Jessica Laddin - Class of 2017
A few years ago I had gained some weight. I also have
really bad anxiety, so that kind of triggered everything. The whole year
afterwards, I lost a ton of weight and was really thin. I kind of isolated
myself from people because I was really just upset with myself. I really didn’t
want to be in my skin and I didn’t have a ton of friends. I had lost like 30 pounds in almost 6 months, and that’s a really awful
thing to go through. It was getting to the point where I was having health
issues. I was having chest pain, I was dizzy all the time, and I
couldn’t really function. It was bad, and my mom was mortified. She had no
idea what to do because I was out of control.
But then slowly something clicked in me
and I realized life doesn’t have to be this way. I realized that I was wasting high
school. I started eating more and kind of got out of that. Through that I
gained a lot more confidence in myself. I ended up becoming friends with a
bunch more people, had a huge social group, and I kind of became almost like a
different person. I did a total 180 by the end of my sophomore year.
I see people who are going through the same thing because
now that you’ve gone through things like that, you see the signs with everyone
in high school. I can tell with some people in the school, like who’s really
struggling with that stuff. And it’s hard, you know, it’s a really sensitive
issue because it’s someone’s weight and how they feel about themselves, so you
don’t really know if you want to help or if you just want to let them figure it
out for themselves. If someone had stopped me when I had started those
behaviors I wouldn’t have gone as far. You know, my mom knew the signs but she
didn’t say anything because she just didn’t know what to do.
To people that are dealing with stuff like that and can’t overcome
it, just know that really, it’s all in your mind. It’s all how you
perceive yourself and it’s nothing about what you are physically, it’s about
changing what’s going on in your head. Once you make that switch, your life
will completely change and you will be so much happier. I can’t even imagine
going back three years ago to where I was, that’s like, crazy. Life is so great
and I’ve done so many things now in high school. I joined cross-country, I’m in
a bunch of musicals, and you just meet a bunch of people and you do really fun
things. That’s what living is about: going out and doing all those things. Not
staying home and worrying about how much you weigh and how many calories you’re
eating.
*Text has been edited for the fluidity of reading
