Last week in therapy it didn’t take long before the therapist asked me if I’d ever been in therapy before. I sighed, unsure of how to answer. Yes, I have.

The last time was in 2002.

I was a freshman in college, my life, my emotions were a disaster. I say that I’m depressed now, but this doesn’t hold a candle to the way things were 8 years ago. 8 years ago I poured out a fistful of tylenol PM, brought that fist of pills to my mouth and very nearly downed them. To this day, I don’t know what convinced me not to.

I called my mom the next morning and she convinced me to do what I had sought to avoid. Anti-depressants. I began taking the pills and things quickly got better. The sun seemed to shine again, school became easier, the homesickness quieted some.

Somewhere in asking for help, I lost some control in my life. Without even realizing it, I began to seek out that control in other places. I began studying intensely, I began running miles and miles a day and I began counting calories. The exercise and eating habits were innocent at first. I was around 15 pounds overweight when I went into college, and I truly just wanted to lose a little.

Each morning I woke up at 6. I had exactly 1 cup of cherrios, changed into my running clothes and ran anywhere from 3-6 miles. I then hit the weight room and lifted weights for about an hour. I went about my day, eating a salad with fat free dressing for lunch and going to the gym again in the evening, usually for 30 minutes on the bike and more weight lifting. Dinner was almost universally a bagel.

I rationalized it all. I was eating 3 meals a day. Some days I’d even have an apple for a snack. I was just eating healthier, I was just exercising.

There was a scale outside the gym locker rooms. I lived for that scale. I had dreams about that scale and the number it might show. It was my private judge, telling me if I was good enough. It was my best friend and my worst enemy.

I would weigh myself before and after exercising every morning. My mood for the day was tied to the numbers on that scale. If I gained even a half a pound, I would spiral. I would panic, I would run an extra mile and work out harder at my second work out. If my weight was down, I would be elated.

Months passed and the weight continued to fall off. I had muscles where I had never had them before. I had endurance. I could fit into clothes that were half the size of what I used to wear. The numbers ticked lower and lower. 140. 135. 125. 122. 115. 111.

My friends all made comments about it. They knew something was up. I denied it over and over again. My family made comments, I ignored them. I was being healthy. Didn’t they see how much better I looked? Didn’t they see how much healthier I was?

I still remember the day I realized that something was wrong.

I was lying in bed early in the morning, waiting for my alarm to go off so I could go to the gym. I realized that something didn’t feel right. Something with my body was not the way it was supposed to be. I finally realized that it was my heart. I took my pulse. 40 beats per minute. Then 37 beats per minute.

It hit me. I was killing myself.

I took a look in the mirror. My hair was falling out. My face looked gaunt. My clothes didn’t fit.

But I was finally thin.

That morning I got up and ran anyway. I got on the scale, twice. I felt the twinge of happiness at seeing another half a pound gone.

I continued like this for weeks and weeks. Knowing that I was doing something wrong. Knowing that like the night I had the tylenol PM, I was on a clear path to killing myself. My body had given me every signal it had. I didn’t have a period for 10 months (at that point), my skin was covered in a fine layer of hair. I was constantly cold, my pulse rarely got above 50 beats per minute.

I finally reached out for help. I called the student health center and made an appointment with a counselor. I didn’t know where else to turn.

It was disaster.

When I told the therapist why I was there, she told me that I didn’t look that thin to her. I was dumbfounded. I left the appointment feeling worse than I had when I walked in the door. I went for an extra run that day, after all, I didn’t look that thin.

It took months to finally stop myself. To let myself enjoy food, to sleep in. But even now, 8 years later, the urge is still there. The therapist last week said it was like an addiction, the compulsive eating and exercising. The anorexia.

I had never thought of it that way, but now in retrospect, I see how it is exactly that. I will always have thoughts in about starving myself. About being too fat. About needing to exercise more. There will always be moments where I wonder if I could skip a meal without my friends or husband noticing. Where I wonder if I could get away with a low calorie meal without anyone realizing.

I have kept those thoughts in check to the best of my ability. But times like now where I’m about 7 pounds heavier than I want to be, it’s a real challenge. I can’t look at a picture of myself without seeing the extra pounds. I can’t look in a mirror and not see the extra thickness in my stomach and thighs. I can’t not notice that my clothes are fitting more snugly than I want.

I sometimes wonder how I will manage having kids and having these thoughts. How will I be able to model healthy living for my children when I don’t want that at all? When what I really want is to be stick thin. When what I really want is to be able to run a 6 minute mile again. To run a 10K without even breaking a sweat again.

It took me years to get to the place where I am today. Where I can ignore the thoughts for the majority of the time. But I can’t help but wonder if I’ll ever be free from this. Free from my addiction. I wonder if I’ll ever look at myself in the mirror and not be disappointed. I wonder if I’ll ever believe it when someone tells me I look good.

I wonder if I’ll be happy with who I am, or if I will always wish to be something more. Or I guess technically, something less.

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