[LIGHTHEARTED MUSIC] - I developed an eating disorder at the age of 14. It was anorexia. - When I was around 12 or 13. - I was 11, 12. - My sophomore year of college. - Seventh grade. - It came out of the context of my parents splitting up. And there was just a lot of stress. - Pressures from the media. - I would compare my body to the bodies of professional soccer players to professional models, and look, and say, oh, my abs don't look like that. That's something wrong with me. - At this age, I was already reading fashion magazines. And so, if Cosmo said, don't eat bread, I was eating rice crackers instead of bread. I guess that's exactly the point when the eating disorder might have started. - --and also the stress of just doing well in school. The way that I could control all of those outside things was by controlling my body. Essentially, I would heavily restrict and avoid eating at all costs. So I wouldn't really eat at family meals. Lunches, I would throw away. - I began to binge very regularly. And bingeing slowly took over more and more of my life. I think, in the very early stages, I didn't really have any vocabulary for it. I didn't know what it was. I didn't know why I was doing it. The thought of eating in front of other people was so shameful. - It was all restricting. It was cutting back on meals, eating only low-fat and low-calorie meals, and then skipping meals entirely. - I just-- I lost a lot of weight because I wasn't eating. Because I would just be like, I don't have time to think about that stuff. I'd rather just do work. The coffee allows me to have energy to keep on working and also suppresses my hunger. - I had a therapy session with my therapist, and she traced my body. And then I got off of it and looked at the size of it. And she was like, do you see how small that is, not normal? And I remember thinking, no, that seems completely fine to me. That seems like a fine, normal body shape. [SOMBER MUSIC] - I felt ashamed. And so I would literally try to hide it by-- I'd have a plate of food. Instead of eating part of it, I would shove some of it into a napkin and throw that away. - I don't think any portion of food felt comfortable to me, unless it was a cracker or two. - Friends in high school would see me not eating my lunch. And then I would just say, I had a large breakfast. But to do that days and days and days in a row, I'm falling asleep in class because I'm so exhausted. Because I don't actually give my body any nourishment. - I think the low point for me was when my eating disorder progressed from not only including restrictive behaviors, but including bulimic behaviors, like bingeing and purging. - At the end, when I was more bulimic, I would spend every hour of every day thinking about when my next binge-purge episode was going to be. - I began bingeing very heavily and becoming very secretive, bingeing in the dark, in the bedroom, making sure all the doors were locked. Really, it's always been about anxiety, in my personal experience. - When I'm feeling most stressed about something, I become very, very precise about what I eat because it's almost like I need to somehow take control of my body when I feel like everything else is falling apart. - My mind would go blank, and I would just eat whatever I could find, not even things I enjoyed. And so, after I would purge, and then sit on the bathroom floor, and just think about how I had no control over the last 30 minutes of what just happened, I didn't know how to stop it. - I think, really, it's always been about anxiety. With bingeing, there was, in those moments, a little bit of relief from that. And it's really the only time I'd ever felt any relief. The problem, of course, with eating disorders is you get an immediate sense of shame. It felt like a punishment and that I deserved to feel the way I felt after a binge, which was terrible. - It was pretty scary when I was in a doctor's office, at the end of my freshman year, and was hearing about how I could have a heart attack because I was just putting that much stress on my heart. - When I started treatment, I was still resisting a little bit. So I really didn't like talking to my medical providers [LAUGHS] at all, about anything, even though I'm sure they were perfectly qualified. - When I initially sought treatment, the biggest obstacles I faced were finding providers that were able to focus on what I needed, as a male in the eating disorder community. - My therapist basically told me that I needed to get more intensive help, or I was going to die. I went for an intake at a treatment program, and they confirmed that I needed a very-- a higher level of care. The doctors who I interacted with during my treatment and recovery never quite seemed to understand what I was saying or why I was there. There were a few doctors who were ignorant to the point of it being damaging. - I think, with any mental health disorder, being sensitive to the situation is really important, creating a rhetoric where the patient feels safe and comfortable. SPEAKER: I think when somebody in a medical profession doesn't know what to do with the knowledge that their patient has an eating disorder it adds to the feeling of isolation and shame. Because you think to yourself, well, this is somebody who went to medical school and even they don't really understand what's happening with me. - Some of the more ignorant comments would bring back that old fear that what I was feeling and thinking wasn't valid, that I was crazy, that I was exaggerating, or making this whole thing up. - I've wanted to get to know myself and wanted to just take a second and be like, hmm, why do I feel like eating that and what is it that I actually feel like eating? [LIGHTHEARTED MUSIC] - There's a lot of debate about whether one can recover completely and be recovered, or you're just perpetually recovering and always have to be cautious about the things you see and what you eat? I truly believe that it's possible to recover, to have it no longer be an option, no matter what life throws at you, to-- that, no matter what, you will not resort to an eating disorder to deal with your problems. I think it's possible to recover completely. - My name is Joanna Kay Mercuri. And I'm recovering from an eating disorder. - My name is Justin Shamoun. And I had an eating disorder. - My name is [? Shaina ?] [? Gonzales. ?] And I think I might still be experiencing an eating disorder. - I'm Pooja Patel. And I had an eating disorder. - My name is [? Stacey. ?] And I had an eating disorder. [LIGHTHEARTED MUSIC]