Infestation

Everyone Hates You, Kiddo

 I remember when I began to attempt fasts and such in fourth grade. It was really something I'd try. I'd tell myself to not eat for two days, then eat on the third, and repeat. I never fully carried out with it, but I tried to do it, every day I woke up with this notion that I was not going to eat that day, at all. I thought it was completely normal to be honest. I thought every single person in the world thought the exact same thing, and that eating was a luxury. I ended up getting into a higher level of gymnastics by the middle of December I believe. I began to work out a bit more, and well, I still ate a lot of cheese and carbs, because, geez man, I loved them. I was sort of dumb when it came to food. I began to learn about calories, I'd look at the calories in pita breads that I'd eat, and if it was 200, I'd refuse. Anything over 150 was too much for me in my head, except thing that I couldn't see the calories from. I sort of ignored them. Again, I was 10, stupid, and sort of strange.

My teacher throughout this year was wild. We started the first month or so in school talking about diet and fitness. We'd run the trail every morning outside, we'd discuss food and stuff. I mean, some of my friends agree that that could have fed our eating disorders a little bit. I mean, not much, but it definitely fueled it. It didn't help that I was still higher end of healthy. I did go down a little bit as I began to grow taller. I was always one of the taller ones in my class, which also was a reason that my weight was higher than the rest. This year didn't have any sort of "set points" or stories to sort of tell, it's just a year where all of a sudden, bad became worse. I began to grow taller. I was 5 feet by February I believe. Which I'm grateful for now, because being taller is real cool, and back then to.

I began to get real obsessed with Pokemon and Sonic the Hedgehog. Yeah, weird, sorry about that, but I would play Sonic games for hours. I know, wild, but it was my only real vice. That and, this was the year where I began to find heavier music. I began by finding a song by Linkin Park, then it evolved into Three Days Grace and Linkin Park. I got my first ipod, and I downloaded songs onto it. I mean, I felt so cool man for all this. I even wanted to be a rebellious punk and bring it to school, so I did. I became obsessed with the aesthetics of Shadow the Hedgehog. I know, embarrassing, but geez man, let a 10 year old be a 10 years old. My obsessions definitely helped my brain calm it's disordered thoughts, but those honestly only got pushed to the back of my mind, but they never went away completely.

The first time that I realized I had lost weight, actual weight, was something I'll never forget. I felt ecstatic, as if I had finally not failed at something in my life. I never weighed myself, no, the thought of stepping on a scale scared me, it was something I loathed. I felt my clothes just get baggier on me, and honestly, it was the best feeling I had felt. This was when I'd begun my fasting period. Fast for two days, eat a small amount on the third day. I knew about calories, I knew the whole "2000 calories" thing, but I didn't know that the body burns most of those by just existing. I began to think that I had to burn everything that I ate off to just maintain the weight I was at. I was really fucking scared. I began to realize that maintaining was also sort of a constant "gain/lose" but only in small amounts. I was just deeply frustrated with my inability to not consume food. It just never seemed human to me to eat, as if it was a reward. I just wanted to stop forever, as it seemed that it wasn't necessary. In my mind, eating was bad, I felt guilty after every time I did it. I didn't know why, but with the long time before this and the reinforcement from more than one person that I should stop eating and lose weight. I remember at one point someone had told someone else that they had lost four pounds after not eating for a day. I was real jealous, because it seemed that I couldn't, and I felt more guilty for being the size that I was, which was on the higher end of healthy, remember that.

I began to get more serious in gymnastics a little before winter break, and I was obsessed. I trained a little more and I trained a bit at home. It was honestly something great to me, and I began to drop a little weight, which, again, made me ecstatic. By March I was seasoned, I listened to the same stuff like always, and as I was in a higher learning program, I'd take a bus to a high school, and get on a bus from there. The waiting period between the two was always awkward. This was in 2009-2010, so it was the prime of the emo/scene myspace days, and this high school had those kids, and those kids, they'd hang out sort of near me, and I was getting into the whole style, just from the stuff I liked to listen to. I was pretty much a 10-year old scene kid, it was a wild time.

Obsessions have always been with me. I've had weird compulsions and intrusive thoughts. When I was a kid it was that I had to get out of the bathroom before the toilet finished flushing or the weather would flip flop, as in I'd feel cold in the summer and hot in the winter. I had thoughts like this all the time, and now, with my body issues heightened, my intrusive thoughts and compulsions were stronger. I began to get these thoughts to only breathe in on people who I thought were skinny and to breathe out in people who were not. It was really strange to all of a sudden get this compulsion.

I spent the whole summer of this year in Germany. I trained gymnastics with my cousins, and in this time I lost weight, and I felt decent for the first time in my life. I felt ok. I remember while training with them I compared my own body to their bodies and I just felt like absolute garbage. It's strange how much emphasis I put onto my own body, and even back then my only priority in life was to get skinnier than my best friend.