Like a lot of teenagers, when I was 13 years old, I had difficulty processing my emotions. Some experiences had left me very emotionally raw, and I didn’t have the life experience to know how to process them and cope.
Overall, I experienced a lot of disgust and shame. At a time when so many changes are occurring physically, I projected those awful feelings onto my body. I felt fat and ugly. I would watch women on MTV and wish that my body could look like theirs.
I tried to diet to get rid of these horrible feelings. I thought that if my weight would go away these awful emotions would as well. After months of grabbing my tummy and wishing it would disappear, my self-loathing grew so huge that I decided I had to find a way to make myself smaller.
