One topic I really want to dig deeper into on here is my relationship journey with my own body. I am in a healthy place with my body today, but I haven’t always had a healthy relationship with my body & with food. As many of you know, I was born with scoliosis, a curvature of the spine, & since childhood it has been something that made me ashamed of my body for what I thought wasn’t “normal”. In fact, I hated it. I remember the day I wore my back brace to PE in elementary school for the first time and a classmate felt my brace underneath my clothing and I was sooooo ashamed. I actually never wore my brace to school again after that.

At the age of 15 I was diagnosed with anorexia, and it was the lowest point of my life. I remember quite clearly my way of thinking and my habits back then, and how my family was very much affected by them. And I remember it started after I got back from a trip to visit modeling agencies in NYC, and being very harshly denied. It affected me quite deeply, and I remember crying so hard on that trip, looking in the mirror seeing only something ugly and I said I never wanted to go back to NYC again. Looking back, without a doubt this experience mixed with internal issues stemming from my own self inflicted body negativity and the general pressure to fit into a perfect mold as a female in all aspects of life added up and controlled me, even though I thought I was the one in control. I became a perfectionist to the max. Everything around me had to feel in my control. I counted absolutely everything, down to the smallest bit of food on my plate to the number of sit ups or laps across the pool I did. It was mentally and physically exhausting but I thrived off of this control. I remembered my skin was so dry. My joints started to hurt. And I would easily become short of breath. My mom cried countless times over me. I was not even 16 yet.

I think the lack of control I had over my spinal situation mixed with my lower self esteem, the unease over the transition into adulthood, and not to mention the magazines that showed me what I thought I should look like were what drove me to dramatically seek control. Food was so easy for me to control at the time. Every pound lost was a checkmark. And to think, this was far before I started using Instagram and all these sorts of apps. It makes me think about what the young girls today must be going through. As women, we are being bombarded with images of perfection and a total and complete bullshit hierarchy system of what is deemed beautiful dictated for us by a close-minded society. Even today, I still face these sorts of insecurities, but l’ve learned to be stronger than them because I can never forget what it was like to be at the very bottom of it and it is not worth it to ever put myself through that again.

I could go even deeper into my experience now, but I just want to make the point that most of the time, as women, it is never an easy path for us to come to love ourselves and to grow into women who feel strong, confident and empowered in our own bodies in a way that is healthy, happy and soul feeding. I feel like after an experience like this, one is always in a continuous process of healing, but I’m happy to say that where I am now physically and mentally is exactly where I want and need to be. I have learned so much about the relationship I have with my body and why I must treat it so well, and why I want to be an advocate for body empowerment especially amongst women.

This scar on my back, a result of my scoliosis surgery at 18, represents a long time of healing; the closure of a fight to free myself from the control I pressured myself to have over my body. Without my scoliosis, what actually began as something that made me hate parts of myself came to be what saved me … what showed me why it was so important to stay strong and treat my body like a temple because my life depended on it. I feel strong today, but it sure took a fight to get to this place, but it was worth it. I want to share more about my experience of recovery here to hopefully help others who may need to hear it.