The Weight of an Eating Disorder

It started as control.

In a world that felt chaotic, unpredictable, and unsafe, food was the one thing I could manage. The numbers on the scale became my measure of success, the emptiness in my stomach my greatest accomplishment. At first, it felt like power—like I had found the secret to feeling enough.

I grew up in a house where love was conditional. Perfection was expected, and anything less was met with sharp words and cold silence. My mother believed in discipline, in appearances, in the idea that if we looked perfect from the outside, then nothing could be wrong. I learned early that my value came from meeting impossible standards. Stand up straight. Don’t slouch. Don’t eat too much—you don’t want to get fat. Boys don’t like fat girls.

By twelve, I was hyper-aware of my body. I saw the way my mother pinched at her waist, the way she pushed away food with a polite shake of her head, the way she smiled only when she fit into a smaller size. I watched, I learned, and then I mirrored. I started skipping meals, claiming I wasn’t hungry. I avoided anything that might make me gain weight. At first, no one noticed. But when they did, they praised me.

“You look amazing.”
“So disciplined.”
“What’s your secret?”

They had no idea my secret was hunger.

What started as small restrictions quickly became rules. Rules that consumed me. No more than 500 calories a day. If you eat too much, punish yourself. If you don’t exercise, you don’t deserve to eat. If you fail, you start over tomorrow.

Every time the scale dropped, I felt victorious. Every time it went up, I felt like I had lost. I told myself I was fine because I still functioned. I still went to school, still smiled in photos, still made it through the day. But inside, I was crumbling.

Then I collapsed.

One moment, I was walking. The next, I was on the floor, my vision swimming, my limbs too heavy to move. The doctor’s words were sharp, cold, factual. You’re dangerously underweight. Your heart is at risk. If you keep going like this, your body will shut down.

Some part of me knew I should have been afraid. But the only thing I felt was anger. Anger that they wanted to take this from me. Anger that they didn’t understand that I needed this.

I didn’t believe I had a problem. But deep down, I knew I wasn’t living.

The Battle for Recovery

I started therapy because I was given no other option. I sat in a chair across from a woman with kind eyes who saw right through me. I told her I was fine. She didn’t argue. She just asked me one question:

“If this is working for you, why are you here?”

I didn’t have an answer.

Therapy made me confront everything I had spent years ignoring. I had convinced myself my eating disorder was about control, but my therapist helped me see the truth—it was about fear. The fear of never being good enough, the fear of being seen and judged, the fear of taking up space in a world that had always told me to be smaller, quieter, less.

She had me write down everything I believed about food. Every rule, every fear. Then she made me challenge each one.

“Food is the enemy.”
“Why?”

“Because if I eat too much, I’ll lose control.”
“What does losing control mean?”

“It means I’ll be unworthy.”

The words stared back at me from the page. The fear was never about food. It was about worth. About value. About believing that I had to earn love by making myself less.

I fought recovery every step of the way. Every meal felt like failure, every pound gained felt like defeat. I had spent so long associating hunger with success that learning to nourish myself felt unnatural. But my therapist made me set small goals—adding one more bite, one more meal, one more reason to keep going.

She introduced me to meditation—not as a way to ignore the thoughts, but to observe them. To hear the voice in my head telling me I wasn’t good enough, and then to recognize it for what it was—a lie I had been told for too long.

The Breakthrough

One morning, I sat in meditation, eyes closed, breath slow, body still. I let my mind drift, let the thoughts come and go without judgment. And then, out of nowhere, a question rose from somewhere deep inside me:

“Who am I trying to impress?”

I saw my mother’s face, her perfect posture, the way she examined herself in mirrors as if searching for flaws only she could see. I saw the faces of people who had praised me for my discipline, the ones who had unknowingly fueled my disorder. I saw the nameless, faceless world I had been trying to shape myself for, the impossible standards I had been chasing.

And then I realized the truth—I had no control over how others saw me. No matter how much weight I lost, no matter how perfectly I played the role, people would still have opinions. People would still judge. And I would still never be enough for them, because they would always want something different.

But I had spent so long trying to be enough for them that I had never asked if I was enough for myself.

Tears rolled down my cheeks as the weight of that realization sank in.

I didn’t have to be perfect.
I didn’t have to be small.
I didn’t have to control every bite, every movement, every number.

I just had to live.

And if I lived with kindness, with love, with the intent to bring light into the world, then I would always be enough.

Finding Freedom

Recovery wasn’t a straight line, but over time, I found joy in things I had long forgotten—meals with friends, the feeling of strength instead of weakness, the ability to laugh without worrying about how I looked.

Now, I nourish my body not as punishment, but as love. I move it not to shrink, but to strengthen. I exist without apology.

I thought my eating disorder gave me control. But real strength came in letting go—and finally allowing myself to live.