It all really started last year. I was diagnosed with a chronic illness, and that was tough to deal with; socially and mentally, a lot of things changed for me. I’ve always been a pretty athletic person for my entire life; I did swim, soccer, cross country - you name it. But because of this new medical condition, I lost a lot of weight very quickly, and I don’t have much muscle anymore. There are days when I can’t walk up a flight of stairs, do push ups, or anything like that. Sometimes it’s a struggle just to get out of bed in the morning, but I’m working through it. After losing all my muscle mass, I found it very hard to be comfortable in my body. I still feel like a shell of who I used to be because I can’t do the things that I defined myself by doing.

    The biggest thing is that I’m really skinny now. Some people say “Oh, you can’t be insecure about your body since you’re getting stick thin,” but stick thin is not where I want to be, you know? I felt better the more weight I had on because it translated to the muscle that I was gaining, and now I don’t have any of that, and I’ve just shut into myself because of it. All of my clothes just hang off me differently. You can just tell sometimes, like when you look in the mirror and you just know something’s different and you think “I can’t deal with this today.”

    My main friend group that I had when I first got diagnosed…that fell apart very quickly. Typical high school stuff, you know? There was drama, then there was more drama, and then everyone was like “Okay, bye!” It was tough. I didn’t have the support I thought I would have to help me through this, and that just led to me spiraling down this really destructive mindset. But then I got onto Productions Company, and I thought that maybe I could start throwing myself into this thing that’s bigger than myself. I like what we do there. It’s hard because I’m on every other type of pain medication and I’m fighting my own body all the time, but I love it. I don’t like being babied. Sometimes I feel like I need to be, but in Productions you have to be like “Okay, I’ll just get it done.” Having that has really helped me become more independent about how I manage my health and emotional state of being. And doing theatre this year is nice because I can’t really do much of anything else, but at least I can be good at what I’m doing there.

    Loving myself is definitely still a process. Through all of this I’ve had to change my diet and work around doses and exhaustion, so I’ve been eating less. A lot of people have commented, “Oh, you look a lot thinner” or “You are getting so small,” and they’re telling me to eat more or do this or that more. That doesn’t necessarily help, because I know what happens when I do certain things, and this is just what my body shape is going to be for a while. And yeah, It sucks because I don’t like it, and people think I look very unhealthy because I’m a lot smaller than I was a few months ago. But when you drop 10 pounds in a week, you have to come to terms with the fact that some things aren’t in your control. It’s a little disorienting, especially when I’m uncomfortable in my body and my friends say “No, you’re so skinny!” and I’m like “But that’s the point!” I know I’m not there yet, but I want to get there. I’m having trouble figuring it all out, but I know it’s something I have to do. There’s no point in staying unhappy.

    I think it’s okay to have all of the negative feelings, at least for a while. If you go on pretending everything’s okay, well that’s a lot unhealthier in the long run. Allow yourself to wallow for a bit, but don’t get caught up in it - just realize that it’s not the end of the world. You can come back from it. Just because things have changed does not mean that they’ve changed for the worst. You can always make the best of it, and that’s exactly what I’m trying to do.