Many young girls grow up looking at teen idols and magazine models who are idealized in society’s eyes.  It’s hard enough to compete with that, then to also contend with the changes our bodies go through as we develop into women.  I got my period when I was 10 years old, and because my parents were old-fashioned, I never quite got detailed insight on a woman’s sexuality.  I learned that on my own.  Along the way, I not only felt pressure to look good, be popular, and attract boys, but to excel in school which would also somehow prove my worth.  I was a straight A student who felt less than accomplished anytime I got a lower grade, which outwardly disappointed my parents just as much.

In all the preoccupation, I somehow felt out of control – felt not good enough.  My retaliation, though I seemed totally unaware of it, was to simply stop eating.  At that time, my older sister was anorexic and bulimic.  I couldn’t help but see all the attention she was getting, as my parents were very concerned.  While I certainly did not mean to add to their suffering, I too somehow ended up following in her footsteps, and surrendered to a horrible eating disorder.

By my junior year of high school, I started focusing even more on school, and began dropping pounds quickly.  Friends used to tease me when I’d only have a diet soda and a Blow Pop for lunch, but oddly, their noticing comforted me.  I became more regimented, more introverted, more obsessed with food and weighing myself, and less willing to go out-didn’t want to throw off my “routine.”  After all, anorexia is a secretive, not a social disease.

Once in college, I was even more blown away by having to compete with some of my fellow student geniuses.  Going to NYU was no joke, and even a straight-A girl in high school did not walk in there with an A or B waiting on her report card.  Far from it.  So I strived, and I studied, and I starved.  I also alleviated some stress working out like a maniac, and when I was down to a mere 85 pounds, everyone who knew me, including myself, said enough was enough.  One day I just panicked - I was on the subway and I ran out the doors at the 42nd Street station to buy a candy bar from the platform vendor.  It was my first “bad” food in years… and sure did taste good, but my guilt and panic consumed me.  From there I found a great therapist who helped me decipher these feelings; he also dispelled the lure of being skeletally skinny, and got me on a healthy track.

The conflicting dilemma of being anorexic at the high school/college age is multifold. You want to get noticed, yet you get noticed for the wrong reason.  You want to be a woman and explore the excitement of dating, yet you confine your body to stay childlike, and confine its ability to grow and blossom…like you’re shrinking away and want no one to see you.  After dropping so much weight, I’d stopped getting periods completely – that went on for five years.  I also made my small breasts even smaller by starving myself, which was another blow to my image as I’d always wished I had larger breasts.

I was never unattractive, I must admit, and generally had no problem meeting people.  But the way you see yourself has nothing to do with how many dates or compliments you get, or how many men ask you out.  It has to do with how you feel inside.  There’s nothing worse than looking in the mirror and seeing a distorted image – I thought I was fat, when indeed I was seriously underweight and undernourished.  My struggle with my body image, my issues of control, my fears around becoming a woman, all still haunted me over time.  Yet I learned to do something liberating – to love myself for me, and to accept myself for who I am. 

My compromises for not starving myself were to keep myself in shape, eat right, and learn to be positive in my thinking.  We all need to continually practice these lessons, because we can sometimes get off track.  Even as an adult, and the anorexia behind me, I catch myself having bouts of guilt perhaps because I ate too much at a party, or did not work out enough during the week.  The stigma never completely leaves you, but it certainly is in check.

Today I am a successful freelance writer and a part-time Pilates/strength training teacher who enjoys what I do, and how I look.  Though weight is no longer my dominating issue, I did, recently find myself engulfed by another image-related preoccupation that I suppose I put on the side in my long battle for self-acceptance.  My breasts.  I never really liked them in the first place, but seemed to like them less now.  Let’s face it – those beautiful women with voluptuous breasts in those magazines we find ourselves sneaking a peek at do look darn good, after all!  Even my boyfriend said I’d look even more perfect if I decided to get mine done.

So I searched out a forum on the Internet for advice and support, and began going on consultations – six of them in fact, with different doctors in and around New York said to be the best in their field.  I saw their work, read their bios, felt confident in their abilities, even loved how I’d look in the computer-generated post-surgery images.  But still, after all that time chatting on the computer with women who’d had breast augmentation, and collecting all the information I could, I hesitated. 

Why after a year of research and consultations did I still not set a surgery date?  Because I realized a few things: One, any surgery, even if it’s elective, is a major undertaking, with recovery issues and many times re-dos if something goes wrong.  And implants don’t last forever.  No surgery should be taken lightly, and I feel strongly about that.  Second, and most importantly, I decided that deep down I was comfortable enough with myself and content with my active lifestyle.  I did not want to disrupt anything, nor did I have the need to be “even more perfect.”  I am perfect enough the way I am, and thankfully, my boyfriend, friends and family agree.

There are many things we can find “wrong” with ourselves if we look hard enough.  Not tall enough, not busty enough, not thin enough, not blonde enough…and the list goes on. If we spent as much time focusing on the things that are right about ourselves, just imagine how much happier we would be.  I did, and it works.

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