How I Killed My Inner Girlboss, Part 1

In January of 2017, I was not okay.

I had turned 23 at the end of December, and shortly before that, just a week before Christmas, I found out in a very unpleasant way that my boyfriend of over 2 years had been cheating on me for months. This was devastating at the time. Now it just seems like the inevitable conclusion of that relationship. Anyway. January.

My newly minted ex and I were still living together, at least until April when our lease was up. I was working 4 days a week at a local bakery, making the most delicious breakfast sandwiches in the world. It was the dead of winter, and I was at work by 5:45 AM most days. The job was grueling, but the people were kind and magical, and when this tragedy struck, it offered a reprieve from my thoughts.

I was not eating. Well, I was, but I was only eating my usual scrambled egg on a croissant and some leafy green salad on my lunch break at work. That was it. I went home and did not eat for the rest of my day. My eating disorder came raging back after I learned of my ex’s wrongdoings, particularly because I have never been thin and the girl he cheated on me with was indeed thin and beautiful.

The other thing that made not eating for most of the day so easy was that I was on drugs. As a type of peace offering only someone like him could pull off, my ex had given me some cocaine and some MDMA for my birthday. I was coming home, doing lines of coke, and working out in the living room while he was away at his job or drinking with his new new girlfriend (yes, he cheated on the girl he cheated on me with. You see why I said it was an inevitable conclusion). I was abusing my body, and losing weight quickly. Between January and February, I lost 50 pounds. In typical mentally ill fashion, I was talking–nay, bragging–about it on Facebook, acting like it was some healthy lifestyle change and the result of getting rid of a dead-weight boyfriend, blah blah blah girl power. It wasn’t. But the praise felt good. And so did shrinking. Shrinking felt really good.

I was seething with rage and grief and anger most days by the time March and April rolled around, but on the inside, I still felt pretty good about things. I was making more money than I ever had, I was down to my high school weight (you know, when I was a literal child), and I was beginning to see the silver linings of life after this relationship. I was embracing singlehood. I was realizing all the ways this person had been holding me back. I was starting to come out of my shell, in certain ways, and I wasn’t the only person who noticed.

Read part 2 here.