Life Map
By Kayla Mitchell | IG: @kayyymitchell
1. Perfectionism
I have been a perfectionist for as long as I can remember. This served me in so many ways that were beneficial for so long that this became second nature. I always was a teacher's pet in school, doing every extra credit assignment possible to get near perfect grades, staying after practices if I had a “bad day”, and needing leadership positions in every extracurricular activity I participated in. However, this perfectionism in combination with other life events allowed me to hyper fixate on my body image and comparison with others, and increased a desire to be in a perfect body.
2. Family Influence
Growing up, I was in a household with a big, tight knit Italian family that loved celebration, cooking, and food. I was constantly surrounded by family traditions that involved Italian classics and always told me that they had a spot for me in the kitchen. However, within this celebration lies my aunt, who struggles with an eating disorder bringing her own foods to celebrations and making comments to my sister and I about what we were eating and how “disgusting'' we were. Although my parents have always shut her down, diet culture has always made its way into my house growing up. Growing up my mom took me to weight watchers with her and then bought me a membership later down the line, supplied me with a fast results recommended personal trainer when I asked for one upon doing a pageant, both parents going through waves of different fad diets, and the pantries permeated by “fat-free” and “low calorie” labels fueling my fear of anything that wasn’t considered “healthy”.
3. Masterchef
In fifth grade I went away to California to film Masterchef Junior after rounds of auditions and practicing different skills. After filming, when the show aired in January 2016 I was constantly surrounded by societal pressures and expectations. Being told I was a role model for my community was a positive thing, until it drove me to constantly feel like I was being watched in my small town. With this traction I created my business “Cooking with the Mitchell Girlz” and have constantly been surrounded by and taunted by the things we would create. As the years went on, the recipes got more fun and exciting, but my love for enjoying the food created got less and less.
4. Lacrosse
I have been playing lacrosse since I was in the fourth grade and it has always served me as a way to cultivate community, have the adrenaline rush from scoring a goal or defending someone's best player, and a way for me to showcase my leadership skills. Over the years lacrosse and my relationship to it became confusing and complicated. With high expectations from my coaches, intense practices, training that had to occur outside of practices, traveling for tournaments, although an enjoyable experience, this consumed my life. As the body conscious thoughts and disordered eating began, lacrosse fueled my desire to exercise everyday, and upon having a bad practice or no practice at all fueled me to go to the gym and compensate. Upon committing to my college to play lacrosse as a college athlete, but as situations in my family life became increasingly more stressful and out of my control it took a toll on my mental health and increased my restriction. As a result the playing time initially promised suffered as did my feelings of unworthiness, causing me to begin overexercising in a very unhealthy manner. After getting pulled aside by my team captains and athletic trainer in March of my freshman year, threatening my ability to play if I didn’t start improving my eating habits, it didn’t stop me. Going into sophomore year I used “training for lacrosse” as my excuse as to why I would be exercising so often and although being told I needed to eat x amount to continue playing by my coaches, therapist, teammates, and trainer, having to do weekly blood work, vitals, and weights, I still found myself lying, restricting, and continuing the cycle until I was eventually pulled from the sport.
5. Social Media
Social media has always been a part of my life beginning with Masterchef when I had to make an Instagram account to keep my fans engaged in my content. After that account, I created a personal Instagram too where I began to follow fitness and cooking accounts thinking my feed was filled with what I perceived as a healthy lifestyle, but was not. My senior year of high school I created my own fitness/health account where I would post my workouts, what I was “eating”, pictures of my friends at restaurants where the girl behind the camera was left with an empty plate, and progress pictures and videos constantly being praised for my body as it got smaller and smaller.
6. Obsession with diet culture
After being surrounded by diet culture throughout my childhood, the “new year new me” mentality was constantly perpetuated too. I took this into my own hands my 8th grade year where I purchased my first fitness app that provided me with both a workout and fitness plan. This propelled my cycle into experimenting with all different fitness apps, diets, and accelerated my obsession with weight loss. Constantly restricting different foods, I had a fear of eating things I wasn’t cooking, preparing, and/or measuring. My feed was filled with diet culture, talks about good and bad foods, and restriction, and perpetuated my need to constantly be eating healthy and having a sense of control with food.
7. Wearing a Mask, Running Myself Down
Throughout these feelings of being lost, out of control, unworthy, insecure, and frustrated I perceived asking for help as a weakness. Even in classes I would struggle in, I never would admit to anyone that I needed a tutor. To everyone I was perfectly fine; constantly smiling, being outgoing and friendly as usual, upholding my responsibilities, to everyone else I seemed fine. However, to myself I knew I was wearing a mask, and underneath the mask that wore a smile, I was rundown and slowly withering.
