An application to Journalism School with a mission

Host intro: In the next of our series of personal commentaries…Sometimes big life decisions come in clusters. When reporter Flora Warshaw  planned to apply to Columbia Journalism School, she also confronted a hidden problem. A heads up to our listeners that this story discusses eating disorders. 

Warshaw:

The last time I was in New York for an extended period of time was a two month trip in the summer of 2022. Many of my friends had internships in the city and I figured I wasn't doing anything else, so why not tag along. I climbed the white spiral staircase of the Guggenheim, danced until the sun came up and my feet were raw in a dodgy dive bar, sunbathed in central park until my skin tinted red. Yet all I really remember from that summer was I was hungry. Really hungry.

I was entering my second year of an eating disorder I wasn't even conscious of. It was just something I lived with. I made sure to never isolate myself from meals or events. I would still eat a burger or pizza for lunch. It just meant I wouldn't have dinner. I ignored comments from friends and family regarding my eating habits and weight. It felt simple really. If you’d asked me then, I would have said I was my happy and bubbly self. Life was good! It was all under control. 

Yet while other 21 year olds drifted off to sleep imagining their dream boyfriends or holiday destinations, I would run through what I had eaten that day and tally up the calories. My goal was a very specific and low number. It represented control and discipline. Satisfaction in a dissatisfied life. I felt hunger pains but I liked that feeling. It meant I was doing something correctly.

It’s hard now to remember exactly what caused me to base my self worth on how little i was able to consume. I do know it started in lockdown. I had returned from a failed gap year trip to Madagascar where I was a teased urban princess, confronted with picking cockroaches off her toothbrush every morning. Did I mention I had also just been dumped?? 20 pounds heavier and miserable. I thought back to my thriving high school days. I was truly happy. I had a great social life, a boyfriend, plans on the horizon. So surely if I lost 20 pounds, I’d feel that true happiness once again. 

No one will be surprised to hear that my grand plan didn't work. I lost the weight and then some but my body was so desperately trying to hold onto any source of energy, so if I were to go back to eating regularly, there would be an inevitable weight gain. I was stuck in an impossible cycle. 

That is until a friend studying at the Columbia Journalism School snuck me in for a tour that New York summer. So for one hour on an excruciatingly hot July day, I wandered the quiet, marbled floors. I gasped in excitement peering into audio recording booths, spotting microphones and mixing boards that I’ve now come to love. I remember taking a photo of the view from an upstairs classroom, a dazzling blue sky overlooking an upper west side skyline.I I made it my lockscreen: a permanent reminder whenever I glanced down that I had a purpose. I would go to journalism school! I would move to New York! I had a dream I could now focus on. It was like a little white light had gone off at the back of my head because with that acknowledgement, I realised something had to change. If I wanted to apply to such a prestigious institution I couldn’t leave my university library at 3pm everyday because I was too tired and hungry to focus. The lightbulb was dim but with time it grew. 

My grades were suffering and my jeans were falling down. And so that following December I drove home 8 hours from my university, walked into my family home and confessed everything I had been struggling with for the past few years. When I finally said the words “I think something is wrong”,  it was like I had been holding my breath for two years and someone had finally given me permission to breathe.  

People think you never truly recover from an eating disorder but I would beg to differ. 

Nearly three years, a nutritionist and a therapist later, I’m genuinely happy and bubbly but now I'm healthy too. My friends know me for having a constant supply of twizzlers and starburst in my fridge. I’ll wake my boyfriend up on a Sunday morning begging to go out for a bacon egg and cheese. I don’t want anyone to hear my story and pity me or look at me differently. That New York summer seems a distant memory,  tinged with sadness for a girl I don't recognise. But even three years later, I am reminded of her determination. And I’m happy to tell you more of her story - over lunch.