Disordered.

When I was thirteen, I was diagnosed with an eating disorder, which to this day I still believe to be bull. I lost weight, but not in an unreasonable amount of time, and not due to starvation, but due to upping my diet and exercise. Yes, I did keep food diaries, but isn't that recommended to people on the diet wagon? I never ate above 1500 calories, but I never went below 1000. Isn't that usually recommended to people on the diet wagon? I got to a size 00, or a UK size 2, which people would see as too thin and underweight, but I did not have to be particularly forced into eating again, and for my 5 ft 2 frame, it didn't look particularly sick. Is it really that possible to get over an eating disorder that quickly? No, it isn't. So, did I really have one, or was it just people saying that thin must equal anorexic, and too fat must equal someone who can't control themselves?

People look at me now and wouldn't even think twice about me having an eating disorder. I look average. I am average. However, I would say I have had considerably more disordered eating since I apparently 'recovered'. It is only in the years since then and now that I found myself trudging through reams of Felice Fawn pictures and thinspo, creating food blogs and ana/mia support groups (which is something I am now disgusted with myself about). I gained weight, a lot of it, and not through careful weight gain, but through binge eating. I binge ate and gained weight to the point of crippling depression. I quit the sports I loved doing and my self-confidence dropped significantly, and 8 years later, I am still told that I have confidence issues and should believe in myself more. I had bouts of bulimia, and was constantly trying to diet. It has been nearly ten years since I recovered from my apparent eating disorder, and I do not remember the last time I didn't give a thought to what I was eating, to whether the days intake would make me gain weight or lose weight, to what exercise I would do. I don't remember that last time I woke up in the morning, scared that I would binge eat again.

Because I was told I was anorexic, then because I was told I was fat, and then too thin, and dieting too much, and eating too much, I have become nothing but not myself, and all I notice in others is how they look, and how that seems to affect them. Looks mean everything to me, and to me, they are all thats important to everyone else too. I put my failures in life down to the way I look. I didn't get that job because they thought I was too fat. I don't get as much interest as my friends because I'm ugly. That person won't be friends with me because they think I'm unattractive. It's an incredibly toxic way of thinking. I never give anyone a chance to get to know me, because my self-doubt gets in the way.

People say you'll never be beautiful until you yourself believe that you are, but I, and I know a lot of you will probably feel that same way, think that it's pretty impossible to believe it nowadays. It's true, more and more big men and women such as Rebel Wilson, who was recently on the cover of Elle, and James Corden, are being thrust into the lime light, but they are few and far between, and to me it doesn't really make a difference, because I've grown up in a world where looks seem to mean everything, and fat often means unattractive. It's an irrational way of thinking, I know, but I have noticed that I am treated better when I am thinner, and maybe it is a confidence thing, but I truly feel that people in better shape get better treatment.

My boyfriend always tells me I'm beautiful, but the multiplicity of the statement makes it redundant. My mother always tells me stories of her friends at work telling her that they think I'm pretty, but they've only seen photos I take of myself, as the photos others take of me make me depressed for days, which seems to be true for most people, and it is sad.

Lately, life seems to be taking a turn for the gym, and I have been looking into the past. If my simple, not aggressive or unhealthy, dieting meant that I had an eating disorder, then I am confused by what I see around me everyday. I look around and notice that everyone seems to have disordered eating. People are obsessed with food, in a way that they think is healthy when, in my opinion, it's not at all. Throwing egg yolks in the bin because 'there's too much fat', is not something that I consider to be something normal, and I am bothered by the waste of food, as I'm sure my mother is - being the one who buys them. Talking about it to other people makes these food obsessed people uncharacteristically laborious to talk to, and completely bromidic. If food is all you can talk about, how can you not see how this is disordered? I've voiced my informed and genuinely interested opinion on this matter before, and was met with viscous backlash, and compellingly, not from people who stay fit and healthy off the bat, and do not feel the need to constantly talk about it, but by the obsessed. What I truly abhor, and this is down to living with a brother who has verbally attacked me because I've eaten his chicken, is how they preach as if my lifestyle is wrong. As if I'm insecure and unhealthy. I find it completely surreal. I've been sworn at and made fun of because I don't care about the protein content of yoghurt, and I've been accused of 'making fun' of these so called healthy eaters, and being unhappy with myself. Truly, I am not making fun, I am more interested in this new phenomenon, and living with one of these people has caused me to become irritated. My boyfriend refuses to eat chocolate or a burger two days in a row. My brother throws away egg yolks and secretly eats junk food when we're out the house. My friends are constantly on diets. There's always someone on Instagram trying a juice diet. People post pictures of themselves at the gym and talk about what they've eaten in the day, which is exactly the thing I did when I was diagnosed with disordered eating. People are agitated when they miss a workout. They have 'cheat days', as if eating is a game with a prize at the end. Meghan Trainor has been quoted as saying she 'wasn't strong enough' to have an eating disorder, and has even made a living out of writing songs about eating and body image. Why is this so important to us? Why does the Fabletics advert say we only dance 'to burn calories'? Does no one dance for fun anymore? Is it all for image? Even the people I know who never really give a damn and just want to travel and explore and live their lives have squabbles with their diets.

I don't really have a point to all of this, I just find it odd how things have turned out, and how my eating habits actually worsened due to 'recovery'. I cannot lose weight without starving myself. I eat too much or too little, I can never find a grey spot. At the end of the day, I believe it took all this diet obsession to make me realise how moot the whole endeavor is, and that there is much more to life. People will always have their opinions, and this is mine.