Convinced that obsessive dieting wasn’t enough (in addition to the fact that dieting doesn’t and didn’t work), I tried to compensate for my perceived failure by being the best in every other area of my life. I did whatever it took to ensure I had the highest grades, tried to be the best at every sport my parents enrolled me in (there were dozens), and overex­tended myself in every area of life to the point of having nervous break­downs . . . simply because I felt “just being myself” wasn’t good enough. I was certain that I was deeply flawed because my body never looked like the “ideal bodies” that I idolised in every magazine I read. I spent my life constantly feeling sorry for my close friends, often pitying them for be­ing forced to endure the company of my body just so they could hang out with the rest of me. I internalised every lie that told me I was undeserving of happiness and dated people who reinforced my negative self-views, eventually finding a long-term partner who left me because I had gained weight over the years we had been together. It was only after this final, soul-crushing relationship that I found a way to halt my self-harm: I experienced the radical revelation that there might be another way to live.