Shocked

I feel the need to blog about something today which has been on my mind all night.

I knew of a young girl who developed anorexia when she was 11 or 12, which was a good few years ago now. Her family sought treatment at a residential centre and the girl seemed to thrive, emerging weight restored and looking absolutely fantastic; obviously there was still mental healing to take place, but she seemed so positive and full of the zesty youthfulness that a pre-teen should be.

Many years have passed, and yesterday by chance I stumbled across her profile on a social network website. I couldn't believe it. The girl staring back at me from that passport sized photo was a skeleton, almost literally; her beautiful eyes stared, massive and dull, in a head so angular and gaunt that I actually took a deep breath. Now at University, she is still very clearly in a battle with her ED. And I was heartbroken for her.

All these years, when my thoughts have absently drifted to her and wondered about her life, I told myself that her ED would have left her alone. I prayed that it had. And I'm just so sad that she has spent her entire childhood and early adulthood with this monster.

It really made me think - I don't want to waste any more of my life with this disorder. Obviously it's not that easy to just cast it aside and this poor girl clearly has a lot of issues which make it so hard for her to eradicate the disorder, but from a personal point of view the idea of spending the next 5-10+ years of my life cycling between being healthy and being underweight, living a life of guilt and restriction and compensation and self-hatred, is just horrendous. I don't want to continue spending my Mondays in therapy, and I don't want to worry my family and have everyone ask if I've eaten enough today.

Some days, it's so tempting to listen to the voice that wants me to return to being underweight. An outward manifestation of the internal turmoil, a visible indication of my ability to control at least one thing. But I don't want to be known for being able to control my weight below a healthy level, that's a stupid idea. I've been locked in this battle for 2 years now, which is a tiny amount of time compared to some - when my treatment team told me recently that I'd made no weight progress in 6 months I was shocked, because 6 months had passed me by in a flash; 6 months of worrying, calculating, controlling,  debating…6 months that could have been spent eating what I enjoyed, travelling, laughing, playing badminton, grooming horses, watching racing, painting, smiling. That time went so quickly, so who is to say that another year, 2 years, 4 years, 10 years stuck in the same cycle won't creep up on me too?

I just won't let it. So, on that account, tonight I shall be having spaghetti bolognese. This might seem like absolutely nothing to 99.9% of people out there, but the last time I had this I cried so hard into the plate that a pool of tears prevented me from eating most of it. But I shall not remain trapped and in order to move on, in order to leave this evil, life-sucking disease behind, I will conquer my fears.