When I was seventeen years old I started restricting my eating.

For a decade now, I’ve tried to figure out the right way to explain that, and I guess the best way to do it is to simply come out and say it. That means for about twelve years, my eating has been disordered, and in pretty much every way you’ve heard of- I’ve run through cycles of bingeing, cycles or purging- I’ve not eaten at all, I’ve run for upwards of four to five hours a day, I’ve done it all, and here I am on the other side.

But I’m not telling you this because I feel like I’m a success story. In fact, I feel largely like a failure. I have a lot going for me- I have people who love me, I have money, I have the career I’ve always wanted. I have a beautiful apartment, three gorgeous animals. I have a nice life. But that doesn’t stop the monsters in your head from coming out, and the older I get, the more I realize that feeling guilty for my mental health is- pardon my French- a lot of bullshit. This isn’t a victory dance, this just is, because some little girl out there is going through the same thing I went through for twelve years, and she needs to hear from someone who understands.

I don’t intend to get into the details. I won’t tell you what triggered it, what was or wasn’t said to me or what my genes did or didn’t do. I won’t blame it on Hollywood- though it certainly exacerbated it. I don’t intend to make this a lurid story, an essay saturated with the history of what I did or didn’t do to myself. What this is about is the cycle. The back and forth between “better” and “worse,” the stigma attached to women with eating disorders, the stigma attached to mental health in this world in general. I kept my mouth shut until now for a lot of reasons- because I didn’t want people to feel like they were owed such a deeply personal part of my life, because I didn’t want to hear the “What does she have to worry about?”s. I realize that an eating disorder and depression, in the scheme of things, feel like nothing. People get their legs blown off. People get shot in the street. People will always have it worse than I do.

But that doesn’t invalidate my problems, and here’s what I’m trying to get to: it doesn’t invalidate yours, either. I get it. I get the self hate. I get feeling like you failed because you couldn’t remain optimistic even in the hard times. But this isn’t something you can control, and it isn’t something you can fix by just waking up in a good mood tomorrow morning. You’ve got to get help. See a therapist, talk to your best friend, join an online support group. Make a step every day. It doesn’t have to be a big step, but make a step.

I’m not here to talk to people who don’t know how it feels. You can judge me if you want, think I’m privileged and that mental health is a first world problem, think whatever you want. I’m here for the girls and boys who have this weight on their shoulders, too. And for once in my life I feel comfortable trying to help them lift it.

I won’t sit here and tell you everyone on the planet is beautiful and that you are beautiful, too. That’s true, but it doesn’t help- it feels like bullshit, like something they’d make fun of in the Fight Club movie. You are special and beautiful and brilliant, but that isn’t going to mean anything to you from a stranger. So here’s what I will say, that I wish I would have said to myself way back when: don’t be so hard on yourself. You’re allowed to have rainy days, but that doesn’t mean the sunshine will never come. There’s something you love to do, or at least used to love to do, that you’ve been holding back on because this disorder took over your life. Go back to it. Give yourself a purpose. Work every day to be something a little better. And fuck, do not let ANYONE tell you “I got out of bed today and had a granola bar for breakfast” isn’t a perfectly reasonable and, in fact, totally fantastic goal. Some days getting out of bed is hard, and some days you’ll go to Denny’s and eat mountains of food and come home and sleep like a baby. I’m getting a little off track here, but I need you to believe me when I tell you that you’re being too hard on yourself. You’re expecting too much. Its okay to need someone else sometimes. Its okay to accept help. Life doesn’t have to be like this forever.

I really hate to feed into the Hollywood cliche of an anorexic A-list actress, but I’ve realized more and more that not using my platform to help people like me makes me feel like much more of a failure than people knowing the ways in which I’ve failed myself.

I don’t want to become some like, proponent of eating disorder recovery. I refuse to be put into that kind of box, and being pigeonholed seems to happen to me so often I won’t even entertain it. I’m a million different things, but one of those things is a woman recovering from an eating disorder. And that’s okay.

So fuck a stigma that teaches us to be quiet about the things that plague us. Fuck people who want to make you feel bad because of things outside of your control. And never, ever let them dictate how you take care of yourself- just do it. You don’t owe anyone else in this world shit. You owe yourself. So tomorrow, wake up and be a little better.

Reply · Report Post