Reflecting on it now, I vividly remember the excitement that I’d felt the night before the first day of High School. I never imagined how much it would change my personality and shape me into the person that I am today. The thing about high school is that no one can tell you how to survive it, simply because it is different for everyone according to the person that you are and the direction that you’re headed. You learn from your experiences and adapt from your mistakes.
Making friends was very difficult for me. I was not the prettiest or slimmest person. I was whispered about behind my back and received stares from some of my classmates because of my size. I did make three friends and I stuck to them throughout Grade 6. Going to an all-girls High School is not easy, especially if you are an easy target to gossip about. Unfortunately, “Easy Target to Gossip About” was written on my forehead. There was a clique of girls in my class who were considered the “cool girls”. They called themselves the “Big 11” and everyone wanted to fit in with them. They ridiculed me endlessly, to a point where I hated myself. They made comments like “OMG she is so fat, she walks like a penguin”, “Where on earth does she get clothes to fit her? Surely not the plus size store because I highly doubt she would get anything her size in there”, “She is so fat, I bet they have a special scale for her!” These are only very few of the things they laughed about behind my back and it mentally affected me. I hated my body and the way that I looked. My self-esteem basically dropped 150 feet below the earth.
I remember staring at myself in the mirror and crying, mentally cursing myself. I even used to suck my tummy in when I went out to make myself look slimmer. My friends were really skinny and I envied them. I remember opening up to my friend Aneesa, telling her, “Don’t laugh at me or anything, but tell me, what does it feel like to be thin? What does it feel like to not have to pull your stomach in to look slimmer in an outfit? What does it feel like to eat what you want and not get fat? I just for once, want to experience what it feels like to be skinny!” and I burst into tears, allowing her to comfort me.
I was the type of person who took what people said about me to heart. It is a normal phase of a teenager to be self-conscious about their physical appearance. I started wearing make-up to make myself look prettier and I brought clothes that were considered “stylish” at the time. This encouraged more attention towards me from the girls in school and they brought me down even more. I specifically remember a night when I was extremely depressed. I had Physical Education (P.E.) during that day and I failed horribly at the sport that we were doing and they laughed at me uncontrollably. I went home that evening hating myself and for the first time, I cut myself with the sharpest nail file that I had in my room and cried myself to sleep. I had a lot of counselling sessions in school to get over my self-harm, since I did not like opening up to my parents about my problems.
On December 23rd 2012, I nearly died from an allergy attack. My windpipe swelled and I fell unconscious due to not getting oxygen into my body. I was rushed to the hospital at midnight and was injected with Piriton (an allergy medication). I was also put on steroids (Prednisolone) for the entire Christmas vacation. I was 162 lbs at the time. I spent that entire Christmas vacation recovering from my condition and found myself and 172 lbs in January. Because of the steroids, I gained more weight. My clothing which were already XXL, became tight and I was super depressed because my jeans could no longer fit. Enough was enough. Right there and then I decided to make a change in my life. I became a health and exercise freak within one day. I mentally instilled it in my mind that I was not going to allow my body to gain a single pound more. I refused to eat any “bad” carbohydrates, such as rice, breads and pasta and completely stopped eating anything with oil and sugar. I survived on steamed provision, vegetables and fruits. I even refused to drink tea, and drank only water. I downloaded a calorie tracker app on my iPad and logged every single food I ate, to count every calorie that I consumed and to ensure that it never crossed 500 calories per day. I exercised off every calorie I ate on a daily basis. Even if I crossed my daily intake of 500 calories, I made sure to exercise off the excess amount of energy I consumed. My strict diet and exercise routine continued for eight months. I lost sixty pounds and went down to a size 6-8. By December 2013, I was extremely happy at 105 lbs. I was confident about my body and had pride in my achievement. The girls who used to bully me tried to become my friends and even asked for me to help them lose weight. Being the forgiving person that I am, I did not mind advising them on exercise routines.
However, there was a negative side to my success story. My insane diet eventually broke my body and mind down. Reflecting on it now, I remember the way I used to crave for food and how my mind used to scream at me to eat. Yet, I refused to consume more than the 500 calories I limited myself to. I used to google images of meats and pastas at night, and feel my mind yearning and going insane at the sight of food. My diet was so dangerous, that my menstrual cycle ceased for five months. I became worried and googled it, only to realize that my body had no energy to carry out the menstrual cycle. I was afraid to speak to my mom about it because I knew she would force me to eat and I had a serious phobia of re-gaining the weight that I’d lost. I thought that everything I ate would make me fat and it became a habit to weigh myself every time I ate something, even if it was just a fruit. I would always lift my clothing and look at my body in the mirror to see if I’d gotten fatter after every meal. Whenever I felt like giving up and binge eating, my mind immediately yelled and motivated me, “you WILL be thin. You will be the skinny one. You will have that thigh gap. You will have that flat stomach. You will not be ashamed of your body. You will be beautiful. You will weigh less. You will eat less. You will exercise more. You will do what it takes. You WILL keep going. You could basically say that I was suffering from a disorder.
In February 2014, my body became worn out. I fainted after running on the treadmill and my parents became frantic. They banned me from exercising until I built my body’s strength. It takes a hard fall for a person like me to realize, that I need to get back up and head in the right direction. It was only THEN that I realized how foolish my diet had been and I decided to eat more. I raised my calorie intake to 1200. Slowly, I began to recover from my phobia of gaining weight from everything I ate and I started eating rice, pasta, and breads again in moderation. I did, however, gain ten pounds from December, but I am happy with my current weight even though I don’t have the flat stomach that I’d always dreamed of.
I am currently a size 10 and I am very content with that. I am within a healthy range in my BMI. I still do weigh myself very often, numerous times a day, but only because it had become a habit. I eat what I love and I love what I eat. This does not mean that I eat junk every day. I eat everything in moderation. My mind no longer has to scream at me and tell me to eat food and my body feels stronger. As for my self-esteem, I don’t care what people think about my physical appearance. The last time I checked, the word “beautiful” did not have a size limit. My family and friends think that I am beautiful and I can fit into what I want. What more can I ask for? I have a good weight, and I can maintain it without being on that deadly diet. As for the bullies? They remain to be my acquaintances. I would never hold a grudge against them for the pressure and pain that they caused me because they are the people who encouraged me to be the person that I am today. They told me that I couldn’t, so I showed them that I could.