As Evelyn started to grow up and become a teenager, she looked around at her friends and started to notice differences in the way she looked. She felt like all of her friends were smaller, skinnier and thinner than she was, and she became self-conscious, insecure and unhappy with her body and the way that she looked.
Things got worse when her peers and classmates started to pick on her and make her feel even more self-doubting and unconfident. They would call her names, and they would bully her so much that it brought her to tears. Her classmates' mean nature made her scared, nervous and anxious about going to middle school. She dreaded going to school and didn’t want to face all the mean kids and hear their harmful words.
She found the strength to ultimately face her peers, and it ended up not being as bad, painful or traumatizing as she assumed it would be. However, she quickly changed her tune when she had to got to P.E. class – gym class – and run miles around her school’s track. She just couldn’t keep up with her faster, more athletic classmates, and she was the last student to complete the run. Instead of making her feel better and supporting her, her gym teacher told her that she’d have to practice and improve. Evelyn felt weak, saddened and disappointed in herself. She made a promise to herself to lose weight and change her eating habits - especially before she got to high school. It became an unhealthy obsession with getting thin.
Evelyn started exercising excessively and maintaining a strict diet. With her newfound eating and workout routine, she started to see results and began to lose weight. She was thrilled with the way her body looked, and everyone around her started to notice, too. Her classmates and friends complimented her for looking so skinny, thin, fit and small, which made her feel validated.
But instead of feeling happy, confident and proud of her body, Evelyn continued to work out and diet intensely - she became obsessed with diet, exercise and being thin, skinny. She started to take weight loss to an extreme, unhealthy level by exercising for hours after school and barely eating breakfast, lunch or dinner. As she continued her unhealthy obsession and habits and lifestyle, the people around her continued to give her praise. She started to believe that having a small, skinny, petite, tiny body was the key to life – the solution to every problem.
Eventually, Evelyn’s routine spiraled out of control and she developed a real eating disorder. She lost interest in the hobbies she used to love – like art and music – and only focused on maintaining her weight and small physique. She felt tired, distracted, unmotivated and depressed.
Luckily, Evelyn’s family stepped in when they noticed these extreme changes. She was totally unrecognizable – just skin and bones, gaunt – and they knew it was time for her to get help. Evelyn felt ashamed, helpless and scared, but reluctantly agreed to see a doctor at a clinic. While she was at the hospital, she was diagnosed with anorexia, and she was completely shocked when she found out that anorexia (and bulimia and teh fact that people binge etc.) was a disease you could die from.
Recovery and change was very difficult and stressful for Evelyn, but she found the strength to fight through it with her family's support and counselling. She wanted to be a better role model for her younger relatives, and she was afraid of the worst case scenario.
Now, Evelyn is in college and she's been able to keep up her healthy lifestyle. The experience she went through made her appreciate life, and she is stronger than she ever was. She learned how to love herself, silence the haters and ignore the false concept of the "perfect" beauty.
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