- I didn't choose for this to happen to me,
it's just something that happened.
(soft music)
- It had nothing to do with me and my appearance.
It was kind of my escape.
- I didn't feel attractive in my own body.
But that's a symptom of something else.
- Intellectually you know your worth isn't dependent
on your appearance.
- I wanted, at the time, to be a supermodel.
In short, it was because I wasn't truly pleased
with what I saw but that was based on what I wanted to be,
and what is accepted in the industry in which
I found myself.
- I felt like I had no control over myself or
my surroundings.
So I turned to my body as a thing that I could control
in order to give me a sense of stability.
(soft music)
- People assume that everyone with an eating disorder
is anorexic, which is simply not true.
- There's binge eating disorder, there's bulimia,
there's a lot of eating disorders that still
allow you to eat.
- When I would talk to people about it in my family,
they were like, "Well it's really easy,
"you can just eat (foreign) and you'll be good to go."
Like, that's not how it works.
- It's a way to manage your feelings.
It's a way to not feel your feelings.
- It is a mental illness.
That's what you have to confront.
(soft music)
- The worst thing that you could do to someone
with an eating disorder is to say that
you don't look thin enough to have an eating disorder.
- You can definitely be overweight or underweight
or any type of weight and have an eating disorder.
- Eating disorders aren't just like physically harming,
they're so psychologically harming, and I think
focusing on sensational aspects, you're ignoring
the fact that sufferers are in a lot of pain.
(soft music)
- Mental illness doesn't give a shit about gender.
- They affect all races, weights, genders,
sexual orientations.
- People think it's a gendered illness.
It just created a lot of stigma for me to deal with.
- If you're male and you have an eating disorder,
don't feel like your struggle isn't real.
- So boys and anybody can get an eating disorder,
and they do.
(soft music)
- No, no, no, no, no.
- That's not just like, "Oh, I'm eating and I'm okay."
- A lot of eating disorders don't mean that you
stop eating.
- It was a mental process and it took several years
for me to become happy with myself again.
- You can't tell by examining someone's eating habits
unless you're like spying on them for like
three months straight and that'd just be creepy.
(upbeat music)
- Recovery for me was a long time.
- It was really a battle, it wasn't just like,
"Okay, I'm ready to get better today."
It was a series of small steps and then a series
of backwards slides.
- I thought like I would never recover.
I thought like, "What am I gonna do on my wedding day?
"I can't eat the wedding cake."
- It's still like every day.
When I should eat, when I shouldn't eat,
and can I get over the fact that like food is so
social and in my life every day.
- Recovery's been a lot of managing discomfort.
It's a practice, it's not a destination.
- That eating disorder voice I had, like it's still there.
I just know to ignore it more now.
- It's kinda like a roommate in my head (chuckles)
that I just share space with and he's always there,
I've just learned to ask him to be a little less messy.
- I got to this place of appreciating myself
more than judging myself.
After you get to that point, you just go out and do you.
(upbeat music)
- It doesn't affect my personality.
It doesn't affect my capabilities.
- It does not mean that I'm broken.
It does not mean I ever was broken.
It doesn't mean I'm weak, it doesn't mean I'm stupid,
it doesn't mean I'm vain.
- And we're all just trying to live the best life
that we can and be the best people that we can be,
and we're trying to feel the best way that we can.
- If you've never experienced an eating disorder,
you just kind of have to accept that that's an experience
you don't understand and I just need you to
empathize with me.
(upbeat music)