Reasons to recover from your eating disorder
Up until very recently, I didn’t ever imagine, nor did I want to imagine, that the chapter of my life entitled ‘Anorexia’ would come to an end. I genuinely thought that I would be living with an overwhelming and all-consuming eating disorder for the rest of my life. I saw no way of being able to deal with life without using one of the many unhealthy coping mechanisms that my eating disorder provided me with. But in reality, one of the reasons that I felt that I was continuously having to ‘deal’ with life instead of living my life, was due to my eating disorder. My refusal to recover only increased the things I had to deal with. I had created one of MANY vicious cycles in my life.
The following is a very brief summary of my eating disorder.
A few months before my 14th birthday I was diagnosed with Anorexia Nervosa and Clinical Depression.
A few months after that I stopped attending school and spent all day in bed.
A few months after that I was hospitalized as a full time inpatient in an adolescent eating disorder ward.
A few months after that I became a day patient, meaning I was allowed to sleep at home but spent all day in hospital.
A few months after that I started a new school and continued therapy 2 times a week. I had to leave school everyday to go eat lunch with my mum.
My eating disorder continued to rule my life.
A few years after that I was discharged from all psychiatric care.
A few months after that I was back in care.
I started university and gained the classic freshers pounds.
A few months after that I went on an extreme diet.
A few months after that I was back in full blown anorexia, seeing a new psychiatrist and two different therapists.
Over the next four years I would get slightly better and then worse again, over and over.
The reason that this process never ended is partially because I never wanted to recover. I wanted to be ill. I wanted to be extremely underweight. I wanted to be able to deal with everything about life that I found so difficult. After nearly ten years of suffering, falling in and out of relapses, self harm, suicide attempts, being diagnosed with BPD and constantly trying to reach an unobtainable level of complete perfection, I finally decided that enough was enough. This cannot, and will not be my life.
From leaving hospital in 2021 (after a months stay in the addiction ward) to now (April 2023) I am finally truly healing my relationship with food and exercise and experiencing food freedom!
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A couple years ago, in the Christmas period of 2018-19, during one of my recovery attempts, I was reflecting on how I could possibly have let myself live this way for so long. I wrote a piece, describing how anorexia came to rule my life. I hope that through reading this you might be able to catch a glimpse into my former life and you might even be able to relate or better understand what a loved one is going through. Whilst what I describe below might be triggering, I think that it is important for you to read in order to see how this is NOT a life, this is not even living, this is just existing. And to be honest, existing seems like too generous of a description.
‘Anorexia became my entire reason for being. It was my anything and my everything. Not a second could go by without me thinking about food, weight and my body. It was all encompassing and totally seductive. Anorexia was who I was. Whether the people around me could tell or not, in my mind the only thing that I could define myself by was my eating disorder. I lived and breathed it. I never thought of myself as having any talents, passions or interests aside from my eating disorder. I didn’t think I was good at anything, except losing weight and maintaining strict and extreme control of my food intake. But it goes so far beyond just food. A starving body creates a starving mind, where nothing makes sense and nothing other than your eating disorder behaviors can console you. It is an anxious mind, one that creates fear around everything and one that strives for complete isolation. For when you are isolated, you can focus even more on achieving anorexia’s deathly goals.’
To put it simply, anorexia is a death sentence. It is a complete dead end.
Around the same time I also wrote the following.
‘I could feel myself sinking lower and lower, feeling emptier and more lost every day. I was completely suicidal and felt as if I really had hit complete rock bottom this time. There was no way out and every second of every day I was in panic mode, terrified of my own mind. There was just no way that things could go on like this. Towards the end of some of the scariest weeks of my life, I had some sort of realization of what a massive wakeup call this had been. In a letter to my psychiatrist accounting the horrors of the holiday, I wrote the following;
I hate depression, I hate that I contemplate taking my life nearly every day, I hate that I don’t see life as beautiful and full of opportunity, I hate that I have to think of things as having end goals and am not just able to enjoy life right now, I hate that I cry all the time, I hate that I don’t feel good enough at anything or for anyone, I hate that I get anxious, I hate that I have scars from self-harm all over my body, I hate that I hate my body, I hate that socializing is an effort for me, I hate that I feel lonely, I hate that I make people sad or scared, I hate that I can’t go and have lunch or diners with people because urgh obviously calories! And I hate that I am so scared of my own mind.’
I had finally reached a point where after 8 years of suffering I knew that this could not go on. I knew that if I chose to recover and make a conscious effort every moment of everyday to get better, that I could have the most incredible life. Your life can be whatever you want it to be, and I certainly did not want it to be defined by fear and hate. It was a revelation for me as I finally saw recovery as an option, and not just recovery from my eating disorder but recovery from a completely corrupted sense of self. I realized that I just had to stop living my life in such an artificial way and go back to how I was before I ever got ill. Stop prioritizing being thin and pretty and popular when everything on the inside is falling apart. I was trying so hard to be this perfect person for everyone else to see, without thinking about who I really was on the inside. I didn’t feel like a real person because for so long EVERYTHING had been an act for me and that had become completely normal! I felt as if I had no talents and no aspirations because I let all my energy go into creating a perfect image. Ever since I was little I had been trying to be this perfect and unattainable person, forgetting or dismissing who I already was because I never thought I was good enough at anything or that anything I would do or say would be valued by anyone else. I always thought that all the pain would just eventually pass and that everything would turn out fine but I never actually tried to tackle the problems I had. From this moment on I knew that I wanted to be a better person, because how could I expect to help anyone else when I never allowed anyone to help me.
Unfortunately, whilst I was clearly and consciously thinking all of these things, I never ended up putting them into practice and went through another 3 years of extreme suffering. I was still at university at this point and in a toxic relationship where all my behaviors were being enabled and praised. It was simply not possible for me to recover, no matter how badly I wanted it. However, I still thought it was important to include these pieces of writing as they still stand true. I wish that I had been stronger at that point and able to fight my way out of the dark place I was in, but I wasn’t.
I am now in a place in my life where all the things I had written have come true and I am leading the life I dreamed of - free (for the most part) from the demons of anorexia. Of course I still struggle, but the difference in my life and me as a person is completely unbelievable. So, if you are looking for a reason to recover, or to start your journey towards recovery, I hope that this might just inspire you to do so.
Here is a list of things that I have been able to gain through recovering from anorexia and they are things that you will be able to gain too!
Recognition and control over your own mind – become yourself and not your eating disorder
Rediscover yourself – who you are outside of your eating disorder, your interest, talents and aspirations. You will discover a sense of purpose and be able to pursue your life goals
Trust in your body – you will trust your body and your body will trust you – fullness, hunger cues, satisfaction
Self-awareness – be aware of your feelings, your thoughts and your emotions
Your hair and skin – your hair will grow longer and thicker and your skin will adopt a healthy glow
Friends and family – although your friends and family may have always been there for you, you can now be there for them, both emotionally and physically – you can share in memories and fully participate in life!
Wisdom – Just as I now feel strong enough to help you recover, one day you might be able to do the same for others
Discovery – with your new mind and body you will be able to discover new things, both food related and not. Everything that your eating disorder prevented you from doing will now be available to you!
Hope – hope for the future, hope for yourself, hope for others and hope for life
FREEDOM
Energy – this ties in to every other aspect of what you will gain as you will finally have the energy to live your life to the fullest
I chose recovery so that I no longer had to hear the voice of my eating disorder criticizing and controlling every aspect of my life. I chose recovery so that I could have a life, and one that was full of adventure, happiness and possibility. I chose recovery so that I could look to the future and know that I had one. I chose recovery because it is the only way forward, and there was no way I was going to go backwards.