Essay, Research Paper: Anorexia

We all know that action is the key to success, and we always try to be the very best. But in a world that will try to knock you down you must have the strength to survive the final round. Growing up today you have to be wise because its hard to tell the truth when its covered by the lies. The world can be cruel and the world can be kind, but you had better step up or you'll be left behind.
This is some of a poem that one of my friends from my support group had shared on the first day. But I shouldn't get to far ahead of myself, my name is Ender Olson, and I suffer from a very serious disorder, it is called anorexia. Some may say that anorexia is not that serious, but it changed my life, and many others.
It started around when I was 13, I had never really had to worry about my weight, I had a fast digestive system, and I never seemed to gain weight. But when I hit puberty things seemed to change. My body was growing, and I started to put on weight, but this didn't bother me at all, and why should it have. But it started to in the summer of 1996, it was at summer camp, we had swimming, and it was mandatory. But unlike most of the kids I had no problem with this, I was a strong swimmer and enjoyed it allot.
I got to my swim class and sat down. It was a very warm day, a day that I would remember for a long time. Well we all sat on the dock listing to them give instructions on what to do and stuff like that. But I was hot, so I took off my shirt, first mistake. The girls sitting across from me stared at me and were whispering to each other, but I had no idea what they were saying. So I did the class but as I got out of the water I was behind the two girls. They were laughing, the first one said
"Did you see that guy, he had bigger boobs then you did."
So I assumed they were talking about me. The signs all pointed that way, and that was the first time a person ever called me fat, and I was assured to make it my last.
I started to work out at camp. Weights at the Fitness area, running the camp road, pull up's, and swimming. It seemed to work, and for that time until the end of the summer I was happy. Then I got home from camp, and I stopped, and the weight piled on again, I could see it. Nobody told me about it because that would just be very rude. But I knew what they were thinking. So I started to work out at the gym. But that wasn't it; I also cut back on food. Suddenly I was spending almost 2 hours everyday after school at the gym, and it seemed to be working. I was thin, but not happy.
To make up for all the fat that I thought I still had, I cut out meals, to start I just didn't eat breakfast, no problem. It worked my result's were better then ever, because I didn't eat. So I starved myself more and more, thinking food was what was making me gain all that weight, my day was, Work, Sleep, Drink, Nibble. I started feeling faint, and I couldn't do as many laps, and I couldn't lift as much anymore, but I pushed. Then one day I was doing repetitions of 120 pounds, up, down, up, down, up, down, up, but then all of a sudden the weight became really heavy, and the room dimmed, and then black.
I woke up in a room that was white. I thought I was dead, and then I saw my parents come over and look at me crying. For the first time in so long, I didn't care about how I looked, I only cared about being alive, and to be where I was. Of course the weight had hit my chest breaking all of my rib, and fracturing my arm, but that left me stuck in bed long enough to realize just how stupid I had been, I had put my life on the line because I thought I was fat.
It sounds stupid, even to me, but unless you have gone through it you can't know what it's like, the need to be small, to not have a single ounce of fat, it's like any addiction, almost impossible to get rid of, I guess I saw the light when I passed out, not the light at the end of the hallway, but the light which showed me the way to me freedom. My freedom from the disorder they call, Anorexia.