The moment I heard we would be on quarantine for the remainder of school the first thing I thought of was food. Not really the food itself, but how much I would be eating, what I would eat, and how often. I never knew I could fall into a world of disordered eating, but this sudden change in routine would be the start of it all.

Growing up, food and weight was a common topic. My older sister was overweight as a teen. She has PCOS (Polycystic Ovary Syndrome) and it came with weight gain that she had no control over. I used to watch her do body checks in the mirror where she would look at herself in all different angles to see if she was losing weight. My aunts pointed out her weight constantly. They told her diet pills and that green tea was the key to weight loss, I was listening and taking note.

Even small things that my mom says made me insecure. Things like, “How is your friend so skinny? She must not eat as much as you do.” It confused me how my mom could say these things to me. It was almost like she didn’t learn anything from when my older sister used to cry everyday about her weight. I chose to ignore it because I knew if I gave in, I would hate myself.

Being exposed to these all these things at a young age gave me a different view on beauty, because I thought that skinny and beautiful went hand in hand. I only wore clothes that made me look skinny. My life revolved around my looks.

During quarantine I knew that I would be surrounded by food all day. Memes online joking about how everybody would gain weight during this time genuinely scared me. I felt that I could take this as an opportunity to lose weight so I could come back next school year skinny. I changed my sleeping schedule so that I would eat one meal a day and go back into my room in order to restrain myself from snacking. I told my mom I was full after a meal although I was secretly starving. I drank water when I was hungry and took naps so I could stop thinking about eating.

I didn’t notice a difference in my appearance when I looked at myself in the mirror. Then, I went to my aunt’s house she pointed out that I lost weight. I took it as a compliment and loved it. It was all I wanted to hear and I couldn’t get enough.

Over time, I pushed myself to see how long I could go without eating a single thing. I noticed that I now checked the nutrition facts before eating a snack and looked up things like “How many calories are in a [insert food]?” all the time. Weeks later when I weighed myself, I found that I lost about fifteen pounds, yet I didn’t feel accomplished. That was my goal, right? Lose weight?

It wasn’t until the other day when I finally realized that I did have an eating disorder, but for some reason I wasn’t mad about it. Later, I felt myself get weaker and doing simple things like walking up the stairs had me out of breath and even standing up would make me dizzy. I knew it was getting worse. I saw it all the time in movies and promised that it would never be me, but now it was.

Unfortunately, I can’t give you a happy ending to this story YET, but I will make a change. The first thing I can do is recognize the problem and try to fix it. I know this is cheesy to say but it’s true, every body is beautiful. I’m learning how to love and find the beauty in myself.