February 09th, 2023

Dealing with Uncertainty

Photo by Nick Page from Unsplash

​I’ve dealt with anxiety and depression my whole life. When I went to college, though, I developed a new mental health issue: an eating disorder. I grew up with a certain image of how a beautiful girl looks. One main feature of this image was being thin. As I began college, I started to develop my image, something I had been too scared to do in high school. I had no friends in high school, and had just wanted to go unnoticed. After prior years of bullying, the high school version of myself had wanted to be invisible. In college, though, I wanted things to change. 

I didn’t want to be invisible, but the socially anxious side of me also didn't want to be too noticed. So I began to hone the image I wanted. I wanted to dress well. I wore lots of florals and nice jeans. I accessorized with jewelry and Coach handbags. I had the clothes, now I needed the body type. I wanted to be a girl people liked and would want to be friends with. I wanted to be pretty enough to attract my first boyfriend. And I wanted to be smart. Pretty and smart was the image I was going for. 

As the work in college began to pile up, my stress levels increased. I was determined, though, to prove to everyone and myself how smart I was. I spent hours writing papers and studying for exams. I obsessed over grades and getting into honor societies. I did all I could to achieve this image of being smart, but there was only so much in my control. So I turned to my other image goal of being pretty. 

This felt in my control. I controlled what clothes I bought and wore. I controlled how I styled my hair. And I controlled what I put in my body, which affected how I looked. This is what I leaned into. I began to count calories. I obsessed over meals, whether food was organic or not, how many times I was allowed to eat something sweet a week. I took pride in skipping meals, and seeing how long I could go without eating. I looked up healthy recipes in my free time, and read articles about healthy foods. I felt excitement when I looked down at the scale and saw I’d lost weight. And I’d want to cry if I saw I’d gained any weight, even if it was just a pound. 

This eating disorder became an obsession for most of college. Finally, after graduating and beginning my career as a librarian, I began to work on addressing this problem. I worked hard in therapy to have a healthy relationship with food. I went on medication to help with the obsessive thoughts. I learned coping skills to handle the uncertainty of life. Because that was the root cause of my issue: dealing with uncertainty. I crave certainty, but we live in an uncertain and constantly changing world. I grew to accept this uncertainty, and the desire to control something, such as my eating, began to lessen until it was hardly there at all. I still don’t like uncertainty, but I know how to sit with it now. I can endure it, and be comforted by the knowledge that just because something is uncertain doesn’t mean it’s going to end poorly. Sometimes uncertainty holds the greatest surprises. Anything can happen. 
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