Emma S.
Photography by Aneesa Wermers
Please note: In this letter, I discuss my experience with an eating disorder. If you think you may find this content triggering, I encourage you to read one of the other letters on IfYoureReadingThis.org, or prepare to access any support systems or resources you find helpful.
If you’re reading this, you are worthy.
You are worthy of love. You are worthy of happiness. You are worthy of recovery.
When I first reached out to a therapist in the spring of 2021, I didn’t have the words to describe what I was suffering through. I knew that I had lost a significant amount of weight in the past two years but gained some of it back. I knew that I found myself crying uncontrollably without an identifiable trigger almost weekly. I knew that I had withdrawn socially and struggled to get excited to make plans with my friends. But I was a “healthy” weight, competing well athletically. I was in a happy relationship, living with my best friends. I had been told by so many people how proud they were of me and how much I had accomplished. I felt like there had to be something wrong with me, that despite all of the things going right in my life I couldn’t be “normal” and enjoy my senior year of college.
I was always competitive and perfectionistic, but it was in college that I started to channel these tendencies not only into school and athletics, but into social environments and, eventually, into my appearance. Every part of my day became grounds upon which to judge myself, especially socially, leading to a heightened experience of social anxiety and causing me to seek external validation, particularly through drunken male attention. I was left feeling only increasingly like a failure, desperate to grasp control over and “succeed” in every part of my life, leading me to restriction. Every time I skipped a meal or an article of clothing felt looser, I felt a surge of accomplishment. Extreme rules and compulsions began to control my eating and exercise, leaving almost no brain space for anything but food and my body.
As a competitive runner, I eventually realized after over a year of intense restriction that the path I was on could force me out of the sport I loved forever, and I began to change my consumption patterns and gain weight again. To this day, it breaks my heart thinking of the poor role model that I served to female teammates as a model of what a “successful” runner looks and acts like. I opened up about my past struggles and told myself that the disordered eating chapter of my life was over. What I didn’t realize, however, was that I had merely replaced my old compulsions and restrictions with new ones. I continued to follow sharp categories of “good” and “bad” foods, to be ruled by anxieties and obsessions about doing everything “right.” I continued to follow these rules as a means of covering my underlying anxiety and feelings of inadequacy. To the outside world, I seemed better. Internally, however, I was struggling just as much as before, only now I was in complete denial of needing help. My body changing made little difference because my body was never the real problem, and the underlying social anxiety, perfectionism, and self-judgment persisted. I could acknowledge that my total restriction of the past was dangerous, but I believed that my current behavior was simply the lifestyle of someone disciplined, someone hard-working, someone “healthy.” I didn’t believe that I needed pleasure, joy, or relaxation in my life, and I also didn’t believe I was sick enough to need help.
What I have come to realize is that there is no “sick enough” to seek treatment. I am worthy of living a happy life and of feeling better, of not letting my life be controlled by obsessive rules and anxieties. This letter is challenging to write because I still feel like I am very much in the thick of it. I wanted to believe that, being in a place where I no longer was obviously visibly underweight, I could wrap my mental health journey up in a bow with a clear beginning, middle, and end. I understand now that progress is not linear, nor can it be measured by external achievements or gauged by looking at my body. I now see progress in the accumulation of joyful moments, of encounters that I feel wholly present for. I now believe that I deserve happiness and I deserve recovery, and that seeking help in that process has shown me how much more life can have to offer.
Emma S, Boston College
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