can be stronger than the voice inside their head; since this voice isn't the real you! The true self is the happy person you once were, yearning to be released from the pressures that a mental illness can bring. And I know we can do this; we just have to. So I keep on eating, keep on fighting, and everytime I'm feeling down about myself, I go to my room, to the wall covered with family photos, to remind myself why I'm doing all of this in the first place. I want to be with the people I love, but I can't since I'm in this facility. The only way out of here is to eat - and I'm doing this right now. Another few weeks pass, and I do my best not to give up. I can't let myself down, especially now that I'm so close to being released. Sharing my room with someone who is working as hard as I am to get back on their feet enhances my confidence. Having a friend like them is extremely beneficial in keeping me on track. Their name is Yara - but I call them Lou. And, finally, the day of my release has arrived. Everyone congratulates me on my accomplishment, my new friends give me tight hugs, and Lou even gives me a present - a painted canvas with my name on it. "We have made this for you so you will remember us" , they tell me. "I will miss you so much." I try to stop the tears streaming down my face. I will miss you too!, I want to exclaim. I will miss you more than you'll miss me! But everything I say is “Thank you for the canvas. I really appreciate it!” With that, I leave them - it's now their turn to leave this place having accomplished something that they can be proud of. Once I step outdoors, I immediately spot them: my mother in her ivory-coloured coat, my father in his characteristic black cap, and in front of them, my precious sister carrying our dog in her arms. They look lovely together, yet their pack is incomplete. So I run towards them, a broad smile on my face. The moment I land in my mother's arms, everything is fine again. I did it! I've returned home. Our tribe is at last complete. And everything that has happened belongs in the past, where I hope it will remain in perpetuity. Two years later, I am sitting in my room in an entirely different country, at my desk, writing the story of my life. When I pull my gaze away from the screen, my attention is drawn to a colourful canvas situated on my windowsill. Guess what? It has my name on it.

I don't have the normal story people take the time to write down; I mean normal by eating disordered standards. I don't have any fascinating stories of all the time I was in mental wards. I don't have any horror stories of being trapped in a hospital. I don't have any inspiring quotes about hitting rock bottom and reevaluating my whole life. There's no patient doctor who got through to me, lock ups, or meal plans. There's no parents trying harder to be what I need. There's no life altering epiphany that inspired me to knock this shit off. I longed for understanding of my own mind. I became obsessed pretty young with reading stories about troubled youth with mental illnesses. I'd always loved reading, and I longed to find something to relate all this confusion and pain to, to not feel alone and broken like I could never be fixed. Part of me always still felt lost, because I never experience what this book characters did, fiction or nonfiction. I never had the opportunity (or punishment depending on how you look at it) of being sent to some fancy hospital. It led me down the dark path of never feeling sick enough, so I felt alone, never quite deserving of worry or help, no matter how bad it got. It was never going to be worth the time or effort to fix me. There's something to be said for being the kid no one notices while also having a mental illness. There weren't parents who cared enough to pay attention. There were no doctors to demand I be shipped off for reprogramming to eat like a real girl. And even if either of those things were different, there was no money to support any type of capitalist recovery program. I never even saw a dentist as a kid, (conveniently, since that would have been the doctor to pick up on the eating disorder due to what that does to your teeth). My mother took me to the doctor just enough to get my shots so I could go to school, and my doctor always ignored my shrinking weight, my never getting my period, and other health problems. Doctors will later tell me that the childhood neglect and emotional abuse would have strongly affected my personal susceptibility to having an eating disorder. My childhood piled with future abuse and trauma will also lead to a diagnosis of BPD (borderline personality disorder, not to be confused with bipolar disorder). I've been in and out the therapists and psychiatrists offices my whole adulthood, constantly changing doctors, never even knowing where to begin anymore. I do often wonder if I had gotten to be a normal child, with parents who give a little more of a shit, if none of any of this had happened to me, if I still would have gotten stuck with this disorder, this addiction. I'll also later learn I have a cousin who is anorexic, so perhaps the genetic factor would have screwed me over anyway, even if I grew up in a loving, caring environment. I would often sit and wonder, if any of this was worth it. If I was gonna feel like this forever, if this was the kind of sick that never truly got better, then why even bother continuing to live. Sometimes I couldn't find an answer to that, and those times ended up as very bad days. I often felt too lost to be found. I was always either too much, or never enough. And no one wanted to deal with the girl who never got better. No one has time for you when you stay sick. Living with an eating disorder throughout most of your life makes adulthood exceptionally more difficult to accomplish. You spend years of your adolescence not planning any sort of future, having zero dreams, because you just don't see yourself making it that far. You don't expect a long life, any sort of love story or successful dream career because you aren't going to live that long. Either because you plan on taking your own life to escape, or because deep underneath your denial, you know what you're doing is going to kill you, sooner rather than later. Recovery just a little blip on the radar that you aren't paying mind to, because you're not sick, you're just too strong to give up now, you've gotten so far.

Learning to love myself has been one of my longest life challenges. My self esteem has been at battle with a twenty-year old eating disorder. Turning eleven brought a birthday gift of weight gain and put me on a path of restricting, binge eating and over-exercising. It seems like it has taken forever to understand how manipulating my weight and appearance in both healthy and unhealthy ways was a reflection of how I felt on the inside of myself. Bombarded with images in the media of impossible beauty standards and socialized norms of feminine behavior, my eyes looked into the mirror for a sense of self esteem. Instead of empowering female friendships, mine were competitive. Who had a thigh gap? How many boys were drooling after us? Whose closet was larger than life? All that criteria was external and I couldn't win. So I skipped parties, weddings and graduations because I felt unattractive. The "when, then" game ruled my life: I thought 'when I lose twenty pounds, I will have a boyfriend" and "when I lose twenty pounds, I will be happy." I didn't realize that projecting my happiness to the future meant I was missing out on the present moment. I lost a lot of time to this unhealthy obsession. Instead of building personal coping tools like meditation, work-related skills, or even participating in sports, I spent years hiding in therapy and eating disorder programs. I was desperate to find out what was so wrong in my core that I put so much emphasis on looks and weight. One mind-blowing incident started my journey towards self-love. I remember spotting her six years ago while I rode the subway. She was my ideal self: petite, with manicured nails and blond hair. Why couldn't I look like her? For sure she had a boyfriend! I ruminated over this for most of the ride. Finally my ears decided to interrupt my brain and I heard her speaking to her friend. Her voice was sharp and she spent the whole subway ride complaining about her life. She seemed miserable and shallow. I came home and told my mom I would never want to be that pretty if it came with being so negative. My family physician also held the key to a lesson I still think about daily. She sat me down once and asked me to look outside her door. There was a woman in head to toe Michael Kors, dripping diamonds, with highlighted hair. She asked me what I thought of her and I went with "beautiful." Within two breaths my doctor told me that her patient's life was falling apart because of divorce and bankruptcy. "Never assume someone's happy based on what they look like or what they wear," she warned me. That day my doctor really called me out for the way I was looking at the world. It was as disordered and self-destructive as my eating. Working in fashion was also one giant leap towards recovery for me. I am a sales associate, fitting women of all shapes and sizes and working hard to establish our collective self-esteem. When I accompany my clients to their fitting rooms, young women and their mothers regularly share with me their fears regarding the shape of their thighs, booties, and breasts. It was out in the open now and I confronted how ingrained body shaming is across my gender. Answering “does this outfit looks good on me?” or “does this make me look fat?” is my opportunity to reassure women. I let them know that confidence, posture, and inner beauty radiates beyond body shape or size. As they try on the latest in Spring styles. I like to vocalize my appreciation for what sets them apart, be it their freckles, or their life accomplishments, friendships and career achievements. There are too many stresses in young women's lives. The pressures of social media, peers and fierce academic/job competition face girls every day. Dinners are hardly made at home anymore. Routine discussion between family and friends is often interrupted by constant texting. The pressures of exams, lack of sleep and Red Bull, penetrates young lives. I hear about my client's struggles with their bodies, Mara Teigen and Ashley Greene on Instragram, as well as what boys think about them. This the context in which our feelings and thoughts about our bodies are developed. So when will this self-deprecation end? As long as there are to be beauty products and fashion brands to be sold, marketing may continue to rule female self-esteem. I am writing to let others know that there really is a path to becoming self assured in ourselves. When I chose to put the most value on achieving personal goals, and deciding to really interact with the world, there was socializing and activities which built up my self-esteem. I could really list what I liked about myself based on my capabilities and social media has been banned from my life. I am finally doing the activities I always dreamed of despite of how I worried I am or anyone else is about my looks. I cross my fingers and wish that for every girl and women I ever get the opportunity to dress!

My mind is still a battlefield. The sides? Self-acceptance and self-hatred. The soldiers? Thoughts of the challenges I've overcome and thoughts of burying myself again in restrictions. The victor? It depends on the day. Anorexia, upon reflection, was inevitable. It took root when I was 8 years old and crying in bed because I thought I was fat. It blossomed when I was 10 after my dad commented that the mashed potatoes I was eating contained carbs, which would make me gain weight. It permeated my mind when a boy's eyes flitted over my body and told me I had big thighs. It began to guide my daily routine until people started to compliment my appearance. Then, it took over. Anorexia was never a voice in my head; it was more of a silent dictator. It rewarded me with an overwhelming feeling of satisfaction when my aunt compared me to a Barbie doll or my ex-boyfriend proudly exclaimed that I had the physique of a mannequin. It punished me when I disobeyed its orders. Even when I considered it my closest friend, I knew that it ruled me. I tried to "give it to God" so many times, but I was slowly destroying the body that He had given me. I stopped worshipping God because I had sold my soul to the scale. 130. 125. 120. High school graduation. 115.110. Holidays. 115. Compulsive exercise and starvation. 110. My mother's death. 105. Binges. Anxiety. Fear. Emptiness. Nothing. No emotion, no expression, nothing but the feeble cries of a body that was dying. I was dying, and I loved it. Here's the thing about Barbie dolls and mannequins though: they're incredibly fragile. And, like them, my body began to break from the blows anorexia had dealt it. My binges became frequent and aggressive. My body was trying so desperately to save itself that I felt compelled to eat anything in sight. Eating entire jars of nut butter or pints of ice cream became a regular, dreaded part of my daily routine. Even when I tried to throw up after finishing these monster meals, my body said "Hell no." I gained fat, muscle, more fear, more anxiety, and more support as I told more and more people about the demon that had dominated my life since I was 8 years old. Then, a miracle: my body began to regenerate. I slept for 10 hours each night. My period came back. I reluctantly began seeing a dietitian. A therapist came soon after. And the whole time, the number on the scale rose. Starvation didn't work anymore. I was a different shape physically, but my hatred remained unchanged. I hated myself through the pounds I lost, and I hated myself through the pounds I gained. And here I am, finally physically well and mentally sound, but still battling this mass of hatred in my chest. Do I hate myself? Maybe I can't decide where the hatred should really go. I could direct it toward my mom, but she only wanted to feel more beautiful. She didn't know that the medicine she took after undergoing cosmetic surgery would ultimately kill her. I could use the hatred to attack the society that pressured both of us to strive towards unattainable standards, but that wouldn't bring me real relief. I could talk through the hatred objectively with a therapist over thousands of appointments, but that wouldn't make it dissipate. I could take to social media in search of wisdom to diffuse the hatred, but the words of comfort bounce right off. So my immediate impulse is to internalize the hatred, aiming it inward towards myself. Eat a little less, move a little more, because those are the instructions anorexia sometimes still whispers when self-acceptance seems to be losing the battle. Maybe skip a meal. Or a day. A few days. Never eat again. If I shrank physically, maybe my feelings would shrink too. My mind was too exhausted to dwell on emotional pain when it was fighting to feed itself. That was nice. Sometimes I miss being numb. But, as I said, my Barbie body broke. My present and future are now undeniably human. Starvation wouldn't shrink me. I would remain the same size, and the hatred would only grow. A body that doesn't cooperate is an easy target for hatred. I can't go back to that; I won't go back to that. Of course, as self-hatred and self-acceptance continue to wage war, I also have to recognize that I own the battlefield. I supply the artillery for both sides, so I can determine the outcome of the battle. I choose self-acceptance. And, so help me God, it will be victorious.