"I'm going to get healthy." Oh how I was wrong. I was a 14 year old girl, with a body weight classified as obese, living in a family where being thin was the only way to be beautiful. I hated how I looked, hated it. "I want to be beautiful" I said, "Beautiful is skinny."

We had just planned a family holiday to Florida, and I wanted to look great. So, one day, I decided I would eat a bit healthier. I started off well, eating a balanced diet, exercising well - I was healthy. I saw the results after a month of working hard, and was ecstatic. So ecstatic, I wanted to see more. I gradually cut my meals back, eating 3 small meals a day, no more than 150 calories each. I'd exercise every day; dancing 4 times a week for three hours each time, walking to and from school, running for an hour and a half a day... I was obsessed. The results came faster, I began cutting out meals, drinking a litre of water within 5 minutes to stop me being hungry. I didn't realise what I was doing was so harmful, I thought I was happy - I was on my way to be beautiful.

5 months in, and 5 stone lighter - I was stuck. The results had slowed, I began doubting myself.. "I'll never be beautiful", "I'll always be the fat one" - my brain wouldn't stop. I stopped eating for days, using laxatives excessively, vomiting every day in the shower, chewing foods and spitting it out; I was exercising over 1500 calories off a day, more if I'd eaten that day or not. My hair was falling out in clumps, my skin was dry - my aim at this point was to eventually be so small, so "beautiful", I could see all my bones in my back. Every day I'd check, every day I'd hate myself more. I thought I obviously wasn't destined to be skinny so I was never going to be beautiful. 

I'd went from a size 16/18 to a size 8, all within these 5 months. My parents thought I was doing great - not knowing they were feeding a demon. But I still wasn't happy. My dance instructor noticed - I'd get told to eat, told that if I didn't start eating I'd be taken off of the competition team - but nothing stopped me from continuing being controlled by my eating disorder. I'd cry every day because I was so fat, but my bones were protruding my cold, dull skin. I never saw myself as thin, because according to the NHS I was under a weight that was healthy; my BMI was in the normal range - so I thought could always do better. 

Looking back on it now, I was miserable. For a long time, I convinced myself I was happy - when I was a shell of who I originally was. I had the signs of anorexia, but I wasn't at a low enough weight to be considered for treatment. I fell under the category of EDNOS, which is Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified - In which I had no knowledge to what that even meant. I never spoke to anyone about it until June last year, last year was when I decided that I truly wanted to be happy for me.

I was once a carefree, happy 14 year old; who had no idea what I was getting myself into. Now, I am an anxious, self-conscious 19 year old; who is having to work so hard to be happy. I'm not going to say that I'll never again be happy, I'm saying it's going to be a battle. I'm having good days and bad days, and days in which I want to give up entirely. But I now have great friends and course mates who are so supportive and considerate. They're the ones getting me through most days. I am now my curvaceous self, the way I'm meant to be, the way I'm built to be. They think I'm beautiful, and now most days, I think I am too.

This blog has been written and released as part of QMUSU Eating Disorder Awareness Week