Meet my dark side.

Have you ever seen someone like this and wondered; “What on earth is going on inside your head?!” … “Why don’t you just EAT” … “Have you SEEN what you look like?!” …

I used to think the same things – that is until I found myself on the receiving end of the very same questions I used to ask.

I am going to attempt to give you an insight into what it is like living with this condition and what goes on up in the noggin!

* I also just want to add that some of the things I am going to say about the thoughts of someone with an eating disorder are not particularly pleasant and may cause some offense *

At the start you feel in perfect control and like nothing can stop you. You feel powerful and strong and supreme. You enjoy exercising your new-found willpower and get satisfaction from restricting your intake and pushing your body to the limits. It is rewarding and you feel invincible.

Then everyone starts getting on your case and starts questioning you. This is so frustrating and you wish everyone would just leave you alone in peace to do as you please. What do they know anyway? They are just fat.

You don’t have a problem, everyone else does. So you just keep on going; obeying your master for fear of punishment.

Then one day it may hit you that you are not the same as you once were and the differences are stark. But it all happened so gradually, the boundaries are blurry and it’s hard to tell what is really ‘you’. Now you get really lightheaded all of a sudden when you stand up, you are constantly cold and just can’t warm up or, when someone suggests that you go to school in the car instead of walking, you start to cry uncontrollably.

You begin to feel lonely and helpless but the only thing that gives you comfort and a drive to carry on is the very monster that started the whole thing in the first place. So you keep on obeying it because that’s what you are used to and that’s what gives you purpose.

Eventually matters are taken out of your own hands and you find yourself being force-fed mars bars and milkshakes and whopping great slices of pie that you had worked so hard to abstain from for so long. You are thrown in the deep end and feel alienated. You hate every mouthful of food but have no choice in the matter.

Now your new purpose in life is to gain weight and keep on gaining until you just can’t take it anymore but everyone around you says “you look so much better” and “It’s lovely to see some colour in your cheeks again” but this is a stab in the heart to you and you interpret it as “I am fat. I am normal. Everyone thinks I’m better”.

Despite all the therapy you have been to, all the calories you have consumed and all the time you have spent in isolation you are NOT better and the beast lives on inside waiting to erupt again as soon as it can.

And that is exactly what it does.

Your life becomes an endless cycle of loosing and gaining. Doctors appointments. SCALES. NUMBERS. Tears. Food. Hospitals. Therapy. Medication. Calories. LIES. Interrupted schooling and loneliness.

You are at war with yourself, with your family and with the professionals. No one has a solution and you prepare yourself for the reality that this is what your life will be like forever.

I used to think this would be forever but I’m beginning to see the light. I feel like I have emerged from a deep, dark sleep and am beginning to push away the clouds and let the sunlight in.

I still have niggly thoughts in my mind and there are still many times when I look in the mirror and wish I looked like ‘the old me’ but I have to remind myself that I wasn’t happy with how I looked then either and body image is probably always going to be a struggle for me.

There are old habits that are still ingrained in me and many fears that I have yet to conquer but if I could have seen myself how I am now a year ago I would not have believed we are the same person.

Eating disorders are not a choice. You do not wake up one day and decide to be living hell in order to get skinny. It is a mental illness and it is by far the HARDEST thing I have ever been faced with in my life.

I am becoming a lot more open about it and am finding it a great release to openly discuss my issues.

Thank you to everyone who reads my blogs and to all those who have been there for me through thick and thin.

Finally, I would advise everyone to heed the counsel of my pajama top! :

… You never know who is struggling.

R x x x

*P.s, if you have any questions, please feel free to ask 🙂