Penn-Craft woman working to raise awareness about eating disorders

“She was always an overachiever. She graduated with honor chords, she exercised and was involved in dance, she was a cheerleader and the homecoming queen,” she said.

But even before she became a teenager, Alexa Mapstone was struggling on the inside with self-esteem issues that would soon take control of her entire life.

“In grade school, I vividly remember looking around at the other students in my classroom and determined I was the heaviest one in the class,” she said, noting that even though she was an active dancer, that activity often left her anxious, especially when she had to be measured for costumes for the recital.

Going on diets and trying to restrict food at a young age, she began the downward spiral into her eating disorder.

“Every time I felt I ate too much, I would become upset.” Alexa said.

It was her sophomore year at Brownsville Area High School where her thoughts escalated into behaviors and she developed bulimia, an emotional eating disorder resulting in one’s actions of self-induced vomiting, purging or fasting.

“I would make myself sick several times a day, constantly count calories in apps or on paper in class and stuck to a strict workout routine,” she said. “I never really stressed about tests, getting into college or school dances like others my age because I was too occupied on what I was eating and how I could burn off the calories.”

At the time, she didn’t realize that she was doing harm to her body with these behaviors, but she knew she wanted to keep it a secret.

“My senior year is when others started to question my frequent trips to the restroom, and that’s when I realized my behaviors were problematic,” said Alexa, who admitted she had never even heard of an eating disorder until she was asked if she had one.

After googling eating disorders, Alexa realized she had a problem. She tried to stop the behaviors on her own, but had no success. Desperate, she turned to her school guidance counselor.

After talking to him for awhile, she decided to tell her parents.

“When she told us, you could’ve knocked me over. I was absolutely shocked,” said her mother, Andrea Mapstone.

Andrea Mapstone said she went in to see the school counselor and said she felt like a terrible mom because she never even had a clue about her daughter’s struggles.

“She always liked to eat, but we are a family of eaters, so I never thought it was any big deal,” Andrea Mapstone said.

The counselor suggested Alexa get some outside counseling and the family found a counselor with Western Psych.

“I told her I wanted to support her, but I just didn’t know how,” Andrea Mapstone said. “She would talk about trigger foods, and every Friday night has always been pizza night in our house. She said pizza was a trigger food and then I would wonder if we could have pizza ever again.”

Visiting a counselor together helped Andrea Mapstone better understand the disease and what her daughter was facing.

“Once I got educated, all of the myths and stereotypes you have in your head about people with eating disorders just go away,” she said. “I had no idea that you could be heavy and have an eating disorder.

“One thing that really struck me when we visited the counselor is when she said that Alexa was unusual because she knew on her own that she had a problem and made the decision to tell us,” Andrea Mapstone said. “That’s not usually the case.”

Alexa said that while she was in counseling, she learned that she could die if she stayed on the path she was on.

“I didn’t want to die, so I chose to commit to recovery, and I have been in recovery since 2013,” said Alexa, now 23. “Overcoming bulimia is the hardest challenge I will ever experience.

“During the beginning of my recovery, I felt like two people were in my head constantly arguing — one person was the disorder and the other was recovery,” Alexa Mapstone added. “My disorder will affect the way I see myself and my eating patterns for the rest of my life, but each day it gets easier.”

Through recovery, Alexa has become passionate about eating disorder awareness and positive body image and even started an eating disorder support group at California University of Pennsylvania.

“I’ve had the opportunity to talk on local radio stations, present to local schools and other organizations to bring more awareness and break the stigma surrounding eating disorders,” Alexa said. “After graduating college I wanted to continue spreading awareness, so I started Piece with Peace, which is an online support group dedicated to promoting positive body image, healthy relationships with food and self-love.”

Alexa said she feels bringing awareness to the disorder is so important in trying to prevent others from stepping into it.

“Listen to the conversations around you,” she said. “People talk so negatively about themselves and others. I think people talk about food, weight and diets way too much — those are things — they cannot talk, hug or love. Shouldn’t we spend more time on people we love or activities that make us feel our best?”

Andrea Mapstone said the single most important piece of advice she could give any parent whose child is struggling with an eating disorder is to get them into counseling.

“Find somebody who is educated on the subject and go with your child on the first visit,” she said. “Just be as supportive as you can, educate yourself and just love them. Everyone suffers from something. I’m just so thankful that Alexa caught herself before she got to the point where she couldn’t stop.”