"I just wanted to lose 15 pounds."
This is how Neva Swartzendruver begins her story, which she told the portal lovewhatmatters.com. At just 14 years old, the American from Colorado wanted to lose weight for the first time. She was convinced that she was too fat and that she should use the summer vacation to lose a few pounds. "You know the story of the girl who develops from an ugly duckling to a beautiful swan during the summer holidays and who is then admired and liked by everyone. That's exactly what I wanted to be."
The abysses of the internet
Neva let bulimia control her for a long time – she was never thin enough herself.
It started off relatively innocently – Neva googled ways to lose weight quickly and initially came up with the usual advice, such as eating fewer carbohydrates and counting calories. But the deep rabbit hole called the Internet practically devoured the teenager – at some point she found herself on her first "Pro-Ana" website. In the forum, people cheered each other on to eat as little as possible and to become ever thinner. At first, Neva was shocked – especially how enthusiastically photos of completely emaciated people were commented on.
I had never seen anything like this, except for prisoners in photos of German concentration camps.
Neva remembers that on the one hand she found it repulsive but on the other hand it was fascinating to click through the pages. "There was this terrible magnetism on the side that I only understood later. It was this mixture of community, control and the feeling of achieving something." That day, Neva stood in front of the fridge for the first time and thought: If these girls manage to starve until they look like skeletons, they should be able to skip a snack – or dinner. "And so my ten-year struggle with the eating disorder started."
I was like a fruit fly. And the eating disorder was like a garbage can full of garbage.
Harmless beginnings before a downward spiral
Initially, Neva started relatively harmless: she skipped a meal here and there and went jogging a little more often. The first kilos tumbled quickly – the girl wrote her successes and calories in a motivation diary. But the initial enthusiasm quickly turned into mania: "At some point, I felt guilty if I didn't skip a meal. Instead of running a little more, I exercised to the limit every day." And instead of looking forward to her new body, she started hating him more and more. The teen developed fears and depression and isolated herself from her friends and family.
Her thoughts were all about calories and her ongoing hunger: Neva fantasized about food for hours until she couldn't stand it anymore. Now she started indiscriminately stuffing everything in her hands until her stomach was hard and swollen. Feeling guilty, Neva then ran into the bathroom and vomited everything she had previously eaten. After that she was relieved: "I thought I found a cheat code."
"Eat, puke, starve, repeat."
From then on, the girl's everyday life revolved around bulimia. As long as she went to high school, Neva felt like she was caught in a never-ending vicious cycle – she ate, vomited, starved, and ate again. But miraculously she could stop when she met her current boyfriend. For almost a year she thought she was healed. "At some point, I innocently wanted to lose a few pounds before the vacation – and fell straight back into my eating disorder." On Instagram, she got compliments for her changing figure, she herself fell into self-loathing again.
I was hungry for more than just food. I was hungry for self-love.
She realized that she was caught up in a vicious cycle again in the summer of 2016 when she was traveling with her mother and her little brother: "I was grumpy, lethargic and literally stuck to my calorie counting app. In the evening I lay in bed and cried – myself it had become clear that I either ignored my brother or bit him when he wanted to play with me. Did I really want to live like this? "
Instagram as a savior?
Neva didn't want to go on like this, but it still took another year to break out of the loop. This helped her – of all things – Instagram. Instead of other slim teenagers, the young woman now followed profiles that preached body acceptance and self-love. In December 2017, Neva announced on her own profile that she would ban diets of any kind from her life. "I was hoping that even one day I could have a healthy relationship with food and my body."
Since that day she experienced many ups and downs: Neva gained weight, not only in weight, but also in self-confidence: "I understood that my value comes from the person I am, not from the way I look. ( …) Above all, I learned that there is only one way to develop a healthy attitude towards food and yourself. And that is love! "
Today, Neva confidently presents her new curves on Instagram – sometimes with a wink. And sometimes she thinks of the day that changed everything. "When I think of this 14-year-old girl this summer day, part of me wishes that I could hug her and tell her again and again that she was perfect." Still, Neva knows that without her illness she wouldn't be the person she is today – and she is grateful that she learned what love means.
Neva reports on her story and how she is doing on her Instagram profile.