Your Story

Alecia (@eleutheromanial)

Trigger warning

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When I was nine years old, my best friend (K) and I were sexually abused by a teacher for three months. I had no idea what was happening and just did whatever he told me to, but at some point, K started mouthing off at him and telling him that he was "mean".

His abuse was discovered when K was murdered and he confessed out of guilt.

This was what set off a lot of my problems, but firstly, PTSD.

For a year when I was ten, my family went on some type of business trip with my dad to America for a year, and it was there that I was diagnosed with OCD, insomnia, and Borderline-Personality Disorder.

We flew home to New Zealand a year later armed with pamphlets, referrals and prescriptions. That year, we made it work, communicating with sticky notes on the kitchen counter and a couple of sentences yelled out in the evening when everybody hunted in cereal boxes and takeout menus for something they would eat.

I took my medication as specific intervals and freaked whenever I missed the planned times by a minute. With the medications and naturopathic pills that I took, I had to take something like seven pills a day, on average.

Even though I was precise about keeping routines, I kind of let healthy eating slide.

Weight wasn't an issue for me, because I got plenty of excercise, but it was normal for me to eat three candy bars for lunch, or get two jumbo-deluxe ice creams after school for "a snack".

People kept letting hints drop, and I was told that I was Bulimic by my classmates, because I had a below-average weight, but still consumed way too much sugar and calories to stay like that without throwing up my food. I wasn't Bulimic though, just unhealthy.

When all the taunting got to be too much for me, I bought a couple of "healthly" living magazines and followed whatever they said almost religiously for a couple of weeks.

At this point, I was actually eating healthily and at about a normal weight, but then I became interested in what they said.

All the information triggered my OCD, and I started making lists.

I made lists recording tips on cutting back on fat.

I made lists on "Never Eat" foods and "Good For You" foods.

I made lists that copied nutrition facts lists on everything that I ate.

I made a billion different lists, trying to squeeze all the information onto margins of notebooks and posters and homework.

After a month, virtually every sheet of paper that I owned had some sort of list on it.

During that month, I'd eaten fairly regularly for a kid my age then, and had brought my weight back up to average.

However, once I had finished scribbling down all those lists, I saw them everywhere, and everytime that I ate an avacado or some raspberries, I'd inwardly cringe at the fact sheets that ran through my head.

I stuffed a binder as full as possible of all my lists, and wouldn't eat without consulting one of them. If an item wasn't on the list as something healthy, I wouldn't eat it.

My parents never really noticed anything- they were busy with their jobs and trying to evade from the other partner finding out about their simultaneous adultery- something that I'd heard of a long time ago.

I'll spare you all the facts in length, but just lay them out;

~I borrowed encyclopedias from the public library and vowed to learn what every single ingredient that appeared on the ingredient lists was. (I didn't, of course, but I got pretty far)

~I got put into a hospital when I fainted three times in one day (once, even twice was explainable, but three times? No, no.)

~I gained back enough wait to be let out. First, I was diagnosed with Anorexia, but then they realised that that wasn't the problem.

~After leaving the hospital, I started having panic attacks whenever I was near any foods that I deemed unhealthy. Whenever I consumed something "impure" I would imagine it poisoning me from the inside and wracking my body. Super fun, right?

~Spent a week living solely off of nutritional supplements, herbal teas, and hot water.

~Another hospital stay; "yada, yada, yada- just eat normal food, WILL YA?"

~Got worse again, and diagnosed with MDD and ADD.

~Yet another hospital stay, and I finally started getting better. (this was last year)

Anyway, Orthorexia and the other mental illnesses that I have have taken up a huge portion of my life, beginning when I was 9, and now, at 19, still a problem, just not as much of one.

However, I don't want to let them define me- because all they really are is some twisted brain chemicals and a name.

Alecia