Cam M.
Photography by Brooklyn Yager Photography
Before reading this letter, we'd like for you to know it discusses Cam M.'s experience with self-harm and eating disorders. If you think that reading about this will be triggering for you, we encourage you to take a pause before reading this letter, center yourself, and prepare any resources you may need to access after reading it. If you'd rather not read this letter, we encourage you to read a letter on a different topic, such as Caroline L.'s or Dana Q.'s letter. If you're reading this, your feelings are valid.
If you’re reading this, you are worthy enough to feel, feel it all.
I have always done what I was supposed to do. I went to an in-state southern college, majored in Finance, and joined a sorority. I wore cute little outfits to the football games and jumped at the opportunity to go to fraternity functions. I had fun but was never too messy- I would pound the vodka crans and still make it to my 8:30 the next morning. I had good grades and a sexy body. All in all, I was the perfect picture of a college girl doing it the “right way.”
There was just one problem… I’m gay.
And because I am gay I had to make myself small. Small was safe. Small would keep me hidden. So, I starved myself. I binged and purged. I walked ten miles a day and did 120 sit-ups before going to bed. For me, the torture was better than being gay in the environment I was in. I couldn’t make myself straight but I could certainly make myself skinny.
I got the official anorexia diagnosis at the school health center my sophomore year. I went in to get some cough medicine and they forced me to be evaluated because I was down twenty-five pounds. I took it as a victory. I had finally done enough for someone to notice and now I was a true anorexic. I wore it like a badge of honor… I couldn’t be the gay if I was the anorexic.
Eating disorders are neither glamorous nor sustainable. I fell apart a couple years later- after chewing and spitting a whole pizza and a dozen doughnuts, I knocked back a bottle of SSRIs on my bathroom floor. 47 pills- I counted them. That was my lowest point. The bones are not worth your life. Nothing is worth your life.
I started treatment and after the hardest few months of my life, I beat it. Then, I started talking about it and people listened. I became this beacon of a twisted subject that almost everyone experienced but no one could understand. I had girls cry to me in bar bathrooms and slide into my DM’s to thank me for the words I had to say and for “living my truth.” For once, I had so much purpose in life. It was my job to save people from this thing that happened to me.
At the same time, that same purpose was another distraction. Who was I to be the poster child of purpose and advocacy when I couldn’t even admit my own sexuality to the world? I couldn’t admit one of the biggest causes of my eating disorder. I had tenacious intentions while simultaneously being a total fraud.
Coming out is kind of like waking up. You fight the darkness you’ve lived in by becoming the sun. It is beautiful. It feels like morphing into a work of art- painted in every color and glowing from the inside out. It is warm. I finally woke up when I was 21 years old.
The problem with rhetoric regarding the gay community in Greek life is that it doesn’t exist. Coming out taught me that no one really cares- but no one had done it before. Coming out is terrifying because it's not talked about. I had used the same stereotypes I had tried to fight about southern sororities against myself. To my surprise, my sexuality and I were accepted. I spent years torturing and killing myself only to find out that what I was burying was actually okay. There were just no systems in place or conversations to let me know that it was.
Now I’m a senior. It might’ve taken me all of college but I finally figured it out. I don’t have to make myself small. My feelings are valid, my voice is loud, and for the love of God, I am GAY. To be able to finally say that is like a dream. The thing I used to hide is now what I love to share with others. I didn’t think I could be happy and gay. I didn’t think I could be happy and a size 8. I didn’t think I could be happy just being me. It turns out, now that I am all of those things- and I am not only happy, I am free.
Being yourself is so much easier than putting on a performance every day. It is so much easier than starving yourself. It is so much easier than hurting yourself. Allowing yourself to live the way God intended you to be is the most profound decision one can make. If you are gay, come out. If you need help, ask for it. If you are different, stop trying to hide it. The scariest part is that first leap, but once it's taken, the world will start to make sense. It did for me.
Cam M., University of South Carolina
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