Introductions: Hello Ana, Welcome Mia

“Being strong doesn’t mean you’ll never get hurt. It means even when you get hurt, you’ll never let it defeat you.”

—Unknown .

I remember the first time I forced my fingers down my throat. The scarring image engraved in my mind of an innocent, pure, and desperate 14-year-old girl hunched over a toilet. Tears pouring down her face, one hand in her mouth, her phone in the other, the screen blaring the dangerous yet seemingly innocent google search, “how to make yourself vomit”. It wasn’t an eating disorder, not an illness, just a girl who ate too much and needed to get rid of the extra calories. A girl who had failed her latest diet attempt and couldn’t bear the shame and guilt of one again being a disappointment, a failure with no self-control. Desperate to get rid of every last calorie, every last crumb. All she wanted was to be skinny like the other girls, the prettier girls, the girls all the boys liked. The problem is, I never thought that first time would become a first time. I never expected the malicious and wickedly pleasing feeling of relief and accomplishment as I stood up, washed my hands in the sink, and glared at the new girl in the mirror. You couldn’t have warned that naive girl that this one-time incident would turn into a daily routine that would control her life for more than 2 years. A cycle that would not only affect her relationship with food, which she was too blind to see was already distressed, but also her relationships with her family and her friends. A harmless act that would end up putting her life at risk and hospitalizing her for 5 weeks.

Hello Ana, Welcome Mia.