A journey to find peace

Not quite sure how to put this.

I’ve been struggling to get this out for a while, and some of you know already, but here’s the gist of it.

I’ve gained weight. Not because I’ve gotten lazy, or quit eating well, or gained the “freshman 15”, but because I ended up at an unhealthily low weight even through healthy habits.

In January, I stopped getting my period. After going through every possible scenario in my head and expecting it to come back, I finally went to the gynecologist in May. She took one look at me and said it was because of my weight, and she put me on birth control. I steadily started gaining weight, at a rate I was highly uncomfortable with at first. The birth control normalized my levels of estrogen so my body stopped burning calories at such an ungodly rate. I’ll be honest, there were times this summer that I absolutely hated myself. This summer brought me inches from a relapse many, many times.

Right now I weigh around 118-120, although that’s just a guess because I don’t consistently weigh myself anymore. I’ve learned a lot in the past 4 months and one of the things I’ve learned is that that number honestly does not matter. So yeah,

I’ve put on 20 pounds from where I bottomed out at 98 in May.
I’m currently maintaining my highest weight.

But you know what? None of that means anything. You know what does mean something?

I had a period this month.
I don’t wake up feeling anxious about what the scale has to say to me today.
My boyfriend isn’t worried about me, and in fact he told me today that my body is “The perfect balance of physically fit but not too thin”.
My friends praise my healthy eating habits, and no one is whispering behind my back about my bones or telling my mom that they think I have an eating disorder.
I’m an absolute powerhouse soccer player, with explosive speed and strength to hold my own.
People talk to me about things other than my body, because - gasp - there’s more to my personality than that.

My healthy habits created an unhealthy body, and at times an unhealthy mindset. I haven’t been the best role model lately. I struggled with this and was still too scared of peoples’ opinions to post anything about it. And that’s not cool, because you guys are my support system and you deserve to know this.

So basically, I’m not a bony little fireball anymore. I’m an athletic, slightly curvy young woman that’s faced a lot of fears, and I’ve worked just as hard for this as I did for a six-pack and thigh gap.

♥ Sep 25th at 11PM / tagged: personal. / reblog / 584 notes