Crying in a dressing room because you hate the size that you have to wear. Overly sensitive and often defensive at the topic of weight (especially your own). Taking a laxative to minimize the size of your stomach. Some people may consider these things only a heavier person would experience, but I want to assure you that thin people also struggle with these things. How do I know? Because this thin person struggles with those things.

I have been fighting a secret battle for almost a year now…so secret, in fact, I didn’t even know about it until this morning. I have been, for a while now, getting really upset at people when they say something about how thin I am. The comments are irritating to me because people do not understand that just because I’m skinny, it doesn’t mean I don’t have issues with my weight.

About a month ago, I was in an Old Navy dressing room crying. When I tried on the size I normally wore, they were too big. So, I tried on the next size down and they fit. To some people, needing to try on a smaller size would be exciting, but when you aren’t trying to lose weight and the size you fit into is a zero, it starts to become a problem….to some. I was upset, but not enough to do anything about it, yet.

For the past week, I have been feeling bloated; my stomach was the size of a woman in her 3rd month of pregnancy. I figured it was just that time of the month, but when that “time” passed and my belly was still large, I was bothered. I, by no means, think I am overweight, but my stomach sticking out like that was really bothering me. So, last night, I thought my stomach just needed a little help, so I took a laxative. This morning, a bad headache, cramps, nausea, everything except for what I wanted to happen, were my wake up call. I know…TMI (Too Much Information), but there’s a point, I promise!!

As I laid in bed feeling like absolute crud, I knew what I had done was stupid! I knew I had fallen into a pit and it wasn’t a pit that came out of nowhere; it was a pit that was in plain sight and I had let it (possibly even helped it) get deeper. I realized that the defensive attitude, the crying spell in the dressing room, and the weight loss were all signs of my unhealthiness. I started to see how easily I could fall into an eating disorder that could, even if it didn’t kill me, make me extremely miserable.

Now, I know plenty of people might be reading this, creating their own opinion, coming up with their own diagnosis of the situation, or thinking “I told her so”, but the truth of the matter is all of this has allowed me to realize that this is just another area in my life, that I desperately need a Savior. I cannot do this on my own and although I have a great “corp counsel” of ladies that are always available, I know that only through Christ and the prompting of the Holy Spirit that I will be able to make a change for the better. After all, He was the one who gave me a wake up call this morning…one that I has still haven’t fully recovered from.