Ever since school started, I have been losing weight, and I can’t seem to do anything about it. I have been trying to eat more at meals, to eat more snacks, and to do everything else I am told, but nothing is working. Sometimes I am just not hungry, or I am too sad to eat.

At least where I go to school, being a senior is really, really hard. Every evening, I come home to (after a long cross country practice) hours of homework and hours of college essays. I have needed to juggle calls, appointments, trips, and a job (which always keeps me overtime). I have needed to adjust to a completely new social scene and try my hardest to find/make friends (which, for an introvert like me, is exhausting). I have needed to deal with feeling left-behind, and alone, and angry because it seems (sometimes) like everyone else has it together so much more than I do.

Of course, all this stuff is hard enough as it is, but dealing with the eating makes everything 100 times harder. I don’t know how I am expected to do what every other high school student does while also thinking about my weight every day. I have to think about what to eat at each meal, how much to eat, and ponder why I keep loosing weight despite my best efforts. I have to get nervous every Thursday before getting weighed at my therapist’s office, hoping the number won’t have gone down too much and cause any alarm.

But the worst part is that I can’t really talk to anyone about it. Every day I go to school and put on the bravest face I can muster up. I channel all my complaints/stress into “normal” things, like talking to everyone about how I had so much homework, or about how I completely bombed my calculus test. I always tell people about how tired I am, or how busy I am, or anything that feels socially acceptable. I never talk about how I lost another pound, or about how sad I am, or about how I feel so lonely all the time. I don’t want to burden anyone, or make anyone feel uncomfortable or sorry for me.

I guess that’s why I am posting here. I feel like, for the past month, I have been squeezing all my feelings into this tight little ball, and I feel like the ball is stuck in my throat, or like I am choking on it (sorry, weird). I don’t really want to show anyone what I am going through, because I feel like I can handle it on my own, and I feel like I am strong enough to pull myself through. I am trying so hard to be perfect at everything I do, and this feels like such an alarming fall from that perfection that I want.

At the same time, I just want to stand on the top of the world and scream: I AM NOT OKAY!!!!! I guess that is what this post is. I know that, eventually, all of this will pass, but eventually feels like a really long time from now.

Still sending love to whoever reads this and hoping you are doing alright,

Mira