“Look at this girl! I don’t get why boys like her, she doesn't even have a good body” Instead of judging the girl on the screen along with my friends, all I could do when I was 12 was compare myself to her. Thinking people might see me in the same way. Fat. But nothing started until a boy I was friends with said five words to me. 

“Why are you always eating?” I never realized maybe he was joking, all I was worried about was being seen as fat. I skipped dinner that night.  “Only this one time,” I told myself. But It became an addiction. I wanted to stop but I couldn't. 

Very rarely people would pick up on skipping meals, if they did, they told me I should eat. So I ate a 50-calorie rice cake every morning. I couldn't eat a big breakfast and then look bloated and fat by school, couldn't eat the school lunch - too much glucose in the fruit, dinner - my body didn't need that big of portions anyways. My body became weak, all I could do was lay in my bed, when I wasn't my whole body felt dizzy. I lied to my mom about being sick, then skip school and lie down. At school, I couldn't deal with all the noise, it felt like a million people were yelling at me in my head. I would go into the bathroom stall and cry. I quit lacrosse, and at volleyball, I couldn't serve the ball over the net anymore. 

My mom picked up on something. She brought me to the doctor, they couldn’t figure out what was wrong. I got my blood drawn, the results didn’t disclose what was wrong either. I was embarrassed by what was wrong. I had fallen into a depression. I dropped all my friends with no explanation to them. But what was I supposed to do? I didn’t have the strength to hang out with anyone. I could barely get through a sentence without wanting to break down. School became hell.  Still, I couldn’t bring myself to tell anyone what was wrong. I didn’t tell my parents, I didn’t tell my friends, I didn’t tell my sister, I didn’t tell the therapist. I felt like no one saw what was wrong, yet I felt powerless to say anything. My weight never made a drastic change. Because one day I was skipping every meal then the next I was binge eating in the kitchen at eleven o’clock at night when everyone was asleep. It was a continuous cycle that I didn’t think would ever stop. 

Then, one day at school, I was walking down the stairs and a teacher stopped me. “Sweetie is that your natural hair? It's so gorgeous! Never touch it.”  That day I went home and cried the hardest I ever had. I recently had been noticing my hair falling out. Not eating causes that. Because of five words said to me the one part of my body I loved the most was getting destroyed. It seemed like everything about me was getting destroyed. I didn’t want to be destroyed. Never before that teacher had complimented me did I feel that way about myself. 

I was lucky enough to convince myself to start eating again slowly. I began to feel my strength and happiness reentering my body and mind. It only took five words for me to turn my life upside down because of how I thought others perceived me. Words are certainly powerful, and I am always careful with mine. Now I pay more attention to the words that empower me.