Why Don't You Just Eat?

I don’t know what I’ll do If I get asked again ‘Do you want to get better?’ ‘Do you want a new job?’ or the worst ‘Why can’t you just eat?’ These are the questions I keep getting asked by my family. They keep saying that EVERYONE is getting frustrated and annoyed with me because they say ‘You’re an intelligent girl; you know what you need to do.’ I know I have a degree, I know I haven’t always restricted my diet to the extent I did this year and I know I haven’t always been this underweight, but the sooner they realise I have felt like this for A LOT longer than they have known the better. The sooner they might be able to understand why I CANT JUST EAT.

The hardest thing at the moment is they can only understand the physical sides of anorexia, they keep going on and on about how ‘they don’t believe it’s this psychological.’ That my treatment is focusing too much on all that ‘psychological stuff’ and that I need to just eat. K asked if I ‘get told off’ for maintaining my weight and not gaining this week and she can’t understand why I don’t get ‘in trouble’ for not gaining a huge amount of weight.  

I keep getting asked if I want to get better. YES, of course I do, that’s why I am going to my appointments, it’s why I am going through this battle, it’s why I am sat at my parents, not in my own home. If I didn’t want to get better, I wouldn’t have said anything, I wouldn’t go to meetings and I wouldn’t be drinking Fortisip, eating food or listening to my apparently ‘intelligent self’. I don’t think they are trying to understand (and I don’t expect them to fully understand!) that recovery is an exhausting battle which is trying to restore my weight and health physically but trying to re-build my mental health by teaching me to accept my body, my weight and to build a better relationship with food. Basically, re-teaching the last 10 years of my life.

Dismissing and trivialising of the psychological aspects of anorexia hits me like a bullet, it completely makes me feel pathetic and it makes me feel like I am making it up, that it is trivial and easy to beat. It makes me feel thick and weak for not ‘just getting better’ and it makes me feel like I should know what I want from life. I don’t. I don’t know what I am fighting for, other than health right now. But in order to fight for my health I have to fight off Ana, I have to fight off anxiety, obsessions and fear – and trust that it will be worth it.  I have to leave a place where I feel safe and warm and in control and run and leap in to the freezing cold sea and swim for dear life.

They don’t seem to want to accept that I have presented them with a ‘happy’ me for so long, but I haven’t felt like that inside. I can see that is hard for them, I get that – it’s the way I felt when an old friend told me she had and ED a few years ago and even I hadn’t noticed. It made me feel horrific for not noticing her pain, 

But that’s the biggest danger of eating disorders, they makes you good at ‘sucking it up’ at hiding your feelings and amazing at pretending you’re fine. Because Ana always CONVINCES you and everyone around you, that you ARE fine. It’s just the way I am, I just like to be healthy and in control and I don’t like chocolate. 

I was obviously good at it, because everyone around me isn’t accepting just how long this has been going on. I just wish they'd believe me. 

POEM: If I Were Thin

A poem written after a session at the EDU with Ms. F and after a day thinking about HOW I got here, what keeps me here and the thought processes that have been with me my whole life. Through my work at the EDU and with my psychotherapist I am becoming more aware of my attachment, addiction to and hate for Ana.

If I Were Thin

Unattainable goals
The desire for control
The spiralling jealousy
Which plagues my soul

The constant abuse
Delivered inside
That nobody else hears
And from which I can't hide

The mirror is shattered
From the hurtful song
I can't look and like
Everything is wrong

I'm not the prettiest or smartest
The richest or most thin
And all of the blame
Comes from within

Have I caused this harm?
And done too much wrong
By caring too much
And hearing your song

Have I slipped too far?
And played for too long
why can't I let go?
And silence your song

My desire to be best
For them to hear my pain
Confusion and exhaustion
It drives me insane

I craved perfection
To be better than you
To be the one they envied
To follow things through

By being the thinnest
I’d feel confident within
Id stop comparing,
If I were thin

Talking to Ana

A conversation between Ana and me this morning…

Following an argument with my younger sister and knock on argument with my parents, this is the way the Ana and I sorted this whole thing out. I am going to start doing this more often so I can work out how to shut her up, once and for all...this is a technique used by Jenni Schaefer in her book, and I think it really does help me further separate my thoughts from my eating disordered thoughts.

Ana: Don’t eat your breakfast. They don’t care about you and you don’t need this breakfast now. You didn’t want it anyway did you? I will make you feel better if you don’t eat it.

Me: You’re right, I hate this breakfast. I don’t deserve to eat it anyway, what’s the point?

Ana:  100%, that’s right –don’t eat it. Make a scene – It’ll make them feel bad and guilty for not caring about you and you’ll feel good afterwards for not eating it.

Me: You’re right, I want them to feel bad about this too.

Ana: So stop eating you selfish fat cow.

 <I WALK AWAY FROM THE BOWL – GO DRY MY HAIR READY TO GET OUT THE HOUSE AND GO FOR A WALK.  THEN RETURN TO THE BOWL >

Me: Hang on, You’re not helping me are you? It’s just going to make it worse by causing a scene. And you’re wrong, how does ME not eating make them feel bad? It’s killing me, not them. You’re wrong!”

<I PICK UP THE BOWL AND CARRY ON EATING, THIS TIME OUTSIDE ALONE and CRYING>

Ana: No I am not. I made people listen to you before didn’t I? They can’t hear you. They don’t even CARE that you’re crying

Me: Yes they can hear me. I just need to clear my head and then talk to them about it when I have shut you up.

Ana: Leave a little bit of breakfast then, just for me?

Me: Okay, but just a little.

<I LEAVE SOME BREAKFAST...THEN, WALKING TO COSTA>

Ana: Thank You for that Sarah. Just think, you're burning calories now too. Great! Oh, and when you get to Costa you’ll order an Americano – because you’ve had too much milky coffee recently and there are WAY too many calories in them. You’ve already had too much this morning; you won’t have saved any calories if you do. Plus, today is Sunday; you’re bound to eat too much later too.

Me: Ana, restricting my calories is not going to make them feel worse. They are getting on with their lives and want me to get better too. I am having a coffee light not an Americano, I've burnt cals and deserve it.

Ana: Okay, well you won’t be having a burger with your dinner then or bread with your soup later, unless you like being greedy that is?

Me: Oh, we’ll see about that Ana. By the time I have cleared my head I might feel stronger again. Plus, I know I can’t let other people’s emotions stop my recovery. Including YOU.

<I DRINK COFFEE AND WRITE THIS>

The bad bit of this is I DIDN'T have the burger, this has had an effect on my mood and eating today. I am going to bed under my calories and I feel very low tonight. Let's hope a conversation with her tomorrow goes more my way....

We're Over Girl...

...you're one of those evil friends who has self-gain on the brain. You're selfish and a complete B*TCH.

You're one of those friends who tells you you're not good enough
You're one of those friends who bullies you in to thinking the same as them
You're one of those friends who makes you lie
You're one of those friends who tells you everyone else hates you.
You're one of those friends who steals from you
You're one of those friends who just takes over, all the time.
You're one of those friends who no one else likes
You're one of those friends that NEVER goes away.

So, really, Ana, you're not a very good friend at all, are you?

POEM: I Wish...

I wish I knew a way out,
A way to gain and grow,
I didn't want this life,
The thoughts,
But how was I to know?
I didn't want to be this way,
To lose everything I had,
My house, my job,
My dreams my goals,
To feel so lost and sad.
I wanted to be perfect,
And happy in my skin.
The thing I wish
I knew before,
And believed today,
is that
Happy isn't thin.

POEM: You

There are experiences in life I witness, see or hear which stick with me and I can't shake them from my mind. This happened to me yesterday after my appointment at the clinic. As I walked away from my session with Miss. F, full of ideas to help in the battles with Ana I saw a girl.

A girl, who probably wasn't much older than me, although she looked 20 years older. She is an inpatient at the same clinic I am getting treated at and seeing her struggling to walk down the corridor has stuck with me. I can't shake the image of her from my head, nor can I stop thinking about how ill, frail and old she looked.

I wanted to stop, hug her, tell her it'd be okay, tell her she's worth more than that life. But I didn't. And I realised that I need to do the same to myself. I need to remind myself that this is the extent of Ana's games and when I try and convince myself 'I am nothing like her', I need to also remind myself that I am.

As I went to bed last night I took this with me and I wrote a poem about her to try and explain how it made me feel seeing her, especially at the start of a week where I need to turn around my recovery, psychically and psychologically after a tough week last week. This is for you.

You 

You looked so frail,

Your face so old,

To our destructive friend Ana,

Your soul you’ve sold.

It shocked me to see,

Your delicate frame,

But it’s easy to deny,

Our thoughts are the same.

You’re tight in the grasp,

Of the same evil bitch,

But, me, I’m freer,

With the chance to fix.

Your life she has taken,

The control is not yours,

But the damage, your pain,

Still happens indoors.

I caught a glimpse,

Of pain in your eye,

It’s not a life you’d have chosen,

And neither did I.

Your delicate frame,

Covered in a mountain of clothes,

This is not the perfect,

That you or I chose.

Your legs were so tiny,

And your arms weak and thin,

I’m intrigued to know,

What you feel within.

There is a pain that links us,

We saw at a glance,

You looked at me softly,

And saw Ana’s dance.

I don’t want to become,

The girl that I saw,

I know life is worth living,

And I am worth more.

As you struggled towards me,

The look that you gave,

Your eyes were so empty,

Your body, A slave.

The sight of your legs,

The skin on your face,

Tells a tragic story,

Of Ana’s embrace.

Your life seemed shattered,

And your dreams ripped in two,

And I’m going to bed,

With nightmares of you.

I can’t erase this moment,

It’s stuck in my head,

It’s all I can think of,

As I lie in my bed.

Your fragile bones,

Clear for me to see,

The struggle you showed,

The look you gave me.

Seeing you suffer,

Has made me see,

If I don’t fight harder,

You will be me.

Confessions from Ana #1

"I loved that you found a pro-ana site that hooked you in. It made my job that little bit easier."


love Ana x

Explanation from me:

This confessional moment is a big step for me. Since being in recovery I have almost felt 'guilty' (common guilt about everything again!) about how I still feel weak for getting absolutely hooked on a pro-ana forum.

In fact, I feel guilty for ever being considered the once holy accolade of 'thinspo' and for posting my food diaries, my tips and my pictures of my body wasting away...

I have saved my diaries from this time of my life - all of them. My forum journals and my pictures, my goals, my food diaries and when I am strong enough I will edit them and publish to illustrate the changes anorexia caused in my personality.

Despite this, I still have pangs of Guilt for being anti-pro-ana - like I am a fraud for hating the sites much - when I adored it so much, for so long. I have mixed feelings about the girls I know are still trapped there. I want them to escape....

I used to think I'd never get 'addicted' to anything like that. But it proves how Ana can change you, how she can make you weak and alter your ability to
make rational and informed decisions.

I need to join in and help raise awareness of these sites. The pro-ana twitters, the advocates of Ana. If they got me... I dread to think how they could destroy others lives.