By Kelly Craig
Focus
Midland HS
1st Place
Division 3, News Writing
Feature Columnist
During the winter of second grade, my elementary school was hit with an awful case of the stomach flu. Although I managed to escape unscathed, others in my class weren’t as lucky. During the middle of a lesson, I can remember one kid rushing over to the trash can to puke his guts out, something that was so disgusting and traumatizing to my 7-year-old self that it became the catalyst for my now deep rooted fear of vomiting.
Since that incident, I had perfected the art of avoiding situations regarding vomit. I mastered reading the body language of people who might get sick so I knew when to split. I stayed away from amusement parks, and eating contests were strictly forbidden from being discussed.
I used to be able to count the amount of times I had thrown up in my entire life with just two hands. But as I grew up, my world and my stomach were shook up.
I never used to have a problem with my body. I have always been thin, something that has caused multiple people to point out and treat like a gift, but it wasn’t just limited to that. My world was filled with people both insecure and obsessed with their bodies. Tabloids detailing “best” and “worst” beach bods, Kate Moss saying “nothing tastes as good as skinny feels”, and my parents working themselves to death at the gym for hours on end. All around me were people disgusted with themselves, but I was constantly reminded that I had something going for me, that I was lucky, and that I had control.
When I was 14, someone jokingly pointed out my eating habits to me at dinner once. “You’re going to weigh 400 pounds when you’re older if you keep eating like that,” they said. Even though it wasn’t intended to be malicious, something about it sat in my gut for the rest of the night.
The thought of ending up miserable with my weight like a lot of other people in my life made my stomach flip. So, deciding to literally take matters into my own hands, I excused myself to the bathroom and shoved two fingers down my throat.
In the moment, it was unbearable. But the longer I sat on the bathroom floor afterwards, I started feeling less disgusting and more powerful.
Not only had I just gotten over a huge fear of mine, I had just discovered a way to keep myself in check. I convinced myself that I had perfect control over myself and my weight, and this was just another way to keep that control.
One meal became twice a month, and twice a month became three times a week. Roles became reversed; on days where I wasn’t purging I was avoiding food like I had once avoided vomit.
I had laid out excuses for everything to avoid eating. Seeing the numbers on the scale fall every day made me feel accomplished, because this was the one thing in my life that I knew I had complete control over.
Only it wasn’t. And just like how abruptly everything started, it ended the same way.
After hearing about the school’s blood drive, I thought, “I think I weigh enough to do that.” The idea of potentially saving someone’s life felt storybook to me, so the moment I got home I went to the scale. As I stared down at my feet, I found myself holding my breath like I had countless times before, only now for a different reason.
I was not in the weight limit for the blood drive. In fact, I weighed far less.
When I looked at my jarring sickly appearance, I realized that I had never been in control. In a weird sense of irony, I had turned into what I feared most, someone unhappy and searching for acceptance after being told again and again that all anyone is concerned about is the size of your waist.
It took opening up and trying sushi for the first time in order for me to move past my eating disorder. The more I started to challenge the way we talk about our appearances, the more my illness loosened its grip on me. In a world of Kate Mosses, I now take comfort in size zero bans, good ice cream, Beyonce’s “Flawless”, and people who are in confident in their bodies loudly and proudly.
I weigh enough to donate blood now, so I think I’ll give it a try. Even if one of the side effects is vomiting.