Nicole Starbuck

Stress Size Nicole Starbuck

Go to school, get good grades, have a job with great pay and excellent benefits, and everything will be fine--or so I thought.

When I graduated from university and immediately secured a prestigious position as an assistant store manager at a retail store, I thought I was on my way to the top of the corporate ladder. Instead, I quickly hit rock bottom.

Anxious, stressed out, and overworked, I started controlling every aspect of my life from each calorie I consumed to every penny I spent. But as my dress size shrank, my stress size grew.

What I didn't realize was the more tightly I tried to hold onto control, the more it spiraled away from me. It took waking up in an emergency room after a massive panic attack to realize how I'd allowed my desire for control to consume me.

This is the story of how my hunger for control almost killed me.