It was the fall of 1999 when the doctor confirmed that I had anorexia nervosa of the restrictive type.  I was the same height I am now, but I was 50 pounds lighter.  Even at my current weight, people still joke about me being thin or skinny.  In my 15-year-old mind, however, the 50-pounds-lighter version of me was the only version that was acceptable.

It is hard to pinpoint exactly when I started restricting the food I ate.  I had a really hard time transitioning to middle school, and I missed a major part of 1st semester in 7th grade.  I would get so anxious before school that my stomach would get upset, and I would either vomit on the way to school or I would cry so much once I got to school that I would vomit from crying so much.  It was not a pretty sight, and my parents must have been worried sick.

I had to visit the school counselor several times, and he advised my parents to take me to a mental health professional.  Whatever I was experiencing was not something that could be remedied in a few 15-minute sessions with him.  I liked the psychologist I started going to well enough, but I wasn't very interactive.  I believe the diagnosis at that time was anxiety and minor depression, or something along those lines. 

 

Looking back, I know that a major source of the problem was a fear of growing up.  I was literally overwhelmed by all the responsibility that I would have one day soon; overwhelmed about getting good grades that would go on my permanent transcript that would get me into the right university that would get me a good job that would help me support my family and on and on and on. 

 

It is extremely tiring to worry like that all the time.  If I could go back to my 13-year-old self, I would say,"Stop trying to be the savior of the world." I probably wouldn't have understood what that meant though, because I was way too busy imagining up the perfect life and then unintentionally putting myself under such pressure to make it happen that I couldn't even enjoy life.

Life became a series of jobs- just one job right after the other, including my bedtime routine that, of course, had to be done perfectly.  So at the root of all the surface symptoms (crying so hard that it made me vomit) was a huge spirit of fear.

That all came to the surface most strongly in the 7th grade for me.  

It had tried to show it's ugly face in 5th grade too, but the 7th grade manifestations were markedly worse.

The summer before my 10th grade year, the summer of 1999, was one of the best summers of my life.  I'll pick up there next time.