My body began to change into what I believed was the “ideal” body for a swimmer like me. People began to praise me. Adults would ask me my “secret” and comment on how much of a “swimmer” I looked like now. I craved this validation, it fueled my continual starvation. I started to restrict more, my self-worth quickly tied to how my body looked.
What many adults and people around me didn’t understand was that, as a barely 14 year old, I didn’t need to be trying to change my body. I didn’t need constant diet culture reminders around me, telling me I had to have the smallest boldness to be the fastest swimmer. Those who praised me didn’t realize the detrimental effects of a restriction, binge, purge cycle as a competitive athlete. In order to maintain my somehow “better” body, I soon found myself with no menstrual cycle, constantly cold and tired, and always thinking about my next meal. Looking back, I understand how my lack of eating was the root of more and more health issues. However, 14 year old Isabelle had been consumed with what diet culture wanted to sell.
I was seeing a therapist for anxiety, but was scared to admit any struggles with eating and my body. I went to countless doctors for my amenorrhea, to which I was told I was a “healthy” weight and continually denied the fact I may be under-fueling. Oftentimes, athletes with severely disordered eating habits are overlooked because as elite athletes, there is so much pressure on us to look a certain way, eat a certain way, in order to train a certain way. This was the case for me, a growing swimmer, whose body wasn’t able to keep up due to malnutrition. With increased restriction,I began to have bits of uncontrollable binges. I blamed myself, my “lack of willpower” and demonized food. But food was never the problem.
I still remember the day the switch flipped in my brain. I was on a family cruise with my family, and wasn’t able to swim for the week. A supposedly “fun” trip, I spent most of my time in the gym at 6am, thinking about how I was going to make up for the food I was eating.
After reaching out for more help after that trip, my therapist asked me to describe what values I liked within myself. Not one thing came to mind. As I thought about it, I found that I only valued myself if I was fast enough, strong enough, thin enough, PERFECT enough. I had always felt so obligated to a standard of perfection; if I wasn’t a perfect student and a perfect athlete, then who was I?