Member-only story
My Safety Net of Transparency
Why I’m so open about my past with disordered eating.
I understood there was something wrong with my body at about age 10, and quickly developed disordered eating patterns. I alternated between anorexic, bulimic, and binge-eating phases for years, until sometime around 16 I started making my way out.
There are a lot of things that helped me get over my problems. For example, I started saying nice things to the mirror every day, until one day I began believing them. When I moved out to live by myself I started focusing on eating healthy, nutritious foods, eventually learning more and more about nutrition.
But one of the things that helped me, and that would be the first on my list of recommendations for others struggling with this problem, was talking to my friends about it.
They of course knew I had an eating disorder. It was a secret to absolutely nobody that a girl who preferred to sit outside smoking cigarettes in the Finnish winter, rather than hang around with her friends in the warmth of the school cafeteria, had some issues.
My three best friends listened and supported me. They didn’t try to force their worry on me, they just allowed me to share what was going on. I had always known they had my back, but finding that reassurance when I was at my…
