Being absent last week because of illness, I'm finding it a little harder to grab the context of this post, but I can think of a major internal struggle I've overcome just recently, so here it goes:

The Setup
It was my junior year of high school, up until that year I was known as an athlete, a volleyball player, and that's what I had been throughout my middle school and high school career. Junior year roles around, and as I'm training with our varsity team that summer, my injuries start to catch up with me. A strained hamstring here, a bum knee there, and after a painful decision process, I stopped playing. This prompted me to question who I was without that sport, and to be honest, I didn't have a very good answer. Continuing my junior year, a nasty break up with my boyfriend, and with my family life starting to fraction, I wanted something in my life I could control.

The What

I thought, I need to be able to control some aspect of my life, feeling like everything else was out of my grasp, so gradually over the course of the spring of my junior year, I developed anorexia. Now there are many more reasons why I fell into my eating disorder, but I sought control, and something I had power over. So that spring, summer, and next fall of my senior year, I fought my battle. It started out as a way to become healthier, or so I thought. Working out more, eating less-and I saw changes. But it progressed to the point where working out wasn't an option because of the amount I was eating. I could barely make it up the stairs of my house without having to stop by mid July. My face grew gaunt, clothes hung off me like drapes, and the thing I thought I could control in my life did just the opposite.

I denied the fact there was something wrong, that this amount of weight loss was healthy, and man was I good at hiding it from my parents and the people that cared about me the most. This continued the through the summer into my senior year. I came in feeling different, but not the different I had hoped to feel. I was slowly starting to realize something just wasn't right, and I needed to change. Still unconvinced however that I was the one who needed to start that change. Then finally, on a Tuesday morning in November of my senior year, I felt a pull to our school chapel. I went in, sat down, and started to think. "Well this isn't doing anything" I though to myself, but a few moments later I heard a voice gently say, "I made you in my image, and I love you." I quickly looked around, finding no one else in the chapel with me, so I shrugged it off. But again, I heard, "in your darkest moments, you are perfect." And that's when I lost it. All the much needed tears started, and in that moment something changed. A spark went off, and I knew I needed help.

The So What
Let me start off with saying, before this moment yes, I was raised Catholic, went to Catholic school, and considered myself religious, but I wasn't too sure on how to talk to God, or what that even meant. But in that moment, when I was at a loss of what to do, something was there, and helped me through. After that, I knew something needed to change, so I started with my close friends, telling them what I had been going through, opening myself up, until i finally sought out help of a counselor. I was getting my life back in order, I just hadn't told two people yet....my parents. March of my senior year, I was selected to be a leader on my school's Encounter, or what many of you may know as Search or Kairos. My talk was on love, and how in order to love others, I needed to love myself. So that March was when I told my parents with my Encounter talk, and it was one of the hardest things I've ever done. But one of the most rewarding at the time. I had finally learned to love myself not just with my flaws, but because of them. This internal struggle had made me a stronger, more compassionate person than I could have ever imagined. I had this image of what was supposed to happen, what I was supposed to look like, and well, things didn't turn out to plan. And because of that, I was able to learn and grow.

The Now What
Looking back on my experience, it's something that stays with you if not for years, the rest of your life. And even today are seeking professional helping, and confiding in many of my friends, I still have those days of uncertainty. But this struggle reminds me that even in our lowest hours, we are loved. That someone somewhere cares, and that's something I remind myself everyday. It's been a journey for sure, but one that I look back on now and am glad I had. I know that may sound odd, but those experiences, everything I went through, has willed me to always keep moving forward, that it's okay to cry, and that opening myself up to others is something I need to do often. To anyone who read this, thanks for getting all the way to the end, and I'm always here to talk about anything I wrote about if you have any questions!