Edited by Olivia Spahn-Vieira
Dear high school me,
It’s been a while since I last checked up on you, and you’ve grown up a lot. I’m just going to get straight to the point, and tell you that I know you had mental disorders. I know that you dismissed them and said you were perfectly healthy. You hid your compulsive exercising and bulimia nervosa so well, no one suspected anything. On the outside, you went along with your life but inside, you were slowly drowning.
I know why your disorders started. You were too focused on your body image and weight. Measuring your weight on the scale in your mother’s washroom, eating less and excessively exercising was all you ever did. Why did you think in any way that this was healthy? You were so terribly blinded in becoming thinner; you didn’t care about health. Hours were spent staring at your reflection, harshly judging yourself. You were so obsessed with buying jeans with the smallest waist size. If it didn’t fit you, you would increase your exercising sessions and stop eating altogether. To put it plain and simple, I know you suffered from compulsive exercising.
Then, you developed bulimia. I saw how you starved yourself every single day for two years, creating a vicious cycle of binging on food and then purging. Continuously, you stuffed down food because you were starving. Thirty minutes later, I know you oh-so subtly went to the washroom, knelt down, put your hands around the toilet seat, and forced yourself to throw up. Daily trips to the toilet took over your life with tears streaming down your face and sobbing quietly so that your parents wouldn’t hear you. I can still feel your pain and guilt from purging in your school washroom, parents’ washroom, and own washroom. Bulimia and compulsive exercising took over two years of your high school life.
I don’t understand why you didn’t get help earlier. For two years, you told no one, not your mom, your sister, or your closest friends. This was your darkest secret that you kept locked away, hoping it would never be found. Eventually, the torment became unbearable. I remember breathing a sigh of relief because you finally admitted that you had mental disorders and confided in someone for the first time—your mother. This was the first step to a long journey ahead. I’m glad your sister called every day to check up on you, and your mother kept a watchful eye. You also went to seek professional help, which helped you a lot. After two long years, I’m content to say that you started your path to recovery.
Now, I can see that you have made a successful recovery. You’re eating healthy and regulating the number of times you exercise each day. You’ve come a long way, and I am happy that you’re happy now. But, always remember what I’m about to say next. Please talk to others, live healthily, love yourself the way you are and, most importantly, don’t ever scare me like that again.