The Beginning

I started throwing up my food my senior year in high school.
I couldn’t say that I know what “triggered” it, though. I tend to get nauseous when I get really upset and one day – during the stress of college applications, prom planning, graduation preparation – I just threw up from feeling overwhelmed. I remember standing up straight over the toilet when I’d finished and noticing how empty I felt. And I loved it. I’d always been conscious of my body, but never truly worried about it and that empty feeling made me think: who will I be if I’m always empty?
It sounds silly, like, “whoa is the popular girl,” but I’d been pleasing everyone around me since I could remember. I did what I was told, but I always did what was necessary to stay on top in my high school social circle. I don’t regret my high school life at all, either. I was always busy, always involved, always spending time with different groups – ensuring I knew everything there was to know about the 500 people who walked the hall of my high school in order to properly perform my position as Year Book Editor-n-Chief. I’d never stopped to think, though, about what I actually wanted. And when I felt that empty feeling, I knew I wanted it.
When people started to notice my slimmer appearance, I was nonchalantly satisfied. My 5'3" frame went from around 140lbs down to 130lbs in what seemed like just a few weeks of toilet sessions. I didn’t think anything of what I was doing. So, I’d lost some weight and wasted some meals – I liked it. I wasn’t doing it for the attention or compliments. I wasn’t doing it because I hated the way I looked or felt insecure. I simply liked it. I liked the power. I liked the control. I liked that I knew exactly what I’d put inside of me and I liked making sure it had all come back out. I liked that it was my thing. It wasn’t basketball because my parents expected me to play. It wasn’t theater because I was supposed to showcase my singing abilities. It wasn’t youth group because I was a good, Christian girl who’d always gone. It was mine. My hobby felt like the one “friend” in my life I voluntarily chose to associate with – the one “friend” who had absolutely no control over me. And she never would’ve wanted it anyway, because we loved each other, we got each other, we enjoyed those moments hunched over puke-filled toilet water.
We were ours.