Welcome to my blog, I am so glad you are here. I know that you have been brought here for a reason. I hope that this brings you some hope for the future.
This is my very own artwork from high school
If you are human you know what it's like to feel self conscious. We look at other people and either judge them or judge ourselves sometimes even both. As your grow up it gets worse. You become so much more aware of yourself and others and all the imperfections. I remember in 5th grade was when I really started paying attention to my looks. I started comparing them to the people around me. I was realizing I wanted to be skinny, skinnier than everyone else. I never wanted to be overweight and that pressure on myself grew and grew. I started wanting attention from guy's. Well they wouldn't pay any attention to me if I wasn't tiny. I started talking to guy's in middle school, I would sit with them at lunch. I didn't eat anything because I didn't want them to watch me eat. This started my habit of skipping meals. I never normally ate breakfast to begin with so then cutting out lunch left only dinner time. We all no one meal a day is not a healthy lifestyle.
This carried through all the way to high school. I got to the point of body shakes and hunger pains. I was playing sports and working out so my body had very little to run on. I got a lot of migraines that probably stemmed from the lack of nutrition. For some reason though I preferred the feeling of being empty versus being full. It made me feel sick to be full. I felt disgusted by myself whenever I did eat. I would go days without eating until I couldn't function. Then I would eat a meal or 2 and repeat that viscous cycle. I began feeling guilty even for that and only ate cucumbers and drank fizzy zero calorie drinks. When I had to change for gym class I took pride in looking at the other girls and looking at myself because I had no body fat. I would mention my 00 pant size. I'd lay on the ground and hold a pencil on end to make sure I was skinny enough. Every day I would make sure my collar bones were showing.
I weighed 105 at my lowest and I would weigh myself every day to make sure I kept losing. The thing is no one even knew it. I was already a pretty tiny person and I wasn't skin and bones so I didn't look sick. I never talked to anyone about it either so who could know? I dealt with anorexia for years up until I turned 18-19. After leaving the abusive relationship I was in I started seeing myself worth again. If I wouldn't have turned to God I would have probably never come out of it. I could have let myself image crush me. However, I decided to turn to God and give him all my burdens.
I slowly started eating more and more. I ate breakfast and dinner. Or I would add in an extra snack every day. Something that really worked for me was snacking! I had healthy snacks and I would spread them throughout the day so I never got that "Full to the brim feeling". I still do that to this day. The one thing that really boosted me into eating again was working out. I would eat and lift weights and run. I started seeing a change in my body I really liked. I found a way to make myself feel more confident while seeking out a healthy lifestyle I started gaining muscle and I liked the way I was looking. I was weighing a lot more on the scale and it didn't even bother me anymore. I started ignoring the scale and gaining confidence in myself again.
Everything I accomplished by the strength of God. I did come to a point where I spent every day at the gym for hours. I pushed my own limits and became overly obsessed with my results. Shortly after this realization I ended up buying Nova and my gym time got cut way back. Ever since then I have still been eating, I do still skip meals occasionally but encourage myself through it! Now I only go to the gym 2-3 times a week and I am still happy with the way I look! I am not so hard on myself I see how beautiful I am. I can pick out the positives about myself instead of heavily focusing on the negative.
If you have ever struggled with an eating disorder or you know someone who is You/They can do this! It is a tough long road to recovery and those urges and thoughts will probably follow you for the rest of your life. Do not give up. Seek help, call on the Lord for strength in times of weakness. When you start to show yourself grace the anxiety and self consciousness in your life is going to be lifted from your shoulders. You will start to enjoy the things about yourself that are amazing!! Take it slow like I did try snacking instead of meals, eat foods you enjoy!
There are so many good songs for this topic it was hard to chose so I am going to drop a few for you guys!
This song is not necessarily about eating disorders or even mental illness. I feel like you can totally interpret this is so many ways. I love this song so much because it's talking about how many people are secretly hurting that if we only open our eyes we may catch on! We as Christians have such good news to share that can save so many hurting people.
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