I ended up gaining back about half of the weight I had lost, and for a while, it seemed like I everything was fine, that I had overcome this little battle. No therapy, no medicines. It was a secret thing between me, my family, and my Heavenly Father. I had overcome this hurdle, or so I thought. I don't know why exactly, but my freshman year at college wasn't much of a problem for me. It was certainly a hard and stressful time. I remember that first semester being a lonely one, but the second semester I made some good friends. Perhaps this is why I was fine: I finally found a group to fit in, and I loved them. They helped me and my self-esteem. They were truly blessings from God.
Going home that summer was tough; my parents had just moved to a new town, a tiny speck in Wisconsin, and I knew no one. Living there now, I still don't know where the nearest active LDS young single adult lives (I think they are all hanging out at the university in Madison). I was far away from the friends that I had just made. Some were on missions, some went home, and some stayed at school. It was a lonely first month back. Mentally I slipped, but kind of in the opposite direction. I didn't overeat, and I wasn't bulimic. I just didn't do the greatest in my eating. And it began to show quickly. I started gaining weight. As the scale went up, my self-esteem went down. How would people view me when I came back to school? Not to mention, I was trying to find a job, and I felt like a useless bum hanging around the house all day. My anxiety to move, get going and get out, started to become overwhelming. I doubted who I was. I hated who I was, how I looked. I felt awful in my very skin. I was downright depressed. Again.
I went to a doctor to get my thyroid checked (I have the Hoshimoto's disease, basically an autoimmune form of hypothyroidism). Often it can be the cause of depression and weight gain. The doctor basically told me that it would be easy to lose weight. It's basic math: don't eat this amount of calories, burn this many, and you'll lose the weight. If only it were that easy! If that were truly the case, if there were really no other factors involved, then I should be a stick by now! (As I soon learned in my nutrition class later that year, weight gain/loss is extremely complicated, not just the basic math that teachers and doctors have been telling us for years.)
After about a month or so, I did end up getting a job at Walmart. Not the the most amazing job in the world, but it helped me in more ways than one: I was able to start saving money for college, I was busy doing something productive, and it was physical, demanding work. I also stayed busy at church being a nursery leader. When it came time to come back to school, I was feeling much better than before but completely ready to get back into things and be with friends.
However, there was still that little chink in my armor, a weakness ready to be exposed with just the right amount of pressure. That pressure was felt during my following semesters at school, shattering my defenses and leaving me an emotional mess.
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