2026 Awardee – Grace Boyle – Maple Mountain High School HS

My Journey With Ed

All growing up I had struggled with body image and mental health in some form. I had struggled with medical anxiety in elementary school, which had come from kidney infections that made it so I was constantly sick from ages 6-9 and resulted in a big correction surgery at 9 years old. I had depression that started in sixth grade and made my middle school years really hard. But the hardest thing that I’ve ever been through is my eating disorder.

The summer before sophomore year of high school, I started going to the gym in efforts to look better. It was pretty innocent at first, and I would go with friends just to the nearby rec center. I also put in more of an effort to eat healthier, but I would still say yes to treats and snacks that I enjoyed. 

In September, I started having an exercise addiction. I would feel guilty if I was ever sitting down and resting. I remember constantly doing something to work my body. I also started losing interest in the things that I used to love. I would eat lunch alone and hang out with my friends less because I didn’t have the “social battery” anymore. I was always more introverted than extroverted, but I was usually pretty energetic, and I had never had this low of energy. 

I have a condition called Eosinophilic Esophagitis (EOE), and because of that I was put on an elimination diet. I had to start by cutting out gluten and dairy, and I saw this as a great opportunity to eat healthier. Slowly, I began to start watching what I was eating more and more, and I would purposely make my meals lower in calories. 

I remember finding out that I had lost some weight, and it made me excited, so I pushed even harder. My family went on a trip to the Redwoods for Christmas Break. It was probably the most beautiful place I had ever been, but the only thing that I could think about was food or my body. I had so much anxiety around food, and the lack of food caused me to be very irritable and grumpy all of the time. 

My family moved from Provo to Spanish Fork, and I began to become addicted to perfection. My grades went from mediocre to perfect because I decided that I needed to be perfect in all areas of my life. I didn’t have any friends in my new area, and I was solely focused on my body. I would absolutely tear myself apart and work as hard as I could to lose weight. I didn’t even realize what I was doing to my body. I was freezing cold all of the time, and had a constant pain in my abdomen. I had to take breaks on the way up the stairs because I just had no energy, yet I still pushed myself by always making my body move. I started to black out when I would get up from my bed in the morning. Even at my smallest, I looked in the mirror and didn’t see any difference from where I had started. 

On March 5, 2025, I had a doctor’s appointment to check up on how my EOE was doing. They took my vitals, and decided to send me to the ER because my heart was in a critical state. I was now diagnosed anorexic. They were able to get me an open bed in their hospital, and I was bed bound. They had constant monitors on my vitals, especially my heart. My every move was monitored and watched, and they started to feed me. I was on a very specific meal plan, and had to eat every single meal. It felt like the end of the world. My stomach had shrunk, so eating the same amount of a toddler even hurt my stomach. But worse, the noise in my head was louder than ever. 

I was at the hospital for a week while they watched my heart, gave me electrolytes through an IV, and fed me. I experienced something called “refeeding syndrome”, which is a potentially fatal condition that occurs to malnourished people who are refeeding, and their electrolytes have severe, rapid shifts. I had an open bed at Center For Change waiting for me, but I refused to go, I did not want to get better. 

I had been given a meal plan for when I got home that would have my parents cook every meal for me, I had to eat at the same times every day, the same amount, and I could not be in the kitchen or have any say in what I was going to eat. No exercise at all. I hated this plan, I was terrified of it. I would cry, scream and throw things at every meal. I felt trapped in this place where I wasn’t allowed to live my own life, and everything was being controlled by someone else. 

After months of recovery, I was slowly given back my freedom. Now (January, 2026), I am at a point where I have the freedom to choose what to do and what to eat, and I feel so much better. I want to say that I am recovered from this, but I’m not. I still have fear foods that I haven’t challenged, I still think about food and my body most of the time, and I still struggle so much with body image. But it is better, and it is continuing to get better. I have found that the most helpful thing throughout this whole journey has been mindfulness. I have learned how to be present in the little moments and let go of the grip that this sickness has had over me. Even if it has just been for a few minutes.

Recovery isn’t one and done, I have had so many setbacks and times that I have relapsed. But through this experience I have been able to slowly realize that this isn’t the life that I want for myself. I want to be able to be present in these precious moments that I only get to live once, and I don’t want to be thinking about food or my body in those moments. I want to be happy, and anorexia or the perfect body can’t bring me happiness. 

I’m grateful for what my eating disorder (we call him Ed) has taught me. Even though it has been the hardest thing I have ever been through, I have grown a much more beautiful perspective of the world because of it. I have learned to have grace for myself because I am not meant to be perfect. I have never been able to feel this amount of compassion for others, and I want to share it. I will now be graduating high school in May of 2026 as a Junior, and I am working to become a nurse so that I can help people who are struggling, because I have been there. There really is a light at the end of the tunnel, but there is also light right now, I’m just learning to look.