THE LIES ANOREXIA TOLD AND TELLS

Oh, anorexia, you fooled me once, and you fooled me twice. I didn't learn. But I have now. I've learnt how abusive you've been to my family, my friends and to me. It's held people I love captive, all in the name of you feeling pleasure. In Heinseit, you never offered me relief; you offered me a death sentence and before that point, just a sentence of enduring a miserable life void of choice. You promised me 'control', but all you did was steal it. My family and friends watched in desperation as I starved myself to death. These are all the lies anorexia tells me daily, and all the ones it has told me before. I'm exposing the devil it is to set the angels reading this free.

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Anorexia lied to me by convincing me I needed to starve myself to be beautiful. When I look back at photos before I had anorexia, I, through my kinder, truthful, and wiser eyes, see a beautiful little girl filled with love, happiness and light. But I was so incredibly hard on myself. I didn't like how I looked, and I didn't like who I was. I thought I didn't matter, I thought I was no good, I thought I was stupid, and I thought the world didn't have a place for me.

I will never starve myself again.

Even if I hate my body, even if I feel out of control, even if I am yearning for sickness, I will never do that to myself again. This is because I see the lie now. I see the lie that spirals me and sends me to a hospital bed. I know the immense sadness anorexia brings not just for me, but to the people who see the light in me that I have never seen. Continuing to have anorexia is selfish; the endless nights my mum has to spend without me, the days my dog counts down until I'm home from the hospital, and the daughter my mum misses out on doing life with. I'm done being selfish. So for all the moments anorexia lies and tells me I don't matter, I choose to say back to it: 'I do'.

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I've always had a big appetite, and anorexia and society made me scared of that.

As women, we're taught to eat less than men do. We're taught to suppress our appetite, be afraid of gaining weight and to be 'good' with food. Adhering to these rules took me shockingly far from health. In listening to these behaviours that were modelled to me, I didn't develop into a woman; I never received a period, I lost all of my beautiful, long, healthy hair and never received boobs or hips, and I was robbed of the chance to have children. This is the issue with spreading these messages surrounding food and exercise into the media that young impressionable children have easy access to. I think society and the government should take this matter far more seriously than they do. I truly believe there is massive danger in these messages. In believing the lies of anorexia, my body uncovered the truth that our bodies need nourishment to develop the things that make a woman most beautiful.

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The biggest lie anorexia told me is that I'd be miserable if I recovered, when in fact, recovery has made me the happiest I've ever been... a genuine happiness, not a deceptive one that tells you starving yourself makes you feel good.

It's not that I so much as like the way I look now, but that I am proud of the way I look.

I'm proud of the fact that I don't look like I'm about to die because I saved myself from a deadly mental illness, even though everything in my mind and body told me to never change. I chose my family over anorexia, and I couldn't be less miserable in doing that if I tried.

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The lies anorexia told and tells are ones I’ll never believe again. I am proud to be recovering. And I cannot wait until the day I can say that I’m proud to be recovered.

Kisses,

COS x