Eating disorders are not a choice.

A person doesn’t just wake up one morning and decide they’re going to start starving themselves. They don’t decide to throw up their lunch or take diet pills every day. It sort of just happens. Sometimes it starts out as a desire to lose a couple pounds to fit into a dress or to be in better shape for athletics.

In my case, it started while I was a child. I began obsessing over weight and size around third grade and it became less of an issue in middle school. It appeared again freshman year and then went away again. Sophomore year, it came back stronger than ever.

Health classes cover eating disorders and their most dangerous effects briefly in middle and high school, including bone deterioration, irregular heartbeats and death. What those classes don’t cover is what it feels like to suffer from one and how fast the human body is damaged from deprivation.

For those of you that aren’t as educated on eating disorders as others, here’s a brief summary of the most common ones. Anorexia Nervosa includes obsession with weight and what you eat. It’s often characterized by not eating or skipping meals. Anorexia Athletica is similar, but the person suffering also over exercises to burn the calories consumed. Bulimia Nervosa includes purging after eating and using other methods to avoid weight gain. Binge Eating Disorder includes eating abnormally large amounts of food in a short amount of time, or eating until the person in uncomfortably full. There are other lesser known, yet just as serious, eating disorders such as Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified, Pica, Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder and Rumination Disorder.

I started seeking help for my eating disorder around spring break of sophomore year. At that point I had gone from 135 pounds to 110 in a month and a half. My longest fast was nine days. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t walk without getting dizzy. I had already passed out several times that month.

I started recovering at that point, but it was overwhelming. I began making better decisions and getting healthier, but that only lasted about a month. Two days after school ended, I was admitted into a stabilization program where I was forced to eat six times a day or drink a protein drink — which was horrible. By that point in time, I had done significant damage to my body. I had brain damage and fragile bones. I hadn’t had my period in months, I had liver and heart damage and I was told that my chances of being able to have kids was slim to none.

It’s the number one killer among mental illnesses; however it doesn’t get much recognition. Around the world 30 million people suffer from eating disorders, yet they are rarely acknowledged and often hidden. Society has improved exponentially when it comes to treating people with mental illnesses like actual people rather than criminals. It’s come a long way, considering the mentally ill used to be jailed and tortured. Society acknowledges Schizophrenia, Depression, Anxiety, Borderline Personality Disorder and Dissociative Identity Disorder as serious illnesses. Don’t get me wrong — they are serious and need to be treated that way; however, eating disorders need to be acknowledged as well.