Mountain

 

When I was younger, as any other child, I was bombarded with media.  It’s kind of ridiculous when you think about how much the media effects us.  Considering that the people most times portrayed in the media only make up 0.2% of America. It wasn’t until I was in middle school that the media had any effect on me at all. When I was 12 years old I began to have trouble with image. Of course being in middle school that transition period was a normal occurrence, but unlike most of my peers as I grew so did the problem.

         When I was about 13 was when things really became serious. I’m not sure when it started or how it got so serious I just remember being totally immersed in it. When I was in my 10^th grade year I was diagnosed with an eating disorder but this is not where it begins, 10^th grade was when I was actually diagnosed but it was by far not where the problems began.  I was always angry with myself but it would always get deflected on to my family.  My sister, looking back, probably got the worst of it.

         I wasn’t sure if my parents knew or had any idea what was going on, but they often wrote it off as me being a teenager.  It was in my 8^th grade year that I was caught for the first time.  I felt cornered, so when placed into counseling I did what I thought was best at the time, I lied. Looking back I wish I had done things differently, but the past is the past.  After one session with the counselor she told my parents that being in the transition state of my early teen years that this had just been an experiment and that I would be fine.  For a while I thought she was right but a short 9 months later I was back to my old ways, but this time I was adamant about not getting caught.  I was careful and smart, but every master plan has a downfall, as did mine.  I was pulled further and further from my family, and I wasn’t myself.  My family could tell something was up, but they would have rather have believed anything but what was actually going on.  It was the middle of my sophomore year that for the second time I was caught.  This time I knew that there would be no easy way out, I knew that I would have to endure my family, and whatever counselor they put me with. I will never forget the feeling when my mom picked my sister and I up from school early that day.  My stomach was in knots and I don’t know how but I knew that I was inevitably walking into a trap sort to speak.  The whole way home I was talking about my day trying to look as happy as I knew she needed to see.  In my head I told myself a million ways I could get out of this, but when we got home and they asked both me and my sister, the truth was all that was rolling around in my head until I blurted it out at them as if I were talking about the weather.  It was strange really the calm that came over me as my mom and dad were yelling and tearing up, I sat there listening but completely calm.  This I think further enraged them.  My mother eventually went off on her own and I was left with my father.  The look in his eyes broke my easy calm and destroyed me. I felt like I had let my family down I’ll never forget the feeling I had then. I can remember the smells and look of everything a memory that I will always have.

         My mother handled it differently the second time than she had the first.  She would always yell at me hiding beneath the surface the hidden tears, and I knew from overhearing conversations that she had blamed herself.  I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know how to talk to her and tell her that this wasn’t her fault. I felt like my world had been ripped apart, the worst part was that even then I didn’t want to stop.  It wasn’t long after that, that I was thrown back in the office of a councilor, I was hurt and angry and I didn’t want to talk to her. When my parents backed off I began again.  My grades were low and my self-esteem was lower I couldn’t face the mirror for fear of what I would see. I was sick, but I was too stubborn to except help or admit that I needed it.  I decided, in an effort to make myself feel better, that it wouldn’t matter if I stopped because my mom was always in tears and my father and I couldn’t hold a conversation of small talk.  There was a constant war going on inside me, half of me justifying my actions the other half pointing anger inwards for ruining so many things at home.  Everything felt out of control and all I wanted to do was rewind to a different time, I was too afraid to fast forward for what I thought my future might look like.  It wasn’t until a conversation with a friend that I thought about what it might feel like to actually try and feel better to change how I felt instead of just hiding it.  It wasn’t long after that that I began to talk to the councilor. I had been balancing school and all of this and it wasn’t an easy matter my grades showed the struggle.

         Immersed in therapy I met people who were like me, who struggled with image and self worth.  One of the girls in particular really made an impact in my life, she taught me three things.  First that it would be a never-ending fight, a fight that I would be fighting for the rest of my life.  Second that asking for help when I need it doesn’t show that I’m weak it shows that I’m strong.  And third that everyone in my life and my future make the never-ending fight worth it, she taught me to never give up. She started her eating disorder at my age and now she is 30 and happily married. Another person I met who made a difference shocked me because this person was a male.  He was my age and going through pretty much the same things I was, his point of view though surprisingly was similar to mine.  Meeting these people helped me cope through everything I was feeling and take step in the direction I had been avoiding.

6 months into my therapy I could look into the mirror and not cringe.  I was beginning to change.  It wasn’t an easy road, sometimes I would get upset because didn’t feel like I should be there, other times I would mess up and telling my mother when I messed up was the hardest part but I did it.  I can’t say that I was perfect even during counseling I would sometimes mess up, it was definitely a habit that was hard to break but I was on my way and it felt good to look back and feel like I had come so far and been able to say that I wasn’t perfect but I was who I was.

The hardest part was getting up every morning and facing my parents but most of all myself.  I had to get up and face myself and eat and know that I couldn’t throw it up, and with that realization I have lived day by day. It’s not easy it’s actually one of the most challenging things that I have ever faced.  My mother and I have been building our relationship ever since, and it’s not perfect, and sometimes we fight.

          I wish that I could say sitting here writing this that I am completely cured, but something I learned the hard way is that there is no cure and even though I can’t say that I’m cured I can say that it has been 2 years, and I can’t say that I haven’t thought about it in the last 2 years but I can say that I am winning the fight. As I began to feel okay, and maybe I would never feel more than okay, I feel like I can move on to a new chapter.  Unlike the stories in the book I may never climb an actual mountain but as far as I’m concerned I have climbed a mountain, and I have overcome it.  As I sit here re-reading what I wrote I could easily say that the person I was before has been left sitting at the bottom of the mountain because she was a chapter of my life left behind as I trekked the mountain, on the other hand I am also a mixture of who I was and what my experiences have made me, but me, my family and, my house have all changed as we look back from where we are now.

         At first I wasn’t sure if I should write this as the essay for your class.  When I looked back on what the assignment was is when I decided that this was the best thing I could write about, because nothing has changed my family and me more than this experience but by far for the better.

Reviews

[Emrick]

so sad.the title and the conclusion alligned preety well.
its a nice story.