Eating Disorder

For the study I helped out with on campus I looked through a lot of pictures of my sick self. I was never ‘eating disorder’ thin but looking at the pictures of myself from then reminds me just how much pain I was in.

This picture was from my sophomore year of high school from a musical I was in, Little Women. I played Meg March and that is still one of my favorite roles to date but I was so sick, I hardly ate and pushed myself through hours of rehearsal. The costume designer of that show gave me a dress that was a bit too small and I starved myself to fit into it to no avail. On the last night, she zipped me up into the too small dress and said, “God, have you gained weight?” I hadn’t, of course. If anything, I’d lost too much.  I have the most beautiful memories from that show but they will always be shadowed with the pain from that moment. I know now that she should never have said something like that to a sixteen year old actress but she did and the damage was done.

I have four, almost five, years on that sad young woman just trying to look beautiful and I know that a dress doesn’t define my worth. I have the strength now to say that I’m uncomfortable in something if I am. Things I’ve learned. Know your worth and fight for it.