Karrah K.
Photography by Morgan McCullen
Before reading this letter, we'd like for you to know it discusses Karrah K.'s experience with an eating disorder. 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 Anonymous’s letter. If you're reading this, your feelings are valid.
If you’re reading this you are not alone; your food should be enjoyed
The truth is more people than you know have everyday battles with their minds. There are tons of reasons why, and plenty of things that trigger them. My story goes like this: I was 15 or 16 in my sophomore year of High School. I was playing basketball every day with 2 practices. I was particularly good at basketball, and I wanted to be the best. No, I had to be the best. Sometimes we push ourselves too hard and our mind takes the beating. I remember waking up one day and staring in the mirror and hating how I looked. I put towels over the mirrors to hide myself. This never really happened to me often before, but this time it was hard to not look and cry. At this point in time, I was around 110 pounds. I squeezed all my body fat and marked the places I needed to become "skinnier", circled the spots with a red pen, and worked my body to a downfall. I put skinnier in quotations because as I recovered for a few years, I find it horrific that I really did all that to myself. I stared at pictures of supermodels and influencers who had tiny waists and I wanted to be them. I put on bikinis and cried. I wore baggy clothes only and refused to wear anything tight.
The horrifying reality is that an eating disorder changes everything about you. I felt wanting to stay inside more and not go out to eat with friends. I enjoyed going to work out rather than getting ice cream. I made sacrifices because I wanted my body to look a certain way. I terrorized my own mind and taught it to count calories to stop myself from eating more than 800 calories a day. I was killing my own body, but my mind made me unaware and made it seem like it was okay.
When my parents were alerted about my mental illness, it broke them. They could not believe they misread the signs that I was showing - losing weight, hair falling out, and no energy. Immediately, I was sent to a patient treatment center. This experience was nothing but bad. I was weighed every day, forced to eat meals, and had my heart monitored because it was slowing down. One day, at my daily weigh-in, my heart rate was too low, and I was taken to the hospital. I was admitted to the eating disorder wing, and I was fed food and they ran tons of tests on my heart. It was so hard to eat these foods and I denied it. I bet you can infer what happened when I denied the food to KEEP ME ALIVE. It was a long week in the hospital and long months of recovering.
When I left the hospital, I was less than 95 pounds and I looked like a skeleton. I lost any healthy fat possible on my body. It was scary to see. But I knew help was my best option. I wanted to go back to loving food and loving myself. I needed to do that to survive and be happy. As I recovered, I removed the towels I had put over my bathroom mirror. Over time, I was gradually able to glance in the mirror without cringing or grabbing my skin. For the first time in years, I did not see an ugly human being anymore. I learned that recovering from my eating disorder is not about being perfect, but it was about making smart daily choices, even if I did not feel like it. Loving myself and the body God gave me. Those daily choices eventually helped me to form new habits, which blossomed into a full lifestyle change.
Today, I can classify myself as "Fully Recovered". To be “fully recovered,” an individual must be completely free from all symptoms of his or her eating disorder. In addition, the person must have also accepted his or her natural body size and shape, and he or she will no longer engage in any behaviors related to food or body size that could be considered self-destructive. Instead, this person will have an appropriate perspective on food, body weight, body image, and other such issues. Full recovery is the goal of anyone who has an eating disorder, as it signals the individual is now free from most of the negative effects of the illness.
I know there are people reading this that are struggling and you need to know that help is AMAZING. I would not be where I am today if I did not accept that I was ill. I would not be at the college of my dreams, studying to be in my dream profession, or meeting my best friends for life. Please work on yourself and work on learning to love your body. It takes a lot of mind training to realize food is not the enemy and the way your body looks does not define you. Your body is made for you, and you can never be identical to someone else. Food is fuel and the food is delicious. You need it to live. Do not restrict yourself.
Please reach out to me if you are struggling. I want to help everyone overcome this and start their journey to happiness.
Karrah K., University of South Carolina
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