Journey to Beauty - Part One: The Struggle

My 19 year old daughter, Megan, has prepared a testimony for a FOCUS event that she will present to other young women at Belmont Abbey College this Fall. It recounts her very personal struggle with weight gain and dieting, her poor self-image and how the Lord is giving her the grace to regard herself as the beautiful young woman He has created her to be. Her testimony is written in four parts. Part one is posted below following a brief introduction. The remaining parts of her journey will be posted over the next three days or so. Please welcome this beautiful soul to Beyond Pearls and keep her, and all young women, in your prayers.

My Beautiful Girl

I decided to prepare and soon present my testimony for a couple of reasons. First off, too many girls are heart broken over the way they look. These days, nobody believes they're truly beautiful. Even if they feel confident by their appearance, women are often afraid to admit it, thinking the world will not agree. Well, I want that to change. It has to change. I want to reveal the truth the Lord has been dying for us to hear. Secondly, I began discerning my major this past spring and decided to pursue English. I've reflected on my spiritual and psychological journey throughout the year and decided people need to know this stuff. People need to be set free by Truth. I want to use my degree in English to write and talk about true feminine beauty. Thanks be to God for FOCUS, the campus ministry for Belmont Abbey College, where I am currently a student. I have been invited to assist a FOCUS missionary in organizing a night dedicated to this cause. On that night, I will give my testimony hoping to touch the hearts of other young women. Guest writing on my wonderful mother's blog is just the first step in that direction...Lead me Lord! (Thank you mom, for this opportunity!)

This is my story of how I found out I was beautiful. It doesn’t involve cameras, makeup (actually, it involves taking away makeup), and hair products, other people convincing me, or winning a contest. It involves the Lord and me. It involves winning a battle against the world, “allowing Christ to take victory in my soul” (Deacon Ochenkowski assigned to St. Veronica Parish, quoting a priest from Saint Vincent seminary during a recent homily). 

All of my life I was bigger than the other kids. I came into this world weighing a hefty 9lbs and 4oz. However, it wasn’t until second grade that I actually became overweight. At that time I didn’t care about being bigger than other kids. It wasn’t until I hit about fifth or sixth grade when I realized being 120lbs, when everyone else my age was 85lbs, wasn’t such a good thing or a healthy thing.

By the time I was ten years old, I started dieting; however, I never really persevered through any of them, because I didn’t really care as much about my weight problems then as I would later. It really started to hit home, when in middle school I realized I was indeed a victim of “child obesity,” weighing 180lbs, while still under five feet tall. I began to compare myself to others. I was convinced that no one liked me because I was not skinny enough, pretty enough, talented enough or even good enough. I sought friendships with those who made me feel “good enough.” With a heart quickly hardening, I fashioned a wall of pride that I called strength and I wouldn’t allow anyone to enter. I didn’t realize it at the time, but my Lord was waiting patiently for me to turn to Him as I focused excessively on myself.

Throughout puberty I did lose some weight, but by the end of tenth grade, after I had written a term paper on female teen nutrition, I was clearly obsessed with my weight. I developed an unhealthy obsession with exercise and counting calories. All that I could think about was how people viewed me and how much I wished I was beautiful and desirable. I was happy with my weight loss, but I felt that I had to continue on my trek as I was never perfectly satisfied with how much weight I’d lose. I was never “perfect.” I became impatient shortly after beginning a diet and cut out even more calories than recommended. Straying from the nutritional advice to consume at least 2000 calories per day, I cut that total into halves, then fourths. Some days I only consumed 300-500 calories. I was rapidly approaching anorexia and was absolutely and completely blind to it. I remember my dad saying I should stop dieting and my sister warning me about anorexia and how no one plans on becoming anorexic, it just happens. I had also studied all the different types of eating disorders in great detail for my research paper, yet here I was eating an average of 900 calories per day resulting in a loss of 37lbs in less than a year. It wasn’t good enough. I desired to lose more and more weight because of my damaged self-image. I lacked true joy. At that time my biggest fear and sole concern in life was gaining back all the weight I had lost. I never want to be “there” again. I was so obsessed with my weight issues that I didn’t care about anyone else. Sadly, my skinny body only caused me more anxiety, more than I had experienced before. It also brought me bitterness and pride, which only drew people away. I had also decided to hate certain food. I deliberately chose not to enjoy something good. I deliberately chose against joy, a gift from the Lord. Not only did I not choose to enjoy food, but also I chose not to enjoy life. I decided I had to be very hard on myself and to hate myself in order to be motivated to be…loved? I was so utterly lost. I hated life. I hated food that gave me life and I hated myself. Sin had a firm grip on me and I needed the Lord to set me free.

I often gazed at myself in the mirror, telling myself I wasn’t good enough. I was fat and ugly. I would say things like, “Look at your stomach! It is so ugly!” When my so-called “motivation” failed me I decided my last chance was bulimia. I knew everything about why bulimia didn’t work and why it is so unhealthy for you. But somehow I was stuck on “but if it made those girls skinny, then it must work somehow!” And “I just need to lose ten more pounds; it’ll be a quick fix to get back on track, so I won’t gain the weight right back!” Lies. All Lies. Bulimia doesn’t cause you to lose weight, if anything its just water weight that you lose. It rips up your esophagus and can cause extremely serious problems. Some girls have to be put on feeding tubes for the rest of their lives because of the damage to their bodies. Praise be to God, because of my knowledge of the disorder and failed results, I stopped that horrible practice after only one week. However, I continued to diet and wish that I was someone else. I constantly weighed myself, measured myself and died to squeeze into smaller clothing sizes. I started to dye my hair, too, because I wanted so much to look like the women I saw in magazines and elsewhere. I had not figured out that I’d never be the most beautiful I could be if I wasn’t just myself. I also started wearing excessive amounts of makeup to hide bad acne and I started tanning. Everything I did was to be someone I wasn’t. I remember thinking to myself, “Who am I? What do you even like anymore?” Because I had tried so hard to be like everyone else, I didn’t even know who I was.

Throughout my entire dieting experience I had convinced myself and others that I was dieting “the healthy way.” I refused to see the truth. I accepted the lies and wholeheartedly believed them. I was not at peace, ever. My obsession with weight loss flooded my mind and I couldn’t ever escape it. I was blind to the blessings in my life and blatantly refused the gifts the Lord had given me. I was telling God that His gifts weren’t good enough in this world. I told Him I wasn’t good enough and I was trying to transform His beautiful creation into something He never meant for it to be. Sure, I was devoutly Catholic, was raised in a very Catholic home; and I was sent to one of the most Catholic middle and high schools in the area. I had a prayer life and I knew the teachings of the Church. But when praying about my dieting, my prayers were rooted in selfishness. I strayed from the Lord, because like all of us, I live in a fallen world and society fed me lies that were poisonous to my soul. I was caught in the tide of untruth and was swept away by it. When I realized I was indeed drowning, I couldn’t figure out how to save myself and I was too proud to take lessons from anyone.

Around the time of my junior year of high school, I actually stopped dieting because everyone told me I was “so skinny!” The praise I received was enough for me to lose my motivation to continue losing weight. Yet, I still held on to so much pride and bitterness. Due to my anorexic tendency when I slowly started eating normal again and gained a little bit of the weight back, I became very upset. I still wanted to be someone else; someone I thought was pretty and would be accepted. I wanted to be “perfect” and no one could convince me that I was. 
 

Click here to read  Part Two: The Battle