Shaking hands.
I’ve noticed that my hands are constantly shaking. My father tells me it’s because I have an internal tremor.

Bitten up lips.
I’ve noticed I’m always biting my lip, sometimes breaking skin and bleeding. It might be because I am focusing or because I am nervous or just flirting. Logic tells me it’s because I am copying someone who does the same thing.

Doodles.
I’ve noticed that no matter how hard I try to stop, I am always doodling in the margins of my papers. My teachers tell me it’s because I never want to pay attention fully.

My eyes.
I’ve noticed that my left eye is smaller than the right. It drives me crazy so I try to put makeup on to make it seem like they are even. My doctors tell me that it’s genetic.

I don’t eat.
I’ve noticed that I don’t eat.

My hands shake, but so do a lot of people’s hands. My lips get bitten up because it is a nervous habit that many people can relate to. I doodle when I am bored. School makes focusing seem like climbing Mount Everest. Almost everyone my age feels this way. My eyes are different sizes but that will never change.
I tell myself that it’s okay and that it is as normal as all of my other quirks, that not eating is not something I should be concerned about. A lot of people don’t, right? But no, it’s not. It’s not normal or okay. Everything else I can explain, but this I can’t. I also can't let the fact that others do it justify my doing so.

I think I’ve attempted to explain this to myself way more times than I have tried to explain it to my loved ones. Giving family and friends an explanation is easy; all they have to do is say sorry and wrap their arms around me. But giving myself some sort of explanation is far too difficult. Every time it is a different answer, and with each answer comes the routine back story and the gore of it all. One day I will tell myself I do not eat because I am simply not hungry, or that any food offered is not in my appetite. The next day I tell myself I don't eat because I'm just too busy to realize I've gone without food. My answer will say one thing then it’ll change to say another because there is no real definitive answer when it comes to these things.

I repeat this all the time:

I don’t eat.

        Because really that is all I know for sure. That is not always true as of now, but for explanations sake let us believe that I don’t. I tell myself if I eat just the smallest of bites I won't have anything to explain. If I eat a half a cracker, or a slice of orange, I don't have to feel like I'm doing something wrong.

But, I don’t eat.

There are always so many questions. Questions people ask, questions that should be asked, and questions that I constantly ask myself.

You don’t eat at all?
Why?
Does anyone know?
Are you getting help?
Do you want to talk about it?
Do you force yourself not to eat?

But the main one, the one that always hits me the hardest:

Do you want to get better?

People would normally say “Why?” is the hardest, but I disagree. “Why?” is easy because there isn’t an answer all the time. Sometimes it just is. "Why?" doesn't always have to be explained, it can go unanswered.

“Do you want to get better?” should be responded to with a yes, or a no.

Should being the key word. It shouldn't be a “maybe” or a “I don't know.” It should be yes or no and I’ve always answered “Obviously,” because it should be obvious. Of course I want to get better, right? Misery and starving yourself is no fun. I guess what should be a sign that things aren’t okay is that my answer doesn’t seem to be "obviously" anymore.

Initially, it was that I would miss a meal here and there. Then I stopped having meals altogether without even realizing it. I’d have a granola bar here and there if I thought I needed it, but mostly my diet was coffee and bottles and bottles of water.

Sometimes I got really dizzy. I couldn’t walk. I got scared. I thought immediately I was going to faint, or pass out in the middle of the corridor. I internally cursed myself for doing this. It was my own fault that I couldn't hold myself up any longer; my head spinning was all because of my own actions. But then, I would just blame it on my dramatic side; I was really okay. I’d continue my skipping of meals, and excessive drinking, without a blink of an eye.

    Eventually I knew that the people who were seeing me every day and knew me well, friends not family, were noticing that something was wrong. I wasn’t accepting lunch invitations and I began losing weight.  At that point I realized that I needed to tell them or they would get even more worried. I just wasn’t hungry anymore, but they wouldn’t see it like that if I didn’t explain. 

    First, I turned to the school psychologist, someone I consider to be a great friend. Some of my friends and I always go to his office during our free time to hang out. The school psychologist, known as Mr. M to us, is this cool, open-minded, nerdy guy, similar to my friends and I, which allows us to have this awesome relationship with him. We spend so much time talking about current events, being sarcastic, or arguing over answers to philosophical questions. Mr. M is someone those friends and I all trust, so I felt that I could trust him with this. Being the school psychologist, I assumed he would understand how to deal with whatever was going on. After I told him, he told me that he already picked up on my lack of eating. He noticed my familiar untouched bag of lunch next to me every time I came in to hang out. He then went through The Questions.

After our discussion, I continued a conversation that I had started with someone earlier, who I knew would understand, and wouldn’t force me to do anything like everyone else would. He wouldn’t force me to eat, or to talk about it. Max would just tell me the reality of things without the psychological approach, but make sure that I wouldn’t hurt myself too much. I trust Max with every ounce of trust I could possibly have. He understands me more than I understand myself, which leaves me vulnerable. And yet, when it comes to him, that doesn’t bother me as much as it normally would. He is one of my closest friends, and I knew that whatever he would say would be right. When I finished telling him everything that I needed to get off my chest, his response was something that I didn’t expect. It shook me and stuck with me, and whenever I feel as if I’M falling into a lower place, I think about it. He told me that it was okay, and that we’d get through it. He didn’t tell me that I would get through it. He told me we would do it together. He told me that it was okay, something that it so clearly is not, but I believed.

When I realized my two best friends were getting suspicious, I knew that I needed to talk to them as well. In a normal situation I wouldn’t hesitate to talk to them about anything, but this is far from a normal situation.
First, I approached Ally. During our breakfast time one day in school I pulled her aside and just blurted it all out, no filter. Half the things I said probably didn’t make any sense to her. I was careful enough not to get her too worried though. Her response, like Mr. M asking The Questions, was to compare something she went through, having nothing to do with me, to what I was, am, going through. That bothered me a little, but I knew that this was something difficult to respond to and she was just grappling for what to say.
Telling Lee, however, was a more difficult task. Originally, I didn’t even want to tell her, but Ally told me that Lee was asking questions and I didn’t want to put Ally in the position that would force her to lie for me. I decided that when my friends and I would go out to the movies that weekend, I’d talk to Lee.
It was harder than talking to Ally was. I needed to be more careful with what I said. Where Ally is the open accepting, and “non freak out” girl in our clique, Lee is the one who worries. Because of this, I assured her every other sentence that I was okay. I believed I was okay, so that’s what I told her. When I was done, she didn’t have to say anything, she just hugged me and made me promise that if I ever felt that I needed someone, I would call her.

These were the only people I told, the only people I felt that I could and was ready to tell.

Everything I said to them, I’ve now realized, was truly more for me than for them.

One period after leaving Mr. M’s office where he tried to get me to talk, as I was walking to French class, a dizzy spell hit me like a brick to the forehead. I could barely stand and my head was pounding. My limbs felt like they were floating in space and if I stood any longer I might have passed out. Mr. M found me in the hall. He told me right away that I needed to accept that I have a problem, and needed to talk to my mom.

Normally, like I do with my best friends, I tell my mom everything, partially because I am terrible at keeping secrets, but also because I like talking to my mom. I am lucky that I have such an amazing relationship with her, that I can be open to her about my life. But this wasn’t something I wanted to share with her.
First of all, I wouldn’t want to stress her out. We have more then enough troubles in our lives, like the tightness in our finances and her job, which is super stressful. Her boss is on the crazy side. Second of all, I didn’t think she’d believe me. I have been accused of being a hypochondriac and melodramatic by her too many times.

But, Mr. M was insistent. He tried to make me see what was wrong and why I should tell my mom.
I told him that I saw it, but in reality I was spooning him the words I knew he wanted to hear.

I couldn’t tell her with words. I wouldn’t even know how to start; I wouldn’t even know what to tell her. Although that first dizzy spell scared me enough to talk to my mother about my problem, it wasn’t enough to convince me that this is something I need to get better from yet. How could I tell my mother that I am not eating and that I need to get better if I didn’t believe it myself?

So I turned to Max; I asked him for help because he was in a position worse than mine and he overcame it. Maybe he could help me with the first step: acceptance.

He told me I should do what comes easiest to me. I should write my mother an email.

          That sounded simple enough. All I had to do was put down what happened and why and press send. But when I sat down to write it, I realized I still didn’t know what to say. For once at a loss of words, I began to panic. If I didn’t tell my mother, then the psychologist would. He wouldn't tell me what he's saying to my mother, or when he'll do it. He could blow it out of proportion, freak my mom out, and things would ultimately spiral downhill at an unstoppable rate. He could exaggerate things to extreme levels and I'd be in too deep. My whole life would turn even more upside down than it already had.

I turned again to Max, who calmed me down and helped me start the email. Once I did, the words flowed out of me pretty quickly. It got the point across without scaring my mother and making sure she knew this wasn’t anything she has done, just something I am going through.

I didn’t want to hit send.
I didn’t want my mom to know. I'm her strong, hard working daughter who has an amazing and blessed life. How would she handle her child falling apart at the seams like this for what seems to be about nothing?

She knows now, but I wish she didn’t. She looks at me at the end of the school day and I know she's silently questioning whether to ask if I have eaten anything, or to just force me to have a large dinner. She wants to yell at me and tell me I am being stupid. 
She wouldn't force me to eat or stare me down until I've finished my meals had she not been told. She wouldn't constantly tell me she loved me in case I forgot, or become frustrated when I tell her I'm not hungry if she didn't know.

But I hit send.

My mom does know.

Mr. M gave me the ultimatum and it changed our relationship.

             Now, I find it difficult to talk to him because I am afraid if my mother emails him, like she did after we spoke, he will tell her everything I’ve said. There is supposed to be “doctor patient confidentiality”, which I want to believe we have. But I can never really know.

The week after I told my mother, I saw the ultimatum he gave me marked on his calendar. It upset me that he marked it down like that, made me feel like another case, another job. To him, I felt that I was now nothing more than troubled, unhealthy, and roaming around with a clouded mind. That’s not a good feeling. It does not make me want to get better; it does not make me feel thankful that I spoke up.

My mother just told me it was all in my head. She told me what she always tells me, “Mind over matter.” That is, after she asked me if I was trying to kill her. But I really don’t believe in that. I can’t explain why, but it just doesn’t settle right. It’s different in every situation. In this situation I don’t believe mind wins, because my mind doesn’t know what is going on. My mind is everywhere and nowhere all at once. It is pouring explanation after explanation into a void of blackness, all while it is whispering soothing lullabies that all is well to my shaky nerves. My mind does not know what's going on. It can't tell one thing from another. How can my mind end up victorious if it can't even understand what my victory was over?

        She told me if I didn’t start eating, she would take away everything that I loved. She would stop me from being the lead in the school play, she would stop me from being in mock trial, and she wouldn’t let me write. I didn’t and still don’t think, that those threats would be very productive, but I of course kept my mouth shut as she spoke. Nothing I could say would make her do anything or say anything different. I just dropped a huge bomb on her. I let her do what she felt was her duty as a parent. I let her force me to eat and she became some kind of robotic executioner whose duty it was to keep my stomach full when it came time for meals.

So I have been eating, if my pathetic attempt to sit at meals with my family, and take as little bites of food as quickly possible without anyone noticing, is considered eating. Then I lock myself in my room and I cry. I cry because I have no freaking clue what is going on. I am scared. I am sick from the food I have been forcing myself to eat, and I am tired of stressing myself out over this “eating disorder,” as everyone labels it.
My attempt to accepting this “eating disorder” was writing out all that has happened. I hoped that maybe it would help me understand myself, make me feel better, but I’ve gotten nowhere.

I am still scared and fed up with dealing with this.

Truth is, “Why?” may not be the hardest question to answer but it is the scariest. I may not have the answer to all the questions, I definitely don’t understand what is going on, but I do know that it’s real; a fake disorder wouldn’t destroy the way this does.