The NYJC Factor

Ryanryan had been really thinking very hard about when the depression and/or (or perhaps, even simultaneously) the eating disorder set into his life. It seemed like everything started all the way back in 2005.

Well, i definitely HAVE been dieting for most of 2004 (for the one and only time in my entire life when severe calorie restriction down to less than 1000cals has been successful) during my secondary 4 year, but i think i was carrying enough excess weight that the side effects of dieting, like exhaustion and stuff, didn't set in. At that time, i was dieting to lose weight (vanity!), lower my blood pressure (a shocking discovery during a health check-up) and to prepare to reinvent myself for the change to junior college. And boy did it work; i started off at 85kg and slimmed down to 60kg at the end of the year. All was good... so far.

I had great pals (hey JiaYing, WeiMing, YaoYee and Shaun!), felt good about myself, and everything.

When January 2005 rolled around, i headed off to NYJC (Nanyang Junior College) with my hopes up and all revved up to go being The Popular Person (as opposed to being the Fat Funny Sidekick). It worked totally great at 1st. I had a ton of fun during January, with the group of people in my orientation group (the orientation week was SUPER fun as well). It seemed like, for once, i shed my Fat Boy image and had everything going for me.

But not all good things last. The group split up into different classes (according to the subject combinations we have chosen) and i ended up pretty much flung back to square one. I felt kind of lost (with lots of my group pals in another class, and me frequently hanging out with their class instead of mine; i chose the Physics, Chemistry, Maths C and Further Maths combination, which ended up with me in a class of smart nerds, eekness) and channeled my energy into improving my physique. You see, i never truly got off The Diet since i never had a goal weight in mind; i guess, at the back of my head, i figured the only way to maintain this weight is to eat this way for the rest of my life.

So i started cutting classes to hit the gym. As well as starting to obsess more over my fat grams, and then moved on to my calories when i ran out of fat grams to cut.

The dieting might have led to depression also. I dimly recall (but mom and dad still remembers) quite a few days when i simply broke down on the way to school (on public transportation), crying for no reason other than feeling an overwhelming wave of sadness and longing for the past. The depression remained for much of the year; heck, i may not even have 'recovered' from it, since i ended up with a more serious problem (the eating disorder) to deal with.

By March, my GCE O level results were out and i thought that by plucking my roots up and transferring over to ACJC (Anglo-Chinese Junior College), i'd be able to start anew again. But the calorie counting and exercising still remained (i didn't see my obsessiveness being a problem). You could pretty much predict what happened after that. Orientation was kind of fun (though not as great as my 1st one in NYJC) and then i felt kind of left out again after that, and back into the developing eating disorder i plunged, subconsciously believing that it's just a matter of losing more weight before i became Mr Popular.

And at May, mom convinced me to go see a psychologist. I agreed, since i saw the signs of depression for myself. Final diagnosis? Anorexia nervosa. How fun.