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Katie
Now I Know Who I Am
June 25th, 2000

I had an eating disorder from the time I was about 13 to about age 22. I had the usual controlling family situation but there were other situations that lead to intense hatred about my body. In 5th grade, I had developed more than most of my friends. One so called friend decided to tell everyone that I had gotten my period and to use it as a reason to torment me. From April until June, everyday I would sit in the back of the classroom and have tampons thrown at me from a group of five girls and even some guys. They would talk about my developed breasts, the hair on my legs, anything negative they could think of. The teachers saw it and did nothing. I was afraid to go to my parents because I thought they would think I was a failure. The teasing finally did stop but I spent most of the next year walking on eggshells waiting for it to start again. About two years after this, I gained weight just from metabolism changes during puberty. I didn't notice until I was getting ice cream out of the freezer one day and my father said I shouldn't eat it because I was gaining weight. That was the day of my first diet. I lost the weight in a pretty healthy way and I loved the attention. I went back to the same junk food though and soon gained it back. I went up, down, up, down, etc. I tried to stop eating but couldn't lose weight that way because my body had shut down. I hadn't tried throwing up or using laxatives or diuretics until after my parents brought me to a specialist for endocrinology (glands) to see if something was wrong with my thyroid. The doctor said nothing was (he has since been proven wrong) and referred me to a nutritionist. He failed to notice that a 15 year old girl was crying in his office because she though she was overweight when at the time she wasn't. To make a long story short, at 16, when I was throwing up three times a day. I got the name of a therapist from our pediatrician. I didn't even tell my parents. She was an angel. I worked extremely hard for the next five or so years and got much better. I didn't feel 100% better though until I was diagnosed with chemical depression and started on medication. I found out that a chemical imbalance had been causing my sugar cravings and I have been at a thin but healthy weight ever since, even through the birth of two children. My therapy worked because it got me in touch with who I am, what I am feeling and what I want. I always had to be what others wanted me to be and I was never acceptable to myself. I continue to take my medication and have been recovered for over 12 years. I went on to receive my master's degree in counseling and I am now a therapist helping others. I am so happy to say that the people I am working with are really getting better. I believe that my eating disorder was a gift from God because it made me realize that I had to change my life or I was going to die. It made me hurt enough to get into therapy and face my fears and become my true self. It was worth every difficult moment.

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