This is Shannon. She’s beautiful, smart and has something to say. Please listen:

beautyintheraw:

This isn’t the sort of thing I usually post on this blog, but I find it very necessary to share it with you guys.

I’m 5’6. The top image is me at 115 pounds, which is on the low end of the healthy weight spectrum, but not usually considered ‘underweight.’

Skip through approximately 2 months of severely starving myself and purging foods that ‘normal’ people would eat, and you get the bottom picture, me at 100 pounds.

This is what my eating disorder did to me. It didn’t make me beautiful, it didn’t make me perfect, and it definitely didn’t make me feel any better about myself.

These are the things I gained with my eating disorder:

• Debilitating anxiety
• Strange hairs on my face (lanugo)
• Severe depression
• High blood pressure

Here are the things I lost:

• The hair on my head
• Any self-worth I previously had (which wasn’t much, but you know.)
• My dignity
• The relationship I had with my family
• Almost all of my muscle
• My hope, faith, and happiness
• The ability to see food as anything more than a number
• My sense of security

Relapsing was the worst thing I could have possibly done to myself. This is such an atrocious way to live, and I implore you to reconsider if you’re ‘attempting’ to develop an eating disorder. This won’t make you pretty or happy or make boys love you. This will destroy you.

An eating disorder isn’t something you can simply have, an eating disorder is something you become.

Fortunately I’m beginning to understand that this doesn’t have to define me anymore. I’m better than my eating disorder, and if you’re struggling right now, you’re not alone. We’re all in this battle together and we can defeat whatever our demons might be.