Chapter 3: “You become what you think about all day long.” ― Ralph Waldo Emerson

The blond girl stood still in the middle of the room. She waited as her mother held the pieces of fabric up to her body. This was a process the blond girl was familiar with as her mother, a wonderful seamstress, had often sewn clothing for the blond girl and her sisters. Today was the day that a new jumper was being made for her to wear to church. Her mother even let her help pick out the fabric. 

"Oh no!" her mother exclaimed as she was fitting the pieces on the blond girl. "I must have cut it out wrong."

The blond girl looked to her left side where her mother was fidgeting with the fabric. She instantly noticed what had worried her mother. There was no way that the two pieces were going to fit around her body. Her mother began making suggestions of how to remedy the problem, but she couldn't figure out what to do. 

A relative witnessing the disaster came to try and help, but once she saw the hopelessness of the situation decided to dissuade the blond girls mother from continuing by pointing out the real problem. 

"It's no use Vickie, her hips are just too big."

The problem wasn't the fabric being cut incorrectly, the problem was her ugly body. The blond girl instantly clenched her jaw and blinked several times to try and prevent herself from crying.

February 24, 2004

I can't complain about today. Nothing really interesting happened. Except when Joseph came up to me and told me how good I looked. I didn't know what to say to him because I thought I looked horrible. I've decided I'm going to wear sweatshirts until I get back down to a better size.

It had been a month since starting my diet and I had gone down four pant sizes. I was still overly concerned about the weight I had gained over the weekend as I woke up that morning to start the Power 90 workout. It felt good to exercise and feel like I was burning away all the extra weight. The panic from the night before began to subside once I had finished the workout. Walking into the bathroom to take a shower and get ready for the day, I noticed my reflection and began my usual routine of criticizing and measuring my body. Starting with my stomach and then moving to my hips and thighs, my hands would pull at the fat to see if there was more or less than the day before. I would measure my thighs, upper arms, and wrists by wrapping my hands or fingers around them and see if they felt any smaller. I would stare at myself posing in different directions, hoping that I would somehow be able to see a change in my body that I hadn't noticed before. The panic, that had only a few moments before been lessened, began to return the longer I stood in front of that mirror.

You've gotten bigger! Look at all of the fat rolls! You look awful. How do you even dare face people every day. You shouldn't leave the house today. You look fifty pounds heavier than you did last week. People don't want to look at you. Are your clothes even going to fit today? Even if you get your pants buttoned you'll have fat hanging over the sides because they'll be too tight. You'll look disgusting. Nobody wants to have to look at you. You are so ugly.

I tried to calm my thoughts by telling myself it would be ok because I was going to be able to get back to my normal eating habits and workout more, but the thoughts stuck with me. I weighed myself  with my clothes on, weighed myself with my clothes off, went to the bathroom, weighed myself again, showered, and weighed myself. I wanted to know exactly how much I weighed and what the difference in weight would be after each different circumstance. Each time I weighed myself I hoped and prayed that somehow the number would magically go down. By the time I left the house, I was so worked up and my thoughts so out of control that I felt trapped inside my head, unable to think about anything besides how fat and ugly I was. It was as if a battle was raging inside my head between the thoughts telling me how horrible I looked and the thoughts trying to calm everything down by saying it was ok because I wasn't going to eat as much today. It was the only way I could find the courage to be around people.

Concentrating in class was almost impossible. I tried to get myself to focus on what was being taught, but I could only focus on what was going on in my head. I began distracting myself by trying to calculate how much weight I could lose by the end of the week if I diligently stuck to my 100 calories a day and did Power 90 every morning. I would then begin to think about how many pounds I would have to lose before I could go down another pant size and how long that would take. Before I knew it, I had gone through all of my college classes for the day and had somehow ended up in Choralaires, but I had done nothing but get more and more lost in my own thoughts.

"ShaRee, you are looking so great!"

Choralaires had finished and I walked up to Chris to say hi. I was caught off guard by the comment from Joseph. He and Chris were good friends, but he had never really said anything to me. I spent most of my time in that class keeping to myself and trying to avoid bringing attention to myself. I didn't even know he really knew my name until he gave me this compliment.

"Um, thanks." I replied with an embarrassed smile.

I had never been good at accepting compliments. This day was especially difficult because I knew he had to be making fun of me. I had thoroughly inspected my body that morning and knew that I did not look good.

"Seriously, you look amazing!"

I gave a nervous laugh and thanked him again. I kept thinking that hopefully I would be able to lose ten pounds by the following week. It was such a foreign feeling to have someone give me a compliment about how good I looked, but I found that it was a feeling that was much more enjoyable than I had anticipated.  It was enough of a good moment to get me out of my head. I went home, went to the bathroom, weighed myself with my clothes on, weighed myself with my clothes off, got dressed and fixed a small serving of plain, steamed broccoli.

The next week was the same routine: wake up at 5:00, do Power 90, measure and criticize my body, the thoughts begin, go to the bathroom, weigh myself with clothes on and off, shower, weigh myself, go to school, not learn a thing because I was so focused on losing weight and how awful I looked, go home, go to the bathroom, weigh myself, eat a small serving of vegetables or black beans, weigh myself, lie on my bed and think about losing weight until the day was over, pray that I would lose more weight, and go to bed. It's all I could get myself to do. The days started running together.



"I'm just going to make an appointment for you at the counseling center. It's not a big deal. I just think it would be good for you to have someone help you figure out if going into music is what you really want to do."

Dr. Joines had become worried about me after I called myself stupid when I was unable to understand or answer a question in my music theory class.

"Chris, I don't want to go to therapy!"

"I know, but maybe this will actually be a good thing."

I had gone to Dr. Joines' office at his request where he spoke about his concern for me. He noticed I hadn't been myself lately and calling myself stupid had been frustrating for him to hear. He had lectured me about the need to have more confidence in myself and my abilities.

"He's not wrong. I've been telling you the same thing for a while now." Chris gave me a look of concern, but also showed slight amusement at how angry I was over the thought of going to therapy.

"I know I need more confidence, but just telling me to get more confidence isn't going to make that happen. And why would going to therapy be a good thing? Isn't therapy for crazy people?!"

"Yes, but it's also for people who just need to talk through problems. ShaRee, I think that you've maybe been going overboard with the dieting and exercising. You've lost a lot of weight in a short amount of time. It might be good to just talk with a therapist about it and see what he thinks."

"What are you saying? That you think I have some sort of an eating disorder?" I laughed. I knew he was joking. People with eating disorders didn't look like me. I was still so huge. "Yeah right. Like that's possible! I'm still eating and I haven't lost that much weight."

I had gone down two more pant sizes and had gone from eating 100 calories a day to eating a piece of grilled chicken every two days.  I was also doing the workout DVD twice a day.

"I don't want to go! I'm not going. I don't even know what I'm supposed to say to him."

"I'll come with you. I really feel like you need to go. I want you to go. Let's just see what he has to say about your eating." Chris said, all amusement gone from his face.


The counseling center at the college was smaller than I had expected. Chris led the way and walked with me to the reception desk. The receptionist was pleasant as I explained about this being my first time in. After completing the necessary paperwork, I sat nervously waiting for the appointment to begin. I was contemplating running out of the room when a man walked around the corner and called my name. I apprehensively stood and gave a look to Chris to let him know that I still didn't want to be doing this. I followed the man back to his office where he motioned for me to sit down.

"So, what made you decide to come in today?"

Dr. Johnson was a handsome man and as we started the conversation he gave me a pleasant smile.

"Um, well, one of my teachers wants me to talk to someone about making sure that my life is heading in a direction that will make me happy and my friend wants me to talk to someone because he's worried about my eating habits."

He gave me a confused look. "Why does everyone else want you to be doing these things?"

I shrugged. My foot was constantly shaking. I didn't know what to think, do, or say.

"Well, tell me about your eating."

I began to explain to him about the challenge and how I had started to lose weight. He would abruptly cut me off and ask a question here or there and then let me continue. The feeling in the room started to feel strange and I could feel myself shutting down the longer we talked.

"Do you just need attention?" he impatiently asked.

"What?"

"Do you need attention? Is that why you're doing this?" He was giving me a look like he had caught me in my scheme.

"What? No! I'm not someone who likes a lot of attention on them. I'll admit that some of the comments about how good I look or praise about how hard I must be working to lose all the weight makes me feel good, but I'm just trying to lose weight. That's all."

He immediately popped up and grabbed a large book off a shelf and flipped to a page.

"Is this what you want to look like?"

He almost sounded angry as he flipped the book around to show me a picture of an emaciated woman dressed in nothing but her underwear. She had a vacant look on her face, like she wasn't aware of her surroundings. I could see every bone on her body and noticed the way her cheeks and eyes sunk inward. Nothing about her frail body was what I was trying to achieve by losing weight.

"No, of course I....."

"Well, that's what you will look like if you keep doing this!" he emphatically stated, cutting me off as he threw the book on his desk and moved to a different chair. "Who's the guy that was sitting with you in the waiting area?"

"His name is Chris. He's a friend." I felt defeated. I wanted to get out of the room more than anything.

"I want to ask him some questions. Do I have your permission to invite him in?"

I gave him a questioning glance and then slowly nodded my head. Why did he need to ask Chris questions? He left the room and I sat in disbelief and confusion. I felt like the conversation had taken off and gotten out of hand without me actually being involved or included in it. Questions had been asked and accusations hurled at me before I even knew how to adequately explain myself. I began to worry that I was even more of a horrible person than I had thought. Was I really the awful person he was accusing me of being? Was I just some stupid girl needing attention? I knew I hated attention. I was struggling with school and I really wanted to lose weight and succeed at my challenge, but I didn't feel like I was trying to get people to notice me by doing it. I didn't know what was happening and before I could really figure anything out, Dr. Johnson was back with Chris close behind. As he interrogated Chris, I stared at the floor and listened to what was being asked and said about me. I didn't know how to react to anything and wondered why so many people continued therapy when it felt more like a trial. Chris answered the questions the same way that I answered them and then proceeded to add why he was worried about me. Dr. Johnson told him not to worry. I didn't have an eating disorder, but there were some things that he wanted to work on with me. I was ushered out of the room, had the next weeks appointment scheduled, and was on my way back to the apartment with Chris before I started to feel like I could speak again. We both started to laugh as Chris pointed out how blunt Dr. Johnson had been.

"At least we know that I don't have an eating disorder. I told you there was nothing wrong with the way I've been eating."

The more we discussed the session and joked about the way in which the conversation had gotten so strange so quickly, the better I felt. I was just glad that I had another person there to witness it and share in the experience.

Everyone still thinks you're so fat. You need to lose more weight. Look at how big you are. You aren't getting any smaller. You're never going to look good. Why don't you try harder. You're so lazy. Do you see all the fat rolls?! Look at how many there are! You need to find a way to get rid of them. You are so fat. The only thing people see when they look at you is your fat body. You need to lose the weight faster. The only way to feel better is to lose the weight. You are so ugly. No one can stand to look at you. 

"What have you been doing? You're starting to look so good! You've inspired me to start trying to get in shape."

See, they only think you are worth looking at when you are losing weight. They all thought you were so hideous and disgusting, but when you lose weight they think you aren't completely worthless. You can't be this big anymore. You have to lose weight. You are only worth anything if you can get smaller. You aren't pretty unless you are thin. Why are you still overweight?! It doesn't look like you are any thinner. You need to lose two pounds by tomorrow. Why aren't you fixing this fast enough? You are so gross. Why can't you be prettier?

My days were measured by weigh-ins and work outs. Life stopped being experiences. It was images and comments. It was reactions and thoughts. The battle inside my head was where I spent most of my energy and time.

Why aren't you losing the weight faster!? You are so ugly. Don't you see how disgusting you are?

It's ok. I'll only have a piece of chicken once a week. If I only eat that it'll be ok. I'm only going to have one piece of chicken a week. I'll lose more weight that way. It'll be ok.

"What bra size do you wear?"

I looked at him unable to answer. I could feel myself squirming. "I......"

"Come stand in front of me. I need to see how your clothes are fitting on you to see how much weight you've lost."

So many questions were going through my mind. Was this necessary? Did he not believe me when I told him how much weight I'd lost last week? I stood in the middle of the room and he moved his chair over until he was sitting in front of me.

"What bra size do you wear?"

I reluctantly answered the personal question.

"Have you gone down a cup size at all?"

Where was this going? Was this really how therapy worked? I answered all of his questions and then began following his instructions about pulling my shirt tight around my body or pulling my loose jeans away from my body. I stared at the wall as Dr. Johnson gazed at me and examined my body.

He's probably thinking how disgusting you look. He hates you and thinks you are just some stupid teenager looking for attention. He thinks you look fat and need to lose weight. Why did you even come back to see him? He knows you're a bad person. He can see how horrible you are. He only wants to see your body so he can tell you how ugly you are.

I snapped out of my thoughts as he pulled the waist of my jeans tight around my hips. My face scrunched into a look of discomfort as I felt his hands around my ribs pulling my shirt tight and revealing my body shape.

"It looks like you've lost weight since last week. You know what? You should get out more and be around people. Why don't you go to the gym on campus? Maybe do a little weight training."

He only wants you to go the gym because you need to lose more weight. He can see how big you are and can feel how fat you are. You need to work harder. He thinks you're so lazy. You need to work out more. You're still eating too much. Don't you feel disgusting when you eat? Everyone else thinks you're so disgusting. 

In addition to doing the exercise video twice a day, I was now going to the gym for an hour or more a day. Chris would often go with me and began helping me with weight training.

"ShaRee, is there something going on that is making it harder for you to sing? You just seem like you don't have a lot of energy."

"I've just been exhausted from school. I'll try and rest more."

My voice teacher had started to notice that my voice was struggling. I gave her my excuse, but the truth was that when I wasn't obsessing about exercise, weight, and eating, I was sleeping. I had even started sleeping through classes. When I would come home from school in the afternoon, I would weigh myself and then stumble to my bedroom and collapse on the bed. I was so tired all the time and couldn't get enough sleep.

I need to start eating before voice lessons so I have more energy.

You can't have more than the piece of chicken a week. You will gain weight and become even uglier than you are now. You are such a pig. Why would you want to eat so much? You can't be serious about eating more. You look awful. Do you want to be this ugly your whole life? You still have so much weight to lose. 

It's ok. I'll only eat an apple. I'll stop having chicken. It's too fattening. I'll eat an apple before I have to sing. That way I'll have energy to sing, but I can still lose weight. An apple is better anyway. It's healthier than the piece of chicken. 

"Losing weight is a good thing, just make sure that you are eating the right things and exercising. You know, even jogging in place for fifteen minutes can make all the difference. You could even try doing simple exercises like crunches and sit-ups or squats every night. Just that little bit is so healthy." The well meaning teacher was trying to encourage me to lose weight in a healthy way, but all I could focus on was that I needed to lose weight.

He thinks you're so fat and wants you to lose weight. It doesn't even look like you're working out. You are still so fat. You need to do more. Everyone can still see how ugly you are. Why can't you do anything right? You aren't working hard enough and everyone can tell. You are so fat and lazy. You should work out more. You are so ugly.

I'll start jogging for fifteen minutes every night. I'll do 300 crunches every night in addition to the 200 I've been doing with the DVD. I'll add some pilates, squats, leg lifts. I'll do it every night. It'll be ok. I'll work harder. I have to work harder. I'll do more. It'll be ok.

Dr. Johnson continued to measure me by pulling my clothes tight around my thighs, hips, waists, arms, and bust. Every week I would stand in front of him as he inspected my body nearly as thoroughly as I inspected it each day. It became a motivator for me to push myself harder to lose weight. I didn't want to go in there and have him tell me I didn't look like I'd lost any weight.

So many people kept giving me compliments on how good I looked not knowing that with each comment came a flood of negative thoughts telling me how I was worthless and ugly. I was receiving more attention from people, but I was secluding myself more than I ever had in my life. I tried convincing myself that I was looking better than I ever had, but I became increasingly more self conscious of the way I looked.

My voice was struggling, my grades were slipping, I slept all the time. Each day was the same schedule of working out, weighing myself 15-20 times, obsessively thinking about food while being terrified to eat any of it, and getting further lost in a sea of negative thoughts and mental abuse. The weight continued to drop as those days turned into weeks, weeks into months.


The blond young woman lay in her bed unable to fall asleep. This was unusual for her as she had been spending much of her spare time being exhausted and finding any free minute she could spare to sleep. She pulled her covers up around her shivering body and rolled onto her stomach. She winced and tried to adjust her body as the pain from her hip bones pushing against the mattress caught her off guard. A smile spread across her face at the thought of bones showing instead of fat. Several hours passed with the blond young woman tossing and turning, thinking about how she could lose more weight and the possibility of becoming thin and beautiful. The smile faded as her thoughts took over. Now lying on her side, legs pulled up close to her chest, the blond young woman stared into the dark room and whispered, "When will I stop being ugly." 

Chapter 2: “Your mind can be either your prison or your palace."― Bernard Kelvin Clive, Your Dreams Will Not Die

"You are wearing the wrong type of green!"

The blond girl standing near her teacher's desk hadn't expected the comment. She looked down at her clothing trying to make sense of why she was being mocked. Then she looked at the tall, slender girl in her first grade class who had made the comment. Her hair was perfectly done, without a single strand out of place. Her clothing had been perfectly coordinated to celebrate the holiday without receiving a pinch. She was more well liked than the blond girl with the crooked smile and was considerably more beautiful. 

"Teacher, ShaRee is wearing the wrong color of green," the popular girl exclaimed to the teacher with a laugh.

The blond girl examined her own clothing again. In preparation for the day she had been dressed in the only green clothes she owned, a pair of hunter green sweats with a mismatched green shirt. She looked around the room and, in that moment, realized that she wasn't like the other girls. There was something different about her. She hung her head to look at the floor. The humiliation over her embarrassing clothing choice had been hurtful, but the pain of what she had realized about herself as she tried to grasp the situation had made her wish she could disappear. She bit back tears as she began to understand why she was different from the other girls: she was bigger than all of them and she was ugly.

My hand flew to the alarm clock the second it began it's relentless beeping. I had always been a light sleeper as well as an early riser, but I had noticed that it was becoming increasingly more difficult to get out of bed. Second semester had started to be more stressful than I had anticipated. In addition to my five music classes, I was also taking english and history. We were only a few weeks into the new semester and I had already started questioning whether I was going to survive or not. 

I had enjoyed my choir class during the fall, but this new semester had changed my feelings. The professor who usually conducted the choir had gone on sabbatical and we were now having to get used to a new conductors style. Not many of us were loving the new change. I was glad that I had auditioned for Choralaires, the LDS institute choir. It gave me a fun musical atmosphere to break up the monotony of college classes and the disappointment from concert choir. I had initially felt intimidated to be in a choir where so many people had already spent a semester singing together, if not longer. I came into the choir in the middle of the year and only knew one other person. Chris had excitedly introduced me to all of his friends during our first rehearsal, but I had felt so uncomfortable and worried that I wouldn't ever fit in with their group. He was still really good to try and include me and had started spending more time at my apartment than he had before. 

"I wonder how much weight you've lost." 

We spent a lot of our time together discussing my weight and what foods I could or couldn't eat. My new pants had started to become baggy and my excitement continued to grow.

"I don't know how much I've lost, but look at this!" I said as I walked out of my room wearing my old pants. They were super big on me. I started to laugh as I pulled the waste of the jeans away from my stomach like they do in the weight loss commercials.

"Holy buckets! That's awesome!" he laughed. "You should buy a scale so that you can actually see how much you're losing."

I hadn't really considered buying a scale. I had never weighed myself before, because I already knew that I was huge. I didn't need a scale to tell me that. I also didn't want to admit to other people that I was trying to lose weight. I was simply seeing how long I could go on my challenge that had gone from "no junk food" to "don't eat anything with more than five grams of fat and three grams of sugar." The challenge was turning out to be successful and I had to admit that losing the weight felt good. Later that day I came home with my new scale and a full length mirror, both to help motivate me on my challenge, that had now officially turned into a diet. 

As January came to a close, I began to notice small changes not only in myself, but also with my friendships. I became enthusiastic about cooking for other people. I had mostly only ever cooked out of necessity, but for some reason I had a new found fascination for recipes and cooking for others. I had planned a birthday dinner, complete with cake, for my sweet roommate Jill. When I couldn't get the frosting just right I became infuriated, threw the whole cake in the sink, and stormed out of the apartment. I don't know why I was so angry. 

Tori also started treating me differently since I started the challenge. 

"You need to get more girly looking clothes. You're such a tomboy."

I had decided she was right, but not until after feeling extremely embarrassed and hurt over having been ridiculed over my wardrobe. I didn't have a ton of selection for clothes because of my size, but once I started to lose weight, I made sure to start buying tops that were brighter and more feminine in style. 

"Look at your eyebrows! You need to go get them waxed!"

That very day I went to get my eyebrows waxed. I tried to not make a big deal out of it, but she made a point to laugh about it and point it out to everyone who came to visit. We weren't talking with each other as much as we used to and as I became closer friends with Chris, she also started finding her own group of friends. I was so hurt by the comments and looks she kept giving me. That hurt eventually turned into anger. Every time I noticed her eating a meal, I began to feel very prideful knowing that I had more will power than her. We were growing farther apart by the minute.

"I am just concerned about what I'm supposed to do at Eric's blessing. It's easy up here to follow the rules, but I don't think I'll be able to keep the rules when I'm in Fillmore. What should I do?"

I had actually considered missing my nephew's baby blessing. The stress I was having over what to eat when I was in Fillmore was so consuming that it was easier for me to miss such a huge family occasion. I was terrified that I was going to gain back all the weight I had just lost. 

"I think we should maybe change some things so that you can have more variety of food. What if we made the rules more about calories than about fat and sugar?" Chris was more knowledgable about nutrition than I was. I felt lucky to have him helping me.

"Ok, that sounds good. Will I still be able to lose weight if we change the rules? I really want to keep losing weight." I said, almost in desperation.

"Yes, of course. We'll come up with something that'll work. What if we just limit your caloric intake to 100 calories a day? We can just print off a list of foods you can eat and the quantities you can have. You should still lose weight fairly quickly that way."

So we found a list of foods and how much I could eat. I studied the list and memorized as much as I could. When I went to Fillmore for the weekend, everyone was so surprised at how great I was looking. I received so much praise for how much weight I had been losing and people began to ask what I had been doing. It was so foreign to me. I had never been given positive attention for my looks. I didn't quite know how to respond. 

The weekend didn't go as well as I had hoped. My mom began to be concerned that I was being too strict, but I assured her that everything was fine. I wasn't able to stay within my caloric limit, which caused me to panic. I started feeling restless as the thoughts in my head went out of control. By Sunday, I was such a nervous wreck that I decided there was no way that I was going to the family dinner after church. My mom wanted me to at least eat something before I left. I began eating the slice of ham my mother placed in front of me, making my eyes blink away the tears before she could notice. I packed up my bags and raced back to Ogden as fast as I could.

February 23, 2004

This weekend my Nephew got blessed. He is so cute. I love him so much. The bad thing is that I gained a little weight while I was home, but I hope I can be back to where I was by the end of this week. Chris is helping me out so much. He even gave me an exercise program.

That night I cried as I climbed on the scale and saw that I had gained weight. I paced back and forth trying to figure out what I could do to lose the weight faster. I was thankful that Chris had given me his Power 90 DVD, but that wasn't going to help me as quickly as I needed. The weight needed to be gone.

I went to my room and stood in front of the mirror I had purchased. I examined how my clothes fit and worried that they looked tighter on me. The thoughts began. I undressed and proceeded to inspect my body, criticizing myself every step of the way. The thoughts were louder. I grabbed fat rolls to measure how much bigger they had gotten. Thoughts racing. I stepped away from the mirror and allowed the tears to roll down my cheek as I put on my pajamas. I walked back over to the mirror and sat in front of it. The tears turned into sobs as the thoughts that began when I was so young continued to scream at me.

You are so ugly and fat! Why are you so ugly? Why can't you fix it? Do you see how ugly you are? Look at how fat you are. You are so ugly and fat. Everyone thinks that you are the ugliest person. No one likes you because you are so ugly. You are gross. No one should have to look at you. How can you live like that? There is so much fat everywhere! You are ugly.

Over and over in my head for hours. Each time I looked in the mirror I hoped that the reflection would somehow have changed since the last time I had stopped crying long enough to look in the mirror. How could I have eaten so much food? I had gained weight and made myself so fat. I was so ugly.

That night I prayed for only one thing.

"Heavenly Father, please help me to lose weight. I need to lose more weight. Please help me. Please."

Chapter 1: “I fear that I bore you with these details, but I have to let you see my little difficulties, if you are to understand the situation.” ― Arthur Conan Doyle, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

Snow was still falling from the dark January sky as I took the exit to get onto highway 89. This light snow storm was nothing compared to the blizzard I had voluntarily driven through to get home at the end of fall semester. I had been anxious to get back to Fillmore after the semester and share all of my exciting adventures from my first semester of college and no blizzard warning was going to keep me from doing just that. As I got closer to Ogden, I laughed to myself about the ridiculousness of my choice. After Christmas break, I was more excited to get back to my apartment than I had been to get to my parents house a few weeks before. During the two and half hour drive I had spent most of my time reflecting on everything that had happened since starting school. I had made so many new friends who helped me break out of the shell I had built around myself growing up, my nephew was born and had me wrapped around his little finger, and I had passed all of my classes. All in all, my first semester of college had been a success. I also thought of how it had been so fun to discover who I was outside of the small town life I had known growing up. It had maybe been a little too fun and I spent way more time socializing than studying and working hard in school. Because of this I had quickly made my goals for 2004: Work harder. Be a better student. Practice more. Of course, I still had a couple of weeks left before spring semester started and I intended on making the most of my social life before the hard work needed to begin.

I knew when I returned to the apartment that I would be the only one there for a day or two, but I was ok to have the time to unpack and get myself organized before life started again. It was quiet and my thoughts began to replay a conversation with a friend that had happened recently.

"ShaRee, how do you really feel about yourself?"

Chris was five years older than me and when we had first met I wasn't very impressed with him. He had known and been friends with the roommates I moved in with and I remember feeling uncomfortable every time I was around him. However, the more I got to know him my opinion quickly changed and we had become quite close. I now considered him one of my best friends and was grateful that first impressions can change.

I was confused after he asked me this question and my thoughts raced to figure out why he had asked it. I had spent most of my life hiding those feelings from others behind laughter and smiles. Where did this line of questioning come from? In those few seconds I tried to decide if this was a question I wanted to answer honestly or find a way to avoid. I landed on a choice and gave my reluctant response.

"I don't like myself at all. I've never liked myself."

There were only a small number of people who had ever heard my true opinion of myself, but I don't know that I had ever so bluntly stated it. So many feelings rushed through me after I uttered those two sentences. Thoughts were racing. The silence I had created was becoming unbearable.

"Chris, what did you think about me when you first saw me?"

"I don't know, I thought you were pretty cute. ShaRee, I'm sorry you don't feel good about yourself. Can I give you a hug before you go?"

I shook myself out of the memory and went back to unpacking. I was confused by the whole conversation, but I tried not to dwell on it. We had made plans to watch a movie later that night. We always had so much fun whenever we got together. He was the one who probably taught me the most about how to be spontaneous and to get outside of my comfort zone. I expected this night to be no different.

When Chris arrived it was the usual back and forth that happened whenever we were together. Random jokes and laughter. We decided to watch The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. Both of us had read and owned all the books in the LOTR trilogy and were huge fans. The movie had recently come out on DVD and of course we had to watch it even though both of us had seen it multiple times already. As we came to the scene where Arwen comes to the rescue of the recently injured Frodo, Chris made an interesting comment.

"I don't find Liv Tyler attractive at all! In fact, I think she is probably the ugliest person I've ever seen."

I laughed thinking that he was joking. I happen to think that she is a gorgeous woman. He had to be joking. Right? I realized by his reaction that he was, in fact, being serious. I thought back to a game Chris used to play with two of my other roommates. When we would go anywhere they would rate strangers on a scale of 1-10 based on their appearance. Ten, of course, being incredibly attractive and one......well, you get the idea. There was even a day where we were driving somewhere on the freeway and they would hold up signs to the window indicating the rating they had given people in other cars.

"So what would you rate her on your scale?"

Chris thought for only a second and replied, "Four. I would give her a solid four."

I contemplated this rating. He stated that she was the ugliest person and had still given her a four. Did this mean that four was the actual lowest rating? This rating system was different. Since the invention of this "game" I had always wondered if any of them had ever rated me. I had always avoided asking, because I figured I already knew the answer. But he had shown me that he cared about my feelings because of our conversation a month before and he had told me that I was pretty cute. All of this somehow gave me hope that I was safe to ask him.

"Ok, so Liv Tyler, the ugliest person you've ever seen, gets a four. What would you rate me?" I tried to make it sound as innocent and light hearted as I could.

"I'd rate you a five."

The next few minutes were a blur. The ugliest person he's ever seen is a four and I was just rated a five. I'm only one rating better than the ugliest person. So many emotions overcame me. So many thoughts flooded my mind, none of which were new to me. They had been constant companions to me since I was six years old. I became lost in them as the movie played on and before I knew it the movie was over. Chris had fallen asleep on the couch and I was still playing through what had happened in my head and now what I was thinking and feeling. I grabbed my journal and started to write, though I kept my entry generic and happy. In my head my thoughts just kept repeating the same things.

Over and over in my head these thoughts were racing. My brain was stuck on them for the whole movie, while I was writing my journal entry, and well into the early hours of the morning. These thoughts and feelings were very familiar to me, but something happened that night that caused these thoughts to go crazy and my emotions to overwhelm me. Maybe I just needed some sleep.


A few days later things were looking better again. One of my new roommates, Tori, moved in and I was excited to see her. She and another friend, whom I had known in high school, were going to take the empty room left by two of my roommates after they moved out in December. I had met Tori during our first semester as music students. She was also a voice major and was in quite a few of my classes. I was jealous of her beautiful red hair and the confidence with which she carried herself. She had such an infectious laugh and made friends very easily. We had become friends fairly quickly and helped each other through the stress of freshmen year.

Once she had her stuff moved in we sat in her room laughing and munching on candy leftover from Christmas. She began expressing the need to maybe lose a few pounds and suggested that we take on a challenge to see who could go the longest without junk food. We both found ourselves laughing at the thought as we were currently shoveling red and green M&M's into our mouths. However, I found this to be a challenge that I was interested in and we agreed to start the next day.

It was surprisingly easy to stay away from candy and junk food. I had thought it would be more difficult for me than it was. I knew better than to think that it would be this easy the whole time. I was, after all, only on day one. I was in my room putting laundry away when I heard the front door open and saw Tori walk in eating junk food. She saw me as she was mid bite. We just looked at each other and started laughing our heads off.

"You didn't even make it one day?!"

"I know!! You win! I just couldn't resist."

We talked and laughed about it for a few minutes. The more I thought about it though, I decided to keep going. I just wanted to see how long I could actually do it.

I had successfully survived my first week of spring semester. I didn't really like how some of my classes had changed from first semester, but I was pushing through the stress. I had also managed to make it into the Ogden LDS Institute Choir and had been excited to start. Chris had convinced me to audition, as he was also in the choir. I figured it would give me a nice break from my other stressful music classes. I had also been doing really well with my "no junk food" challenge. However, I did find myself questioning whether certain foods were considered junk food or not. I didn't want to accidentally fail the challenge. I had expressed these concerns with Chris. I think he was just as interested to see how long I would last, so he found a way to help me.

January 18, 2004 

Chris decided to make rules for me so that I wouldn't feel like I was cheating all the time. He said I can't eat anything with more than five grams of fat and three grams of sugar. Except for fruits and vegetables. So I went through my cupboard and tried to get rid of everything that was against the rules. I basically can't eat anything.

I was surprised at how bad all the food I had been putting into my body was. I even got rid of some homemade jam my mother had given me. My roommates and Chris claimed everything I couldn't eat. It was almost liberating to get rid of some of the food. Like I was accomplishing something.

That weekend my mom came to visit me and to take me shopping. I was so happy to see her. I had been looking forward to her visit all week. Sometimes a girl just needs her mom. We had so much fun with each other. She took me shopping and we were both thrilled to find that the pant size that I usually fit into was now too big for me. She asked me what I had been doing and I explained the challenge that Tori and I had started. She laughed as I told her about Tori's inability to hold out for even 24 hours. I normally loathe shopping, but being able to try on smaller clothes had me so excited that I didn't want to stop. It was a rare experience for both of us.

That night I was putting all my new clothes away and smiled at how awesome it felt to be in a smaller pant size. It also felt amazing to receive praise on the fact that I had lost some weight. I had spent my whole life being criticized for my weight and now I was getting positive attention for losing weight. It had only been two weeks since starting the challenge and it was crazy how fast I was able to go down a size. It had been a good day.

I began getting ready for bed. When I went to the bathroom I looked at myself in the mirror hoping to see that I could tell I had lost weight. I became discouraged to find that I looked the same as my reflection had always shown me. I looked at myself for a long time in that mirror
when the thoughts began racing again. They just kept going and going. I let out a sigh, turned off the bathroom light, and went to bed.

This is where my story begins.