As seventh grade went on, my confidence was slowly shattered. My best friend was so cute and desirable, and I felt like the girl standing back in the shadows. Toward the end of the year, my best friend and I got a third best friend. She is still one of the most stunning girls I have ever seen, and was so small and cute. She was wild and fun, but, in hindsight, was struggling with eating disorders herself. She never really ate very much and was always on the scale. I attributed her beauty to this fact.
For as low as my confidence got in seventh grade, I didn't develop an eating disorder that year. I kept fading. I stopped shopping with friends, would never try and share clothes with anyone, and was always sneaking food.
I went to camp again that summer with all the same people that had been there the year before, and it was exactly the same story. I entered eighth grade feeling exactly the same as I had before. I knew I had to make a change.
In science class one day, I was sitting with an aquaintance. She was snacking on something and offered me some. I said no, and she jokingly called me anorexic. I looked at her and, lying, said I already was. I'm not exactly sure why I lied about it that day, but I wanted the attention. A different aquaintance of mine had been hospitalized for anorexia earlier that year, and I think it was seeing all the attention she got.
That lie just flicked a switch in my brain. We were visiting the house of a family friend and they gave us sandwiches for the ride home. I took one bite of my sandwich, and then something told me to stop eating. I put the sandwich in my purse and threw it away when we got home. I felt so triumphant that day, like I was going to finally get rid of the fat that was holding me hostage.
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