What Eating Disorders Taught Me

My eating disorders started during my first semester at university. I’d gained a few pounds the previous year, which I’d spent in the Netherlands as an exchange student. When I returned to Australia I heard a few snide remarks about my weight. They stung.

First, I upped the exercise. Next, I became controlling about what I ate. Then, I started throwing up after meals.

I distinctly remember sitting on the edge of a friend’s dorm bed as we discussed the pros and cons of bulimia, like it was some kind of casual experiment. “I might not lose weight, but I won’t gain any, right?”

She nodded and agreed. “I think that’s how it works.”

And so it began.

Within a couple of years bulimia made way for anorexia. I shrank. The thrill of control was addictive, as were the compliments on my skinniness. Once, as I strode across a sunny quadrangle in front of the law school, a smug girl from my French history class stopped me.

“You look amazing. Don’t ever put it [the weight] back on!”

She didn’t stop for my response. I watched her walk off towards her friends, stunned, thinking, “you bitch. You have no idea what I’m going through.”

Anorexia was self-imposed hell. I felt trapped, a prisoner to the voices in my head telling me not…