I’ve never really been good at writing these things, but here goes nothing.

My name is Alison, I was born on November 21, 1991.
I don’t remember much from my childhood, to be honest. I know it was a relatively good one, though. My parents didn’t split up (except for that one time when they did for like 6 months, but you know…), we never moved, much to my dismay; I hated the town I grew up in, and I don’t ever recall being particularly “fat” in the sense that I came to see myself as I grew up.

Fast forward to grade school. My grade school went from Junior Kindergarten all the way to grade 8. There is no Junior High where I live… I’m going to assume it’s because of the size of my hometown’s population (2000 at its largest; about 900-1000 currently). Grade school was not exactly great for me. I don’t remember when or how it started, but I was suddenly the target for side-swipe comments in classrooms, being picked on at recess; suddenly I wasn’t accepted how I had been in younger grades. I remember this one day, I don’t remember how old I was, but I wasn’t older than 10 or 11. My mom pulled out the scale and decided she would weigh my sister and I right then and there in the hallway. I don’t remember what my sister weighed but I do remember the ghastly number that stared back at me. 140.
140 pounds? How? I had always been an active child; swimming, running around, etc, etc. so I’m unsure as to how this weight came to be. I remember only being embarrassed and ashamed. I also remember that day haunting me in the back of my mind ever since. Did it stop me from continuing to gain weight? Hell, no.

Throughout grade school the teasing got worse and worse. I began cutting in grade 7, throughout grade 8.
Upon graduation I couldn’t wait to start high school. I thought everything would get better and I would make so many new friends and it would all just disappear.
Needless to say, I was wrong.

High school was absolute terror from grade 9-10. The teasing only got worse, and it turned into vandalism of my personal property. Kids spat on me and when I asked one of the teachers for help he did nothing but sit me beside one of the students who endlessly tormented me thinking that would solve the problem; it only made it worse.
As grade 10 rolled around it began to subside ever so slightly with us having different classes and such. Never did I think the biggest obstacle I would ever have to overcome was around the corner.
Winter ‘06 my grandma had a stroke and passed away.
Spring ‘07 (4 months later) a friend of mine committed suicide. This affected me like no other event in my life and still does to this day. It made me realize that my thoughts and actions towards myself in regards of being suicidal and self-harm weren’t the answer, and so I turned to other things. I suppose maybe I turned to food; but I like to think I mostly turned to music.
I continued to gain weight throughout high school. I’m unsure as to what my absolute highest weight was, but I imagine it’s not too far of a cry from the day I finally weighed myself after my mom insisting and bugging me about my weight for most of my high school career.
When I stepped on the scale to see 259 I died a little inside.
How could I let that happen to myself? I didn’t understand.

Grade 11. (2008)
Not long after I was reading a teen magazine, and I came across an article on “thinspo” that immediately caught my attention. As soon as I went home that day I began researching this fascinating little world I had discovered and quickly became involved in the behaviours of the girls and boys that frequented these websites.
I mostly dabbled in starvation off and on. Nothing ever really stuck until one day my mom and I got into a fight about something and of course my weight became involved and this was the first time my mom had ever made me cry about my weight. I wasn’t initially counting calories, but I had significantly cut down on what I was eating and I began to lose weight rapidly. I’m unsure as to how much I was eating but it couldn’t have been more than 1000 calories a day.

I remember June being the month my life changed and began to revolve around food to an unhealthy degree. From June to August I had dropped over 50lbs and I wasn’t stopping.

At this point time is a blur and my months are fucked up so I’m not sure the timespan of the following events other than they took place throughout grade 12 (2009). My parents noticed, my dad actually begged me to eat. My mom threatened to hospitalize me. I hovered around 200-210lbs throughout most of grade 12 until it began time for prom. I wanted needed to fit into the beautiful prom dress I had ordered online. When it came in I could get it on but the zipper never zipped up more than half way. By this point I was counting calories and I was consuming no more than 800 a day. I then dropped it down to 500. In a matter of a month I went from 200s to 187 at my absolute lowest and the dress finally fit. I stabilized at 190 and went to my prom feeling powerful; feeling strong.
I then graduated high school, still at 190, still starving.

I took a year off when I graduated that I hadn’t planned on. I remember absolutely freaking out because, “This isn’t part of the plan. What am I going to do now? I need to go to college now otherwise my whole life plan is fucked and I am fucked and I will go nowhere unless I go to college RIGHTNOW.”
In that year I took off I met my now ex-boyfriend. I owe him a lot. In the sense that he made me happy; comfortable. In the sense that he saved me.
I began eating too regularly, too fast. I rapidly re-gained weight when we started dating. By the end of our first year together I had re-gained the 70lbs I had lost. But I didn’t stop there.
By Autumn 2010 (around September) I weighed a staggering 274 lbs. I quickly dove back into what I knew to work; but this time was different because he was there and I couldn’t get away with everything I once could. Starvation didn’t work that time around to say the least.

—January 2011 I officially began this journey with this blog.—

Once I told him of my past with food he actually had the nerve to say if I ever did that again he would leave me. He wasn’t supportive of my weight loss though he, too, was trying to lose weight. I didn’t lose very much until we broke up in May of 2011 after almost 2 years together.

After that I began to slowly descent into my old ways because I no longer had a non-supportive, threatening boyfriend to hold me down. By Christmas (2011) my head was in such a terrible place, but I knew I didn’t want to, and couldn’t go back there. I pulled myself out slowly.

Now, 2012.
I still struggle.
But I’ve armed myself with friends and family who support me, and who love and care for me.
I know I can do this. And I will.