Hi guys I’m Rachel Steele, and I am graduate from West Virginia University. Over the last several years I have struggled with something that went unknown for so long, and now I want to bring awareness to something that once kept me from living. Maybe if I would’ve had someone when I was in middle school or high school to look up to I wouldn’t have let myself get as bad as I was, and I wouldn’t have felt so alone.

Anorexia nervosa has the highest mortality rate of any psychiatric disorder.   

A study by the National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders reported that 5 – 10% of anorexics die within 10 years after contracting the disease; 18-20% of anorexics will be dead after 20 years and only 30 – 40% ever fully recovery.

I am one of those statistics.

I have an undeniably amazing life in so many ways when you look at it from an outside perspective. I have the best friends, good grades, the most amazing family, and when I was peak struggling in my ED I was on homecoming court, involved in sports, spiritual, and attended every social event imaginable. — I kept up with everything so well in school, that people never thought twice about what was actually going on.  I truly was so happy, but there was also this whole other side to me that I didn’t let people see, that I didn’t want people to see. Ever since I was a 14 year old I just had this feeling that I didn’t really understand. How could I have it all but not really feel anything. I got so used to smiling and putting on a show, that I couldn’t really differentiate between my real smile and the fake one. I did have amazing memories. I had genuine laughs -- I still do. I would consider myself a happy person, but sometimes I would go home and just be so tired. I was emotionally and mentally drained from the thoughts coming from my own mind. I would sleep everyday after school and I would cry myself to sleep, or cry every time I looked in the mirror. I was mean to my family. I tried to push them away in many ways because in the end that’s what we do. We push the people we love the most away because we know they won’t really go anywhere. And I guess as I grew I didn’t understand why they stayed. I didn’t really feel worth it. I've struggled with anxiety and depression for about 6 years off and on, but a major factor that played into these emotions was my eating disorder.

I remember the day vividly. I was in 8th grade when I saw my reflection in a car door, when I first looked at myself as “hideous.” Now a car clearly can show a distorted body in a reflection, but to me it was completely real. I saw a shadow of a person who I didn’t recognize, and from that moment on everything changed, everything had to change. I saw this girl that I refused to be, so I started changing. I would never wear sweatpants in public, I had to be best dressed everywhere I went, makeup was a MUST because who doesn’t want to shape shift their face, I started exercising more, and then suddenly I came to the conclusion that I could start skipping a few meals, that then turned in to more and more each day.

I was never really made fun of, and I was never over weight medically by any standards, but I saw myself as someone who was simply not worth it. I set an impossible standard for myself and fell short every time.

I cannot or will not ever be pretty, skinny, or perfect enough. — and for the longest time I couldn’t understand why. If I kept altering my body eventually I would reach the goal right?! WRONG! Skinny is never skinny enough with an eating disorder. I was never enough with an eating disorder.

Throughout my years in high school it got progressively worse. By the end of my freshman year I collectively lost about 15-20 pounds and the worst part about that was that I fell in love with it. I needed to keep to off, I needed to lose more weight, and whatever I was doing worked for a little while, until it didn’t. Sophomore year I got progressively worse as one does, which ended in my sister finding notes on my phone, little “reminders,” to starve myself and that I was nothing if I was not pretty. — and “pretty” was still something I did not feel like I achieved. I would change 5-7 times a day depending on how my stomach and thighs would feel in my clothing. No matter if I was just getting dressed for school, or going on a run I needed the PERFECT outfit. The perfect combination of hiding my body, while still looking completely put together. Junior year of high school was the first time I realized that I may have had a small issue, and that issue was something I wanted to stay with me. I was still skipping meals, changing multiple times a day, and crying in the mirror - but this year I added going on two or three runs a day, large iced coffees, side stitches everyday from being hungry, a whole lot of mean streaks to the ones I loved most, and my parents even threw in a visit to an eating disorder clinic visit and medication.

They did everything in their power to help me, and for so long I let them believe that it was working. After the day in the clinic I sat with the nurse who told me I was sick, but not sick “enough.” I had never felt that sense of defeat before. I pretended everything was good from that day on, but it really just made me rely on my disorder more because I was desperate to become sicker, thinner, and prettier.

This cycle continued for three more years.

Then December of 2020 hit. I went about a week consuming less than 200/300 calories a day and my parents watched me starve myself. I was sent to my doctor where I got diagnosed with a form of anorexia. Later that week I was sent to the ER to get my second EKG of the day to make sure I didn’t damage my heart due to the lack of eating. My chest pain was so bad that I thought I hurt my organs — and if I were to go a few more days doing what I was — I could have seriously done damage. I broke my family that week. I have never seen my parents, or sister cry as much as they did when they looked at me…. And it’s hard to know that I did that to them, even though my intentions were never to hurt them.

No one understood how I could do this to myself. But it's like these two voices in my head and they are both so loud that I don’t know which one to listen too. One says "Eat Rachel your body needs it to live," the other saying "Rachel do you really need that? You are fat."

Every conversation for the next year after that became about food, it was uncomfortable to eat in front of family and friends, and after all of that I still didn’t know if wanted to get better. It sounds crazy but this ED was all that I knew, and all that felt so safe. The thought of gaining weight was emotionally damaging to that young girl, and still is scary for the 21 year old writing this today.

My parents almost made me come home from college, forced me into mandatory ED therapy, and had check ins often with my roommates to make sure I was eating. The thing I tried to keep hidden for so long, became the exact thing that everyone then had to know about to keep me safe.

— and I am forever grateful for my parents, sister, and amazing support system of family and friends that have gotten me where I am today. That loved me at the times it was impossible to love myself, and promote recovery for my life and theirs as well.

Now, I do want to go over some of the things I lost as a result of this ED over the years so people can understand just how much it takes from someone. I was alive, but I forgot to do the actual living part.

For years I lost a healthy relationship and the trust of my family. I became less of a person and more of a burden, someone they had to worry about, someone they had to actively be scared of losing, and someone that was so much less than the potential I didn’t know I was capable of being. I lost the ability to eat alone for a while, and I was no longer allowed to not be hungry.  I became irritable and mean. — and one of the most ironic things looking back I spent so much time starving myself to be pretty, but the starving myself part made me lose so much of my hair, and created bruises all over my body. I was so focused on being pretty on the outside, that it made parts of me I once loved, so ugly on the inside.

I was so uncomfortable with being happy that I pushed the good things away and ran back to my depression and my eating disorder because I was so convinced that they don’t leave and people do.

I lost relationships that I was unable to get back. Relationships where I pushed people away because my mindset was so set on “why would anyone be able to love me, why would anyone care to keep me around.” Relationships that I stopped showing up for for the fear of what my body looked like.

I lost all of that and ironically didn’t even lose that much weight. I just gained sadness and irritability.

I am sharing my story today because I do not want anyone to feel like this, and I no longer want to be ashamed for feeling like this.

I am sharing my story because I still struggle, and because I know so many others around me do too.

I am sharing my story because I am still in recovery, and I will be for the rest of my life.

Eating disorders are so glorified now of days that people don’t understand the severity of it. It is NOT cute to brag about eating a small meal, or that you skipped one, in fact it is very triggering and belittles people with real disorders.

I am sharing my story today because I want you to eat something today — and to notice the sings and symptoms to be able to know when you may be developing an eating disorder or body dysmorphic disorder.

Depression, anxiety, eating disorders are all forms of illness, but you don’t have to let them define you. You don’t have to feel less because you struggle more.

Talk to someone if you can feel yourself slipping into these habits. Talk to me, or a teacher, a parent, a therapist. Anyone. Don’t kill yourselves trying to fit the expectation of something that we are never meant to reach.

One thing you can't get back is time. So don’t waste these years. --  let me be the blueprint to tell you that I have wasted so much.

Anorexia, bulimia, and binge eating are the main three ED’s that get talked about — but they are not the only ones. Distorted body image is so much more common than people know. In fact 2 out of every 5 girls on a college campus struggle with some type of distorted body image or eating problems and over 70% of men and women will never reach out for help. I have watched my mom, cousins, aunts/uncles struggle with some form of this, and it kills me. So, I am begging you to get help now, before it gets worse, and before it is too late.

I am not fully recovered yet, but I am learning and trying my best to be.... Recovery is possible and it starts with YOU.

Join me on my journey to loving myself, and hopefully for you to learn how to love yourselves a little better too.

Thank you for being here, I hope you stay a while.

Love Always,

Rachel