In writing this, I run the risk of alienating you. 

In sharing this information, I run the risk of alienating myself or declaring myself “one of THOSE people.”
But if people in our everyday lives don’t find ways to speak up about mental illness, the stigma that surrounds it will never go away. We will never be able to discuss it without being shamed, without being told we are asking for attention or pity. On one hand, asking for attention is often not a bad thing, or being very “attention-seeking” can often be because a person truly needs attention that they are not getting. On the other hand, I need to be able to be honest with myself and with others, and I need to be able to identify with my illness only so that I can speak up about the labels and stereotypes associated with it, so that I can show you I am still a valid person.

As a sophomore in highschool I was diagnosed with an eating disorder. Since my diagnosis, I have fought this disease (yes, disease) and come and gone from treatment; both my eating disorder and treatment of it have taken things from me that I would never, ever choose to give up. They have interrupted my life, erased what should have been good memories, prevented relationships from being formed or taken care of. My eating disorder holds me a burden that I am encouraged to not speak openly about, because of the image it might portray of me. I am reminded that until I recover, I cannot talk freely of it because I am still “crazy”.

I can not and will not immerse myself fully in any portrait that attempts to portray me as my disease. I am not my eating disorder, and my eating disorder cannot be normalized or made to look pretty. It is not something I want to talk about so that I can have it comfortably in my life--it is something I want to talk about despite my fear of talking about it so that I might be able to change a negative thought someone has about mental illness, eating disorders, etc.

There are many people who I have been insanely lucky to love, and to learn & grow & fight alongside because of treatment. There are many people who I have let slip from my life because my eating disorder took control and pushed them away, so that I could retreat to a miserable, obsessive place in my mind.

Anyone who knows me, knows that horses are my passion; knows that I would sacrifice any day and any hours and any social event to spend time with them, take care of them, ride them, or work with them. Knowing how important these equines and the people with them are to me, it should be clear to anyone that eating disorders are not choices, are not cured by “just eat more”, and are not anyone’s fault. If I were choosing between my eating disorder and horses, I would choose horses every time; yet my eating disorder has managed to take me away from them from weeks at a time, causing anguish over when I’ll be able to return: “how soon can I get back to the barn?”. Entire weeks wiped from my memory by obsessive thoughts, days where I hardly have the energy to walk up stairs and yet cannot force myself to nourish my body effectively.

Eating disorders, as well, are not physical illnesses, but often have physical symptoms. They are mental illness; seeing someone who is thin does not qualify them as anorexic, but someone who is extremely obsessive in their eating habits to the point where it is destructive to their health, even if they are not underweight, has an eating disorder just as serious as anyone else’s. Our illnesses have minds of their own; they want us to compete to be the sickest, to get sicker. They can override every manual control in our brains, reducing intelligent, kind, clever, hardworking people to zombies who find healthy eating habits (“normalized eating”) to be more frightening than the biggest spider or snake they’ve ever encountered.
Eating disorders wire our brain like addicts, but we cannot seek treatment by avoiding what we struggle with--food is everywhere, food is necessary, and not only that, but it is constantly pushed on us by conversation, by ads, by restaurants, by photos. And in a society where even a person who claims they understand how terrible eating disorders are will easily slip into conversation about their latest diet, commenting on how horrible their body fat is, it’s even harder to step up to the plate and admit that you suffer from such a poorly understood illness--its media representation and the general public knowledge of it is insufficient at best.
So here it is, my statement that I seek to stand by: I am, and have been for several years, fighting an eating disorder against which I am not always the victor. But I never stop fighting. This is not to explain that it is my “lifestyle” but to share that it is a disease, which I have not and would never choose. Mental illness is real illness, is not choice, and is in no way a sign of inferiority or weakness of character. I must constantly remind myself of the good things in life that this disorder has robbed me of, and do the best that I can to make choices that will benefit me in the long run so that someday I can say that I am fully recovered. Until that day, I have no intention of giving in, either to my disease or to those who would shame me for talking about it.

Speak up.