Rewriting my self-love story

“If you want to improve your self-worth stop giving other people the calculator”      -Tim Fargo

For a period of time in high school and college I struggled with an eating disorder. I was a malnourished athlete who counted every calorie entering and exiting my body. I didn’t love myself, I felt I never measured up, and the way I exerted control was by depleting my body of the very thing it needed to get by. food. At the time I was on aderall so it made it easy to not eat, or think about eating. I could go 24-48 hours with just eating negative calorie foods. (I have that list memorized.) Yet, I still wasn’t happy even at my lowest weight. It was pretty common amongst my friends at the time to not eat, barely eat, and count every single calorie. I would hold off on eating to drink with my friends at night, with the thoughts “if I don’t eat, it will only take me 2-4 shots to get drunk which is less than the food I would consume”. I went through periods of binging and purging my sophomore year of college. I wouldn’t eat for long periods of time 24-48 hours and when I did I would eat a burger or a toll house cookie sandwich. I know what your thinking how can you sustain 5 hour workouts on nothing? To be honest I owe it all to aderall. Looking back I was unhappy with myself for not feeling like I fit in or had many friends. For the most part I didn’t enjoy college. I felt I needed to please 20 people and not myself.

During November of 2014, I started reverting back to old habits, not eating and training at a high level. I was in a great place when it came to my school, work, and personal life. I was in a serious relationship but I felt I wasn’t measuring up to what he needed or wanted physically. So I asked for my space while I was working 3 jobs, school and training. I needed to heal myself. He was someone I wanted in my life for the long haul, so I needed to figure it out. His shit was together and I needed to do the same. Yes, my limited time was an issue, I was spread pretty thin. Some days I had to decide between getting gas for my car to see him or eating that day. He offered to help and never had to, he did it because he believed in me. It was time for me to believe in myself. I kept thinking money would fix it but I still felt empty and unworthy. I played tricks on my mind regarding my self worth and how could someone love me, when I have so many jobs and little time. I began picking apart my body and looks. I wanted to love myself as much as he loved me. He was less than thrilled to say the least. It’s funny when you try and work on yourself how people will react. In the past, I have felt I need to figure things out alone rather than with someone by my side. I wanted our life as a #powercouple, he was the one person who I could be completely raw with. But this was one thing I had difficultly doing was asking for help. I shut him out emotionally because I needed to rechannel my love for him to myself. In the process, I lost my best friend the person I looked to for support. To this day, I don’t think he knows how much it hurt me to start loving myself fully and to not say yes at the time to our life together. But, if I continued down the road I was going I wouldn’t be content with myself, our relationship and future together.

You can search, instagram, tumblr, and pinterest, and plenty of other sites to find reasons to not love or like yourself. Trust me I had every site bookmarked and compared myself almost hourly to each. Behind every photoshopped and filtered photo is a real person, but so often that filtered beauty is what we compare ourselves to. Comparing another persons highlight reel to your daily life is a vicious and unhealthy cycle.

I started channeling my energy into myself and making healthier choices. I stopped hating myself and my “flaws” and started to celebrate my curves and blemishes. Eating was still a struggle for a period of time. In training, every part of your life is disciplined and regulated. I started small and began not logging my food and looking it as a race to end up in the negative calorie zone. I use to celebrate when my food app would say “caution you have not eaten enough to sustain your activities”. 2015 was a journey of self love. I learned my mind is powerful and can convince me of anything. Rather than feeding it negative images. I started following healthy bloggers and making a positive shift from negative calories to healthy fuel.

It is easy to be in a negative cycle of self hate. As soon as I started to shift my thinking I started to become the person who set out on her career and unapologetically went for it. I started telling myself 1 positive thought or quote a day. There is something to be said for faking it till you make it. I’ve learned I don’t seek outside validation, I was making my own decisions, what didn’t serve me I was able to say no to and not feel guilty after. My smile began to get bigger through it all. I started to wake up and get excited rather than dread looking into the mirror. I found a new energy in myself and my future. This doesn’t end in a happily ever after. My prince charming wasn’t waiting for me because I chose to write my own fairytale. I have chosen to start being a girl who loves herself first.

Even with losing a very significant relationship, I have gained the gift of loving myself. I have never put pen to paper to explain why I cut him out or why I wanted to work on myself. I did it because the idea of doing it not meant I would be giving up on myself and my potential. I don’t believe he will forgive me for trying to figure my shit out for us. It was the hardest yet most loving thing I could have done for myself and him. The love I have for him deepened through the process as it is still going on. Now I can only be a spectator who is cheering for him and his successes. Realizing how much he loved and valued me is the reason I started my journey and change how much I love myself.  I look back and realize how much I have overcome. I have a reinvigorageted zest for life, and can’t wait to share it with those I surround myself with.