This picture is about to break my mom’s heart; these words will piece it back together. This picture will surprise people. It will make them uncomfortable; make them think, but what about her future employers? For that, I am proud. To any employer who turns me away out of fear, I respect your decision but I’m better off elsewhere. I took this picture months ago, when I least wanted to be seen. It lay dormant, waiting, among sunsets and snowstorms, coffees and cornfields, unti
It’s not about what you look like. It’s the fine line between elation and panic; the split second between when the spoon hits your mouth and when you swallow mental poison. It’s being five years, 40 pounds, since starvation, and yet fifteen minutes ago you laid on the kitchen floor slapping tile until your palms went red. It's the irony of recovery, the invisibility of pounds; weight that suddenly makes you "healthy" on the outside. It’s not about what you look like. It’s tho
"nihil fit ex nihilo" Nothing comes from nothing. The rain washes over the streets of Manhattan in April and all that’s left behind is the occasional rotting cardboard sign. Months of darkness will soon dissolve into the sheen of another hot summer, but for now, I run along the drizzly East River just after sunrise. Beside me is my dog Remington, who is afraid of canes, small people, and sudden movements. She trips me at least twice, dodging something that isn’t actually ther
The first time I told someone I was depressed, she promised to always be the second mother I thought I needed. She fed me the meds I was terrified to take, and they helped. She held my hand when I broke. To me, she could do no wrong, and I was assured that the feeling was mutual. One summer day, I chose to publicly admit the depth of my struggle in a space that felt safe. I decided, simply, to be, and to no longer shield it from anyone. After I spoke out, the support poured i
For some reason, I can only remember tiny snippets of the life I had before society decided I was suddenly an “adult.” The number eighteen is as arbitrary as any other digit; some have been through the unimaginable prior to the landmark, others haven’t. For me, early years were lost somewhere in time. I do hope someday I will find them again. Few and far between, the moments I remember involve pain, food, an animal - or some combination of the three - and were predictive of w
I wake up in the morning to 20 seconds of contemplation; the inevitable thought storm. It’s a new day with potential for all the good things I’ve only ever had for fleeting moments, but without fail, the mental game plays itself on. Will it be one of the good days or one of the bad ones, and do I determine the answer? Recovery has been a five-year-process; it will be a course of many more. But it still tortures me to wonder why on the outside I look so shiny and yet the mess
Resilience Project, Middlebury College Sand to Stone Lately I’ve found terror on my dinner plate again. Please, have a side of paralysis with your chicken. The mirror is no enemy to me anymore. It’s learning to unlearn the art of starvation that once robbed me minutes, seconds, hours of my life. It’s “losing control” each and every day and going to sleep knowing I may never have it back. And they say that’s a good thing. It’s a good thing. It’s falling out of love with the fi
“What you are going through today, and who you are as a person, are two different things.” -Unkown “EDNOS”: what does the acronym written in my medical records actually mean for my life? The “eating disorder not otherwise specified” diagnosis is a tricky one. I’m not quite this and I’m not quite that but I have however been irrationally fearful of the calories in a stick of gum, wondered for hours on end whether having that half a banana earlier today will proceed to haunt m
