Editor’s note: Ellie Herman, of Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania, wrote this essay for the Project Fully Human movement and wanted to share it for readers of the Sunbury, Pennsylvania Daily Item.

Why? They always ask about what started it. What caused it? Then the word changes to “trigger.” What triggered it? Like a gun. But that’s not how the mind works.

The shot of a gun is an instantaneous thing; one minute there is a bullet in a chamber, and the next minute it’s gone and speeding through the air. The mind isn’t like that. The mind takes a less direct route to change itself, so being able to tell them what triggered your eating disorder is difficult.

I cannot say I remember a time when things did start to change exactly, but I know there were certain changes I began to make that surely affected the way I lived my life then and now.

I became a bit more health conscious than I had been before. I loved a challenge of will power then. I became more aware of the nutrition facts of the foods I typically ate too, and began to limit myself.

Running became one of my favorite pastimes, and I’d work hard to push myself for the annual July Fourth 5k run. This was not necessarily in order to lose weight or control my appearance but, rather, to control what I was eating to be healthier.

I developed a love of vegetables, a fear of fat, and a sense of pride found through self-denial.

There were obvious signs that I was in trouble that I chose to ignore.

I began to tear pieces of gum in half. Five calories seemed like a lot for just a stick of gum.

I stopped eating yogurt at lunch and brought vegetables instead. I looked up the calorie counts of the meals my favorite restaurants sold.

One time we went to TGI Friday’s unexpectedly. When I returned home, I learned that my salmon salad had had 700 calories. I remember the panic that started in my stomach with my digesting greens… 700… 700… That was far too much.

I jumped on the elliptical for a 500-calorie workout.

And I lived the life of an anorexic for about 6 months, and I lost a lot of weight. I saw a therapist and a nutritionist, hit my target weight again, and “recovered.”

I went to college and lost it all, plus more. For four years I lived at a dangerously low weight, would gain some for a little while, and then exercise it all off again.

My last day of anorexia was May 24, 2015. It was the day I walked across a platform at Albright College, shook hands with the president, and was given a diploma.

Four years of tough classes and work and only eating vegetables finally commencing in a Bachelor’s degree and the highest honors from the school. Great job, Ellie.

Driving home the next day, I was hungry. I knew there would be a lot of food at my parents’ house (my house) that I had not allowed myself to eat in a long, long time.

It was exciting to think, cruising down Interstate 81, that I could, if I wanted to, eat the popcorn my grandma makes, the macaroni and cheese my mom makes, the burgers my brother would grill. If I wanted to, I could eat those things.

It was the oddest conversation to be having with oneself while driving, granting yourself permission to eat a big lunch. Contemplating what it would be like if you just started, right now, today, to eat what you wanted when you wanted it. Imagining what macaroni and cheese would taste like.

The conversation had hit a lull when I pulled into my driveway, but my mind and body had already decided that the days of emptiness and frailness were going to come to a fast close.

Eating was so fun.

Apparently the world continued to spin despite my eating lots, so I awoke the next morning with a bit of a stomach ache but also an ache for something more: freedom. I did not want to wake up every day wondering how best to avoid sugar or how best to eat little when out with friends. I wanted to be able to wake up each morning wondering what the day would bring, be it relaxation or carbohydrates.

And that day I ate again. I ate all sorts of things that my silly mind had deemed inedible for my self-control before. I marveled in the tastes and textures of the forbidden fruits of my young adult life.

And some days I went to restaurants without nutrition information.

And some days I went to parties and ate all night long.

And some days I ate too much and my stomach resented me.

And some days I ate what my brain decided was too much and I resented me.

But, each day, I found it getting easier to eat. Though eating is one of the first things we do as infants, it had become one of my weakest skills. The hardest part was seeing what that eating was doing to my perfectly sculpted abs and too-skinny waist.

When you use a shovel to dig a hole, the easiest way to fill the hole again is to use the shovel in reverse. To combat my desire to stop eating, I learned to use the tools I had used to get into my eating disordered mind. I talked to myself.

I told myself lots of things every morning and every night.

I told myself that my tummy was not really protruding. I told myself I was more bloated than anything. I told myself that buying bigger clothes would be fun — I love to shop, after all.

I told myself that, really, my thigh gap was useless and mourning its death was pointless. I told myself that clean eating was unhealthy. I told myself that I was not full. I told myself that my body needed sugar. I told myself that not seeing my collarbone was attractive. I told myself that the number on the scale would be bigger but that it was supposed to be. I told myself that I did not need to weigh myself anymore.

That was the trick. The way I talk to myself dictated how I would behave. If I spoke to myself as I would a friend or loved one, I behaved in the way I would want a friend or loved one to behave: I lived and I laughed.

And I ate peanut butter and I ate chocolate.