Riley D.
Photography by Jessica Pentel
Dear Reader,
Riley’s letter describes her personal journey with an Eating Disorder and we advise those who may be triggered by this topic to exercise caution when reading this letter. If you are struggling please reach out to our Peer Contacts or one of the resources listed on our Resources Page.
Sincerely, The IfYoureReadingThis Team
If you’re reading this, know that it shouldn’t be exhausting just to be you.
I couldn’t continue to live like this. Literally, not figuratively. I was slowly killing myself. That was what everyone kept telling me. I didn’t even care. I would rather die being skinny than gain weight. I walked out of my doctor’s appointment having been told I couldn’t do sports that year unless I got to a healthy weight for me. A normal person would probably first consider actually gaining weight but my brain was so far gone that I immediately went to “how can I trick the scale?”
I spent the entire summer having to prove to my family that I was no longer starving myself. I ate all my meals while my parents watched me, I wasn’t allowed to exercise, and I went to a therapist that specializes in eating disorders. On the surface, I seemed to be getting better. The hours spent in the bathroom in the middle of the night as I purged myself of everything I’d eaten as well as all the progress I seemed to be making. I liked this type of eating disorder better. I could enjoy the one thing in life I cared about most (food) and the number on the scale stayed the same. There was only one issue, my pending doctor's appointment to approve me for fall sports. I spent the whole summer playing the role of someone who was getting better, and I was pretty darn good at it. When it came down to the final performance, I wore the heaviest clothes I owned, stuffed my undergarments with weights, and drank the most water I’ve ever drank in my entire life. I succeeded. I had managed to avoid getting better with every single person on my side.
I spent almost the entire school year continuing with my tricks. I wouldn’t eat all day, I’d come home and eat with my family and then when they went to bed, I would purge. That was until one Saturday night. I’d gone out with my friends and came home late at night, absolutely ravenous. I went into my kitchen and ate whatever I wanted. It was time to purge. I was exhausted. My eyelids were heavy and my body ached for rest. It was truly exhausting to be me. I realized I just didn’t have it in me to expend energy for an hour hunched over a toilet seat. For the first time in months, I just went to bed.
I woke up in the morning and the world hadn’t ended. I had lived to see another day. I hadn’t let my eating disorder overtake my life for one day and it seemed like everything was going to be okay. As anxiety-inducing as it was, not listening to my eating disorder allowed me to realize that my world wouldn’t crumble if I didn’t continue to live in a state of starvation. As the days passed, I spent less and less nights purging. I realized that too often, I just didn’t have the energy to put my body through that anymore. Eventually, purging fully fizzled out of my daily routine. I concluded that it wasn’t normal for me to feel exhausted, unmotivated and unhappy all the time. It wasn’t fair of me to give myself an anxiety attack every time I overate.
It took my lack of motivation to save my life. I was too tired one day and decided that I didn’t want to continue to live my life the way I had been living it. And this taught me that there is so much more to life than being the smallest version of yourself. Life isn’t about how you look, but how you feel, and if you base how you feel on how you look, you’ll never feel fully satisfied. To this day, I still look in the mirror and can pick out a million things I don’t like. I’ve learned that body positivity is an unattainable goal for me. I love the person that I am, but to me, there will always be things that I would change about myself on the outside. Because of this, I have come to terms with instead practicing body neutrality. I am aware of my flaws, but I don’t let them define me. My body is literally just that, a body, a vehicle for me to carry out my everyday life. I appreciate it for all it does for me and even though I don’t always love the way I look, I know that how I look isn’t the most important thing about me.
I lost myself through my eating disorder. I lost the happy, smiley, sassy little blonde girl that everyone knew and loved. I became a shell of my former self as my eating drove my existence. I’ve gotten her back, but it hasn’t been easy. There are ups and downs through recovery, but ultimately, I am so much happier now. I’ve learned to not really care how I look but only care how I feel. And right now, I feel the best I have in a really long time.
Riley D., University of Virginia ‘24
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