Its About Time (Part 1)

My Story:
Told Frankly, by Emily Wisniewski.

My daily routine was as follows. I would wake up in the morning and get ready for school. Get dressed, do my hair, my make up, make my bed. I would pace my room, glancing nervously at the clock, and when the moment was right, I would fly down the stairs, as if running late, and rush out the door to make my way to the bus stop.

In the morning, I would sign up to go to the library during period four, my lunch hour, scrawling my name down on the list amongst the other students choosing to study there instead of in their assigned classroom during study hall. There I would sit, calculating the rest of my week, consumed in my thoughts, until the bell rang.

Fitting myself neatly into my equation, it was time for gym. The weight room. Where I could step onto an elliptical and run. And run and run and run and run. Running until I was sure people could see my heart beating straight through my chest. Running until I couldn’t think anymore.

Back home again, I would flee to my room. I’d shimmy underneath the covers of my bed and pop on the TV, spending the hours of 3pm to 7pm alone, crime drama and infomercials my only company. Occasionally, I would have to get up and go to the bathroom, sending my head spinning as my feet touched the floor, eyes overtaken by large black spots which clouded my vision for a moment.

My parents would then call me down for dinner, a time that I hated but loved. I would sit. I would smile. I would laugh along with the rest of my family, all of it in vain. Only to retreat back to my room for the rest of the night. Although it did not start this way, no switch I flipped to change my life, this is what (since June, now November) my life had become. This is the life of, what I was soon to discover, someone with an eating disorder.

This is the first time I have ever shared my story with that explicit statement. Typically, I refer to it as “a medical condition”, “a tough time in my life”, “my darkest hour”. And although it was in fact all of these things, Its About Time, I tell the full story.