Melissa A. Fabello

Not everyone who has had an eating disorder also has an issue with perfectionism, but the two are often linked: A persistent feeling of never being “good enough” and needing to do something — anything — to feel under control is a warning sign that a person might be susceptible to an eating disorder.

I finally looked at my syllabus today. It’s been sitting in my inbox for over a week, flashing at me to find out what I have to look forward to this upcoming fall semester – which books I need to buy (and how much money I’m going to drop on them), how many assignments I’ll be graded on, what I need to have prepared before our first class meeting.

It might take years before you can hold a cupcake in your hand and not nearly have a panic attack.

The list on the board filled up with words like “ambitious,” “curious,” “intelligent,” and “dedicated.” And as my professor was wrapping up the activity, I sighed and raised my hand.

And so I slid the scale to the back of my closet, started freely eating doughnuts when I craved doughnuts, and simply donated the jeans that stopped fitting instead of holding out hope for them.

Street harassment. Eating disorders. Rape — three times, including one storyline that involved Zoe being sexually violated at a party by two star athletes who filmed the assault and distributed the video online. Intimate partner violence. Sexist school dress codes. Police brutality and racial profiling. Islamophobia. Sexting and child pornography.

And it’s that last one that really irks me: that most people — and especially most women’s — new year’s resolutions center on dieting and weight loss as the key to happiness.

I wake up hungry, but I also wake up lighter, emptier. Something about it makes me feel purer. This is one feeling that’s positive in a sea of negative.

You. Are. Amazing. And I mean that. I want to commend you for all of the hard work that you’re doing to put yourself in a place that feels healthy and happy. And even if you feel like you’re not doing much, you’re clearly doing something by reading this in the first place.