What a Year
Applaud us when we run,
Console us when we fall,
Cheer us when we recover. . . .
Edmund Burke
“Why do you wear such big pants?” kids on the bus would tea. At the after-school YMCA program, kids were equally cruel. I was so hurt by their comments, I didn’t know how to answer back. At the age of nine, I weighed 115 pounds, more than most other kids at school!
I thought of mylf as a regular kid. But according to many of the children in my school, I was a nobody. I had friends here and there, but that year, friends began to fade away. My interests were in reading a good book, writing and schoolwork in general. I pulled some of t
he highest grades in my fourth-grade class. But I didn’t fit in and wasn’t socially accepted becau I wasn’t interested in athletics like most of the other boys, and I was overweight.
My one friend, Conner, would stand up for me sometimes with things like, “How can you judge someone you don’t even know?” Conner had a lot of challenges when it came to the other kids making fun of him, too. He had a stuttering problem that became the target of the same kinds of put-downs.
The teasing got so bad that every day after school, I came home either crying or totally destroyed mentally. I was very much a perfectionist in my schoolwork and other interests, achieving goals that I t for mylf. I couldn’t stand that I was losing friends and just couldn’t take the joking any longer.
I decided to starve mylf. I figured that if I could control my eating habits, I could change my physical appearance and end the teasing. I started checking the calories on the labels of everything I ate. If I could get away with it, I skipped meals altogether. A salad was usually the most I ate in a day. My mom and dad were totally unaware of my plan as long
as my lunch box was empty and my cereal was partially eaten.
At dinner, I made excus about having had a big lunch so I’d only have to eat a few bites, or nothing at all. Whenever possible, I came up with ways to get rid of my food. I’d wipe most of the food into the trash or hide it in extra paper towels. Often, I tried to get my parents to allow me to do my homework while eating so that I could ditch the food without their knowing about it. I was caught up in a contest with mylf, and I was determined to win.
Then the sickness and headaches began. I suffered week after week of horrible headaches and endless colds. My clothes no longer fit, and it wasn’t long before I was too thin to wear the new clothes Mom replaced them with.
At that point, my parents realized that I had an eating disorder and rushed me to the doctor. I weighed in at only eighty-three and a half pounds. The doctor told me how dangerous this disorder is to a person’s health. I realized that I was slowly starving my body of the nutrients that it needs in order to function normally. If I kept up this behavior, I
could become riously sick and maybe even die.
The doctor and my parents helped me to t up new, healthy goals for mylf. I went to e a counlor, started a weight-lifting program and decided to try playing sports.
My mom heard about a winter-ssion lacros clinic that would help me learn about the sport before I would be expected to compete in it. Lacros is big in our area, but I had never given it a try. After the first few clinics, I didn’t want to go back. I hadn’t mastered the game in the first few tries, so the perfectionist in me couldn’t stand not being able to be in control. But I kept going, and finally, I started feeling better and better after each time out on the field. I was getting the hang of the game, and I liked it. Lacros gave me then, and still gives me now, confidence in mylf. It’s also great exerci, so it helps me stay healthy.
The year after the clinic, I was playing so well that I was chon to be on a travel team of kids more experienced than I. I began to make new friends with kids on my team, and they don’t tea me. They respect me for working so hard at the game that I can play at t
heir level.
It’s been three years since the beginning of fourth grade, when my life had started to fall apart. What a year! I have learned to find lf-esteem in the things that make me special and not in what others say or don’t say about me. I am still the same perfectionist that I was born to be, but I know when I need to stop pushing mylf so hard. I concentrate on perfection where it really matters. I still get high grades and love to read and write, and I have also discovered interests like playing the drums, football and tennis. I plan to play basketball during the next ason.
