I've Never Known How Sick I Was

Deceit is anorexia's middle name. It will do anything but allow you to accept help because that moves it a step in the wrong direction, that being the direction that desires to kill you. It does it through delirium. Other people see a storm, but anorexia makes you see a rainbow. Those who are knocking on death's door will be completely manipulated into believing they are the picture of health. 'I'm fine' is an anorexic's catchphrase. 'I'm fine' is an anorexic's death sentence.

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I don't know how many hospital admissions I've had over the time period that I've been ill. I lost count after about the tenth or eleventh one, my soul crushed by the absence of change, precious time with my loved ones stolen, and my sickness growing more cemented with every admission. I can't remember when I last breathed, instead, I rest suffocated by my own voice, the voice stuck in my throat, the one that never leaves my mind. It's the voice that tells me I'm not sick enough, that I'm not worthy of recovery, that I don't deserve to be happy and that I must remain perfect to feel enough. I've never been allowed to rest long enough to inhale a big, beautiful breath of fresh air, releasing the chain around my throat and exhaling the torturous voice. The word 'recovery' used to be banned from my vocabulary so as not to tempt me or give me any ideas. I rest for moments and periods in eating disorder treatment, but the entire time, anorexia is mulling, lurching, anticipating the moment it will be free to reign again, never truly trying to retain the recovery of everyone's dreams. It's not allowed to become my dream. Suppose I were reading this aloud to you. In that case, you'd hear the desperation in my voice seeping from the loneliness that's unleashed within oneself as you're unable to attain contentment with one's position, only ever chasing the desire to be thinner. Whenever I reflect upon moments in time where I've been desperately ill, I remember like yesterday the frame of mind I was in, and I can positively say that every time, all that rattled my mind were the words telling me that I wasn't sick, and certainly not sick enough. My weight was always too high, I always needed to be more restrictive, and I always needed to use more disordered behaviours. 

My soul aches in my belief that the day I rest will be the day I die.

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RAVES is a recovery eating model that, in order of importance, stands for:

Regularity

Adequacy

Variety

Eating Socially

Spontaneity 

There are many times when anorexia has convinced me that I'm eating too much. Though when I've remembered RAVES, I've been able to recognise the disordered eating patterns, asking myself, would I find this to be adequate nutrition for another human being? And upon my immediate answer of 'no', I've managed to realise I was eating very disorderedly in times when I believed I wasn't struggling. Throughout those times, I never saw how unwell I was. Because with anorexia, ANYTHING always feels like too much.

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Behaviours weren't something I naturally engaged with throughout my hospital admissions. It wasn't until I went to my first recovery clinic that I developed every behaviour in the book. Instead of focusing on recovery, the competitive side of me, the part of me laced with anorexia, OCD and perfectionism, desired to be the sickest I could possibly make myself. Upon reflection, it's heartbreaking that I desired to punish myself in more ways than extreme restriction already was. I always came out of those recovery clinics worse than when I came in.

The system designed to help was the same system that hurt me the most.

Even then, throughout and after every recovery clinic visit, I couldn't see how the fact that I was already so sick and needed to make myself sicker should've allowed me to understand, on some level, how much my brain and being had been riddled with the disease. But I couldn't, not once, find a place of peace or contentment in my ill health.  At no time did I attain a sustained sense of satisfaction. And I know that by the book, according to strangers, registered doctors and nurses and my loving friends and family, I have been the illest of the ill on multiple occasions.

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I share this blog post as a desperate measure of hope that in someone's mind, somewhere out there, a girl or boy will believe that they don't need to become more ill to begin recovery. I say it in hopes that it will end someone's suffering. I say it in hopes that a soul deserving of peace will find a way to seek it.

All my love, hugs & kisses,

COS x

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