Keira Mannion
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Summer foods and eating disorders
Can you hear it? The sound of the ocean, the singing of the seagulls, the sun beating down on your skin making you feel like you are glowing. Like you are on top of the world even. Can you feel the cliché? To some, summer is one of the best times of the year, no school, total freedom to binge on food, travel the world, do whatever your heart desires. And for me it used to be. Until I turned 15, until wanting to binge on food made my stomach sick. For a few years I had been developing an eating disorder. But when I turned 15 something in me clicked. A part of me just really changed from hating the way I saw my body to loathing the way I saw my body. I stopped eating, I worked out too much, and I felt like I was on the verge of passing out almost 24/7. The hardest part about my eating disorder was the fact that I had always loved to eat. So when I stopped eating I finally realized something was incredibly not ok. Yet I tried to hide my eating disorder from everyone for as long as I could. Until one morning I woke up at six am extremely nauseous. For a good hour I was sitting next to my toilet wanting to throw up the nothingness that was my stomach. At that moment I finally asked for help. And that's what I got during the summer when I was 15. This summer, I am 15. I asked for help about a month ago and it has been insanely hard. About a week ago, I told my therapist about my love of food along with my giant sweet tooth. She challenged me so that the next time I eat something sweet to finish the dessert instead of eating half of it. My nutritionist challenged me to find safe foods. I had listed to her fruits, smoothies, and salads because they were low calories, they were what my eating disorder wanted me to say, to eat. But the part of me that asked for help, that is trying to fight away the disorder, knew I had lied straight through my teeth. My comfort food was not fruit or salads. It was ice cream, a cliché summer food but still, the ultimate summer food.
By Keira Mannion4 years ago in Feast
Summer foods and eating disorders
Can you hear it? The sound of the ocean, the singing of the seagulls, the sun beating down on your skin making you feel like you are glowing. Like you are on top of the world even. Can you feel the cliché? To some, summer is one of the best times of the year, no school, total freedom to binge on food, travel the world, do whatever your heart desires. And for me it used to be. Until I turned 15, until wanting to binge on food made my stomach sick. For a few years I had been developing an eating disorder. But when I turned 15 something in me clicked. A part of me just really changed from hating the way I saw my body to loathing the way I saw my body. I stopped eating, I worked out too much, and I felt like I was on the verge of passing out almost 24/7. The hardest part about my eating disorder was the fact that I had always loved to eat. So when I stopped eating I finally realized something was incredibly not ok. Yet I tried to hide my eating disorder from everyone for as long as I could. Until one morning I woke up at six am extremely nauseous. For a good hour I was sitting next to my toilet wanting to throw up the nothingness that was my stomach. At that moment I finally asked for help. And that's what I got during the summer when I was 15. This summer, I am 15. I asked for help about a month ago and it has been insanely hard. About a week ago, I told my therapist about my love of food along with my giant sweet tooth. She challenged me so that the next time I eat something sweet to finish the dessert instead of eating half of it. My nutritionist challenged me to find safe foods. I had listed to her fruits, smoothies, and salads because they were low calories, they were what my eating disorder wanted me to say, to eat. But the part of me that asked for help, that is trying to fight away the disorder, knew I had lied straight through my teeth. My comfort food was not fruit or salads. It was ice cream, a cliché summer food but still, the ultimate summer food.
By Keira Mannion4 years ago in Feast
