LOST & FOUND
- Luka
- Apr 5
- 3 min read
I've spent the last year feeling very lost. I was taken from my family to a state hospital, I moved interstate alone and lived independently. I've recently made the change of moving back home and already, in just a few days, I feel the most found I've felt in years. It has taken a long time for my family and I to understand how to live with anorexia and don't get me wrong, we are still finding our way, however, it feels as though we've found our love again, the kind that was buried beneath all of anorexia's lies.
LOST
I spent so much of my late teens in a hospital bed instead of mine. I missed living with my family incredibly so - all of themorning hugs, TV and movie watching, birthdays, holidays etc. Most of the time, my family were able to visit me daily, but it got to the point that they couldn't put their life on hold for me anymore. It hurt. But it hurt the most it's ever hurt when I was taken interstate against my family's wishes, 5 hours away. I saw them every fortnight if I was lucky. And I saw myself to sleep every night with tears running from my eyes, a hole in my heart ever growing. For the entire time I was there, I didn't feel that I belonged anywhere in the world at all. I felt directionless, I had little connection in comparison to what I was used to, which was being surrounded by friends & family, and I felt misunderstood, silenced and assumed by medical professionals.
When I moved interstate, I didn't feel lost. Actually, I felt like I was finding myself, the pieces that treatment had chipped away at. It lasted like that for some months as the big, wide world was teaching me all of these beautiful new things. However, some of the things it taught me were challenging. And in the end, it taught me that I can't protect myself against myself, in ways worse than I could've imagined. My cheating, lying eating disorder convinced me it would feel good and it didn't. It felt lonely. It felt depressive. It felt cold. Although I found parts of myself, I lost my health. I lost the components of a good life that I needed and craved: Protection, care, gentleness & forgiveness.
FOUND
When my family found out about my health, their fearsome reaction was what allowed me to block out anorexia saying 'It's not that bad. You'll be fine.' I've seen them scared, but not like this. Maybes and possibilities are now, hard, concrete facts. They're scared because though death's knocked on our door before, it's never knocked on a door that they don't live in too. They wanted to be with me, adore me, cherish me - The way you do when someone in your life becomes sick. And for the first time since being anorexic, I could see that I had become sick. So my recognition of that allowed me to know it was bad. Although it's difficult to ignore anorexia telling me to get even worse, I don't know if I have the luxury of that anymore. So, in a state of preventing backwardness, I moved forward, upwards, home.
Everything feels safer. The fear is there but its ice melts just a little bit as it touches our warm surface of love. I feel broken but its cracks break quicker so that the poison doesn't slowly seep into my veins. There my family are, to smile at, to laugh with, to talk to. I am not alone anymore. I found them like my shining light at the end of a tunnel caving in. My world is opening to the light instead of concaving in.
They found me and pulled me out with their loving hugs and words of sweet reprise.
I believe that being lost can be a positive thing, allowing us to appreciate the moments we feel found. Although, if I'm honest Dolls, I'm so tired of being a loser to anorexia's wicked game and to surrender to the care of my family feels relieving, delightful, beckoning.
Kisses,
COS x
Comments