It happens every day. It happens to girls, it happens to boys, it happens to white people, Chinese people, black people, everyone. An eating disorder doesn't care about any of those petty details. It will prey on the wealthy, the poor, the healthy and the sick. While favoring specific prey to some, eating disorders take in stride all the little things that people believe will keep them safe from it. Denial only goes so far, and pretending that it doesn't exist doesn't make it vanish. Eating disorders can sneak up at any time and strike without warning. I was only thirteen years old when I had my first encounter.

I had never given much thought to what I was doing. I just kind of figured it was part of who I was, that it was just a natural habit. I had no idea that I was suffering from an eating disorder. I didn't make myself vomit like a bulimic would, I didn't starve myself like an anorexic person does, and I wasn't addicted to any certain type of pill. Come to find out though, my eating disorder was not only worse than those three, but also the hardest to diagnose. I am a closet eater.
A closet eater is a person with a complex about eating in front of others. It creates an uncomfortable feeling and the person is constantly aware that people are watching them. So instead of eating in front of people like everybody else does, a closet eater sneaks the food away and eats it in a place where they can be all alone. For me, it was my bedroom and the bathroom. I couldn't stand eating in front of anyone, especially my parents. I knew that they were thinking to themselves "Gosh, look at her eat. What a cow." Thusly, I didn't eat much of anything. I began the eating alone part a little while after I stopped eating in front of people.

I would hear these little voices in the back of my head screaming about how much I was eating whenever I put food to my lips. One day, I didn't eat much at dinner, and got very hungry later on that night so no one would now I was awake. I snuck downstairs into the kitchen, carefully avoiding the squeaky stair at the bottom. Into the kitchen and grabbed some cookies from the junk food cupboard. I took them upstairs and in the sanctity of my room, I ate them. With the first cookie I ate, I realized that the voices in my head had vanished. I was actually consuming FOOD, and there wasn't a soul around to tell me not to. I could stuff those damn Oreos in my mouth two at a time and no one complained. No one gave me a nasty look, NO

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