Growing up with Anorexia.

I was really skinny growing up, and I guess this really lowered my self esteem. Despite me being very dark in complexion, or having big eyes, my weight really lowered my self esteem. I would be teased by the colour of my skin, or by the size of my eyes, and I would take it, laughed along if the joke was funny enough, but comments made about my weight would really piss me off. People would look at me in the streets and they thought I was dying of malnutrition if not TB. This really broke my heart.

I was never diagnosed with anorexia, just by looking at me, society thought I was anorexic because I was extremely skinny. I remember praying to God, begging him to help me gain weight, but I didn’t, well not until 12 years later when I began to see some changes. And I wouldn’t say that I was anorexic, because an anorexic person doesn’t realise how skinny they are, and they don’t even want to gain weight, they measure their calories when about to eat, and they hate food. I wanted to gain weight so badly, I ate any edible thing I laid my eyes on, and I didn’t care how many calories I consumed.

Bad memories about this whole anorexia thing, was when my technology teacher, in fifth grade, used me as a skeleton model, the whole class laughed at me, and even the teacher laughed with them, then in grade ten, my biology teacher used me as an example of an anorexic person, this was one of my most embarrassing moments in life.

I was really desperate to gain weight, would do anything back then, even made a decision to be on contraceptives at the age of 16, because I heard that one normally gains weight while in them, to even think I was not sexually active at that time. I took contraceptives for six months, without any luck, then gave up. I only ate greens, dairy products and beans, believing that they would help me gain weight.

I was too tall for my weight, my bones popped out, making me look really sick. I then soon realised that I had a faster metabolism and there was nothing I could do with it.

During my first year at varsity I weighed 43kgs, and now, four years later, I weigh 65.8 kgs.

I am happy to say I survived ‘Anorexia’ :).